Every year, during the 12 days of Christmas, we have a Homemade Christmas. We have always made each other something during the holidays but the meaning of the gifts would get lost in the shuffle as we opened all of the other gifts on Christmas morning. Having a special day devoted to our homemade gifts brings so much more meaning to the gifts and love behind them.
On Homemade Christmas we have a special dinner, light up the tree and gather all of our homemade gifts. We put on Christmas music and open our homemade gifts one at a time. It is so much fun to watch the faces of both the creators of the gifts and the recipients. This is one of my favorite holiday traditions.
A few years ago we started celebrating the 12 days of Christmas. Sparkle Stories put out a wonderful collection of stories that inspired us to start our own traditions during the 12 days. During these 12 days we light a new candle each night, listen to the Sparkle Story of the day, have a “Forgotten gift day” (usually a new family game that is wrapped and left under the tree until a few days after Christmas), have a Hibernation Day (where we stay in jammies, read books and play games all day), enjoy a Twelfth Night dinner and our favorite evening is Homemade Christmas. Taking 12 days to celebrate Christmas has been such a great way to spread out the festivities and prevent the Christmas let down that often comes on the 26th of December.
Do you celebrate the 12 days of Christmas? What do you and your family do??
Kids in Service 