Happy St. Nicholas Day! Although we decorated for Christmas over this past snowy weekend, today really kicks off our holiday celebrations. Each year, Julio and I enjoy David Sedaris’s twistedly funny story about St. Nicholas Day over coffee. On this day, St. Nicholas also delivers our daughter’s Christmas books and new pajamas under the tree, next to her boots. Like a lot of families, we have many traditions around Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, but some of my favorite moments are the traditions we have created together in the buildup to the holidays.
In this season, it feels pretty easy for consumption and activities to spiral out of control. As Instagram, for example, shows increasing numbers of ads and influencers over, say, people I actually follow, the implicit pressure to have and do more can mount. To that, I say, “Bah! Humbug!” I take great contrarian pleasure in keeping things simple, picturing how I want our holidays to feel on the inside, rather than how they look on the outside. Here are some of my favorite traditions we have started here at Sol Homestead.
Advent, Books, and Crafts
By delivering Christmas picture books with the pajamas on St. Nicholas Day, I hope they will feel exciting and new again. We read The Mitten and Goodnight, Krampus 8,000 times last year, so we were motivated to rotate them off the bookshelf. Similarly, when we get out the decorations, we let our daughter look at the ornaments and wreaths, telling her who gave them to us, or the story behind them, highlighting the specialness of our ragtag collection of decor.
We also take part in traditional Advent activities, such as an advent wreath and making a rose apple tart for Gaudete Sunday. I am thrilled to have the advent calendar I grew up with (pictured at the bottom), and we put up an ornament on its felt tree each night.
To focus on peacefully preparing for Christmas, I finish my shopping early. Then, we involve our daughter in making gifts and baked goods for our friends and neighbors. We make many dozen spicy gingerbread cookies to give (and eat!) and each year we make a different batch of salt dough ornaments incorporating her hand or fingerprints.
Including the Animals
In our first year with the alpacas, we managed to get a family photo with all of them wearing holiday bandanas (large dog size—they were snug). It has never worked again. We still try to include them, however, giving them extra treats on the holidays and putting Christmas lights on the chicken coop. Plus, we make the gingerbread with alpaca cookie cutters.
Advent in Nature
Last year, I checked out The Eco-Christmas Craft Book from the library and we made several of the projects together, including angel ornaments, a Christmas card tree made from sticks, dried orange ornaments and garland, and pinecone elves. There were many more projects we did not get to and I hope to work on this year, as our daughter’s fine motor skills have leaped forward. We also enjoyed painting in the snow with food coloring and making bird feeder ornaments for our outside trees.
This year, as a defensive move against Elf on the Shelf (no offense. I have a much younger sibling and so I have done Elf on the Shelf and, at some point, his little smile started to creep me out. Sorry, it’s true.), we got a deal on Yeti to Shine. It is already a hit and we enjoy the simple activities Yeti brings each day. I also still have the Nature Play Advent activities from Mother Natured and will work those in too. These ideas give us the incentive to go outside even when I do not want to, and our child has better days when she plays outside.
Our library has an open house every December with treats and crafts, often including outdoorsy elements, and we look forward to that event each year. Local libraries are the best.
Spooky Christmas Stories
Julio and I watch plenty of Christmas movies—after years of criticizing it, we discovered that we really like Elf (oops)—but he goes to bed early, so I also enjoy some spooky Christmas books. There is a long tradition of Christmas ghost stories and whole anthologies of them. In the past, I have enjoyed the Victorian Christmas Ghost Stories. Last year, I loved Secret Santa by Andrew Shaffer, and I may even reread it this year if I have time after wrapping up some handmade gifts, but my priority will be finishing Spirits of Christmas, a collection from the 90s that I started last year.
What is your favorite tradition in preparation for the winter holidays? How do you work self-care into this season?
Sounds like you make awesome traditions for your adorable daughter & the entire family to enjoy. We are celebrating Chanukah this year & am having a traditional dinner on Sunday with the one granddaughter & her daughter & boyfriend on Sunday. We will have latkes (potato pancakes) a must for this Holiday.
Have fun & we’ll see you soon!❤️😘
Maybe we can have them on Christmas Eve.