Traditions...

I was reading Betsy's blog and she was talking about a Sunday school party she went to. She said they were discussing favorite Christmas traditions and telling Christmas stories. So, I decided to blog about my favorite Christmas tradition from my childhood and "tag" everyone else to write about their favorite Christmas tradition and/or story as well!

Stockings were my favorite Christmas tradition as a child. From the time I can remember until I moved out (and even the first couple of Christmases after that) our stockings were hung on December 1st. Each year mom would fill our stockings with a treat or goodie for each day of December leading up to Christmas. When our stockings were hung on December 1st there were 24 curling ribbons hanging from our stocking and each day we were allowed to draw one ribbon from the stocking... attached to the end of each ribbon was something special just for us. The treats varied from candy and chocolate to ornaments, pens, pencils, and all kinds of little things. One year I got a tiny nativity scene one piece at a time mixed with other treats. One year we each got candy and ornaments and things as well as zip lock bags of puzzle pieces... we would beg each other to draw so we could put our pieces together each night and try to finish our puzzle! In addition to getting a special treat each day it served as an advent calendar of sorts as we could count the ribbons to know how many days were left until Christmas! I thought this was a WONDERFUL tradition and one that I look forward to sharing with my children one day!!

So, what is your single, most favorite Christmas tradition? I can't wait to get some great ideas and some wonderful holiday stories!