This Christmas I failed to do some of my long-standing traditions- my Christmas cards all ended up standing on the sideboard, never made it to their Poinsettia hangers.
Actually, the Poinsettias weren't even hung up.
Actually, the Poinsettias weren't even hung up.
The little guy on the left, made by middle daughter when she was tiny (I love it!) always hangs on some door key and that did happen.
The stocking hangers on the right are something I have wanted for years, couldn't find while they still had Santa, but I bought them nonetheless when I saw them this year.
On Christmas Eve, when I reached for "The Night Before Christmas" to read it (albeit I would have been reading it to myself, which I was willing to do!), I couldn't find it, so had to resort to an internet version (which, incidentally, was different??). Our own one still hasn't turned up, I'm wondering did someone hide it to prevent this madwoman reading to teenagers as though they were little ones?
This decoration, made by the 3 children when they were little, always hangs on this fireplace. Except for Christmas morning, when we light a fire in it. Except this year, we never got round to lighting the fire!
And we did adopt one new tradition, and I hope it will become part of our repertoire. I came across this on the internet (where would we be without it?)..
When taking down the tree, you cut a log off the bottom of it, leave it outside to season, and on the night when you put up this year's tree, your old log goes on the fire.
Well, as readers of this blog will be aware, we had snow for a week before Christmas, so I had to dig deep, first to remember where in the garden I had last seen the damn log, then in the snow to recover it.
But recover it I did, and here are the pics of The New Tradition!
You can see the hole from the stand here.
This year, I finally found the stand I've been looking for, with a water bucket underneath, so no hole next year. Next year, I'll be organised enough to get them to cut a slice off the tree before I bring it home- it takes in more water that way (internet again!) - we forgot to do this, and ended up scraping the bottom to get the same effect.
So here it is burning on the fire.
What interesting Christmas traditions do you have in your family? I'd love to hear about them.
And are there some that are non-negotiable?
