Blogmas Day 7 - Childhood Christmas Traditions

When I was a kid, I loved christmas. Who didn’t? But as I have grown up Christmas has become a bit meh for me. Of course now I have to buy presents too, stressing about what to get everyone and if I will stay within my budget, I have to work a full-time job, so I don’t have time to really relax and enjoy the Christmas spirit. And shops start decorating for Christmas at the beginning of November…I have trouble keeping my festive spirit up for two full months, and by the time December actually rolls around I am pretty much all Christmassed out! I think part of it may also have to do with the fact that all those cozy childhood traditions are now a thing of the past. Living alone, it can be quite difficult to keep up traditions or start new ones, as you have no one to make you stick to them! But maybe a little run through of my childhood traditions will help to keep the Christmas spirit going for a little longer!

When I was a kid we would go get our own Christmas tree out in the woods. It was owned by a friend of the family, so it wasn’t stealing or anything. To be fair I only remember us doing it a couple of times, but I am going to count it as tradition anyway! I have a memory like a sieve, when it comes to my childhood, so chances are we did it a bunch of times. However, it could also just have been the couple of times, as I could imagine my Dad getting fed up with the three of us fighting over which tree to pick. In the end he would pick the one that would fit in the car and in our living room, even though we probably rooted for the giant ones. 

Once the tree was home we decorated it with all of the homemade stuff we had made in school. Hearts and stars and garlands and paper cornets and cut-outs of anything vaguely Christmassy. This made for quite a messy Christmas tree, but I think the mess of the decorations makes it even cozier to look at. 

We also made our own sweets out of marzipan. Only a few would survive the day of making, as taste-testing was widespread. We would get a whole load of marzipan, divide it between us and color some of it using red and green food coloring. Then we would make little “burgers” of it, putting a colored sheet of marzipan in-between two uncolored ones and cut it into squares. We would also make little balls of it, dip them in chocolate and decorate it with coconut flakes, nuts or colored sprinkles. This is a tradition I might pick up again for myself. It would be fun to invite friends over and make a bunch of stuff for the holiday season together. 

My mom would also bake a bunch of Christmas cookies, all the traditional ones, and keep them in Christmas-decorated tins for whenever someone came to visit. The last survivors would be set out for Christmas eve. If any made it that far. If they didn’t, it wasn’t my fault, as I actually don’t really like any of the traditional Christmas cookies. Something about the spices just puts me off, so this is probably a tradition I won’t be taking up again. 

When Christmas finally came around we kids could barely contain our excitement. (Just a note; in Denmark we celebrate Christmas on the evening of the 24th, so we had ALL day to wait). In the morning we would always get one present to tie us over. It was always a coloring book and some new markers and this set-up would keep us occupied for most of the day along with the various Christmas shows running on TV. Most importantly the Disney special, which we still watch during the day. 

Well, those were all of the traditions my birdbrain remembers from my childhood. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were more, but I think this is a good selection, and there are a few I might pick up again. What are your traditions? Share in the comments.