Holiday Traditions.

Tim loooooves having traditions, especially for the holidays.

He says, and I quote, that traditions feel like "a warm, fuzzy blanket for my heart."

Which should not only make you go, "Awww, he's so CUTE!!" (okay, maybe that's just me 'cause I'm married to him), but also realize how important traditions are to him.  And me too.

Last year, we started a couple new traditions.  We started backwards from how we wanted our family to experience the holidays, and what we wanted to emphasize in our family about that particular holiday.

Let's start with the easiest (and most meaningless) of the trifecta of fall holidays: Halloween.  Carving pumpkins.

That's...pretty much it for Halloween. Apparently, we all want to emphasize for Halloween is good pumpkin-carving skills (and bow-hunting skills, and nun-chuck skills...).

Anyways. Moving on.

For Thanksgiving, we started something new last year that we both really liked.  It's our Thankful Jar.  I made one this years so we're all legit and stuff.  And yes, I did Thank Full on purpose.

We put it out right after Halloween with a pad of paper and a pen, and then throughout the month we write down things we are grateful for about the other person.  We read them at Thanksgiving dinner. Lots of warm fuzzes are involved.

Christmas is really the holiday around here that gets the most props (as it should).  For anyone who as been near us during the past two Christmases, you would recognize these bad boys:

Our Christmas sweaters.  The only reason Tim gets to wear the Hoe Hoe Hoe one is because the Merry Christmas one is too small for him.  

I never get to wear the Hoe Hoe Hoe one. [pout] 

 

Our real tradition was to go to the thrift store together and add another tacky Christmas sweater to our collection, but we have yet to do so.  Oh, the busy holiday season.  Perhaps we'll get around to it this year.  There are soooo many thrift stores around here, it's crazy.

This next one is Tim and I's favorite.  Every year, we get a new album of Christmas music to listen to that season.  The first year we were married, it was the Jackson 5.

Heh. I bet you didn't even know they HAD a Christmas album.  Well, they do.  And it is amazing.

It was pretty hard to top that one last year, but we did.  By a mile.  

He sings The Lord's Prayer, WITH Motab, and it is AMAZING.  Like, I want to cry every time I hear it. (In a good way, obviously.)  Don't believe me? Here.  Listen to it for yourself.

We haven't bought our Christmas album for this year yet, but here are some of our top picks: 

Christmas by The Andrews Sisters

Raffi's Christmas Album

The Best of Burl Ives

The Best of Brenda Lee

A Very She & Him Christmas

The Andy Williams Christmas Collection

Holiday Sing-a-long with Mitch 

(this one's from Tim.  It's a bunch manly men singing holiday tunes.  What's not to love? I'm still not convinced.)

If you have any more holiday classics we're missing, feel free to send 'em our way.  What's your favorite holiday tradition?