Three Christmas Traditions that Would Make My Life Happy


So I'm thinking about Christmas traditions, both the ones I do with my fam right now and what I'd like to do when I have my own family. Here are three things I like:

1. St. Nicholas' Day Gift Re-Discovery.

I like celebrating St. Nicholas' Day; in my family, we usually get some nuts and candy in our shoes and a Christmas book to enjoy for the season. But I think that the day BEFORE St. Nicholas Day would be a good opportunity to appreciate all the cool presents we got last year. Here's how I think we would celebrate it: go through the closets and cupboards and see all the neat things you've already received. Then, play with them. We found my sister's old harmonica, my mom's guitar, and some old puzzles and had a great time with them, so why not have a whole day to enjoy all the old gifts? And if you show St. Nick how much you like the stuff he gave you in years past, he'd probably give you better stuff this year!

2. Kiva.

If you're on a 12-month pay-back schedule, you can redistribute your Kiva money. It might be nice to find some Nicaraguan music or Ukrainian movie or Ghanan food to check out while your family redistributes the microloans to nice people like Filipino rice farmers.

3. New Year's Clean-out.

So you've gotten a lot of cool stuff for Christmas. Now it's time to go through those closets (again, right?) and clean out any old stuff that you don't use anymore. Vast amounts of stuff to bring to DI/goodwill/whatever. You can get rid of the things that nice people gave you to show that they care, but you don't particularly need (I'm thinking endless copies of Richard Paul Evans gift books). You can clear out the old coat to replace with your new coat. And then there's sweet after-Christmas shopping for everyone who goes down to DI.

Comments

Margaret said…
Three very lovely traditions! I have been trying to figure out what traditions Dave and I will have in our family when we have to host Christmas on our own. I think we may just take some of yours. When is St. Nicholas Day?

By the by, I love the picture. How did that come about?
December 29, 2009 at 9:55 PM
mlh said…
Creative Commons--copyright free images from like flickr and stuff.
January 2, 2010 at 9:51 PM
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