12 Days of Christmas Blog Challenge: Favourite Holiday Tradition

I came across this wonderful 12 Days of Christmas Blog Challenge over at Mischenko’s blog ReadRantRock&Roll.  It was originally introduced by abbeycoseattle when she presented it earlier this month.

Thank you ladies for providing/ introducing this wonderful challenge.

~Rules~

• Link back to Abbey’s original post here so that way she can see who all is joining and she can follow along.
• Link back to any one of my posts in the challenge so that way I can follow along too
• Save the image and join in for the fun!

I know it’s late in the game, but I thought these couple of days before Christmas would be the perfect time for a post like this.  Besides, Mischenko has been encouraging me to get on and do it.

I’m going with number one for today: Favourite Holiday Tradition

There are actually a few traditions that I enjoy at this time of year but I’m going with one I loved as a child and one that I enjoy now as a parent.

Growing up, Christmas Eve midnight mass was non-negotiable.  Even during the years where our family’s attendance had been spotty, at best, come December 24th at 10:00 p.m. we’d be at home getting ready for the two hour mass, which began at 11:00 p.m.

As a small child I was enamoured with the big church building aglow with soft Christmas lights and candles, while everything was dark outside.  The organ music was more reverberating, the priest’s voice more booming and the solemn silences in perfect sync with the night time stillness.  Nothing will ever be as sweet as the carols sung at the end of mass, with the church bells clamouring over the choir.  I’d often fall asleep awoken only by the switch to the joyous carols and was almost always picked up and carried out to the car by my father.  By the time we got home, I’d be wide awake and ready to open the promised ‘one gift before Santa comes’.  My younger brother and sister also consider this one of their most treasured memories.

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I’m all grown-up now and have my own family to see about these days.  Our boys are too little to appreciate a midnight mass; and my patience too limited to outmanoeuvre three boys under 7 in a tightly packed church. We’ve found the very peaceful Christmas morning mass to be more suited to us.

A tradition we started over the last few years, was the gift of books.  For the seven days leading up to Christmas Day, each child gets a book.  These books are a mixture of ones I pick up and put away during the year, hand me downs from older cousins and books from their own book shelves that they simply haven’t used much during the year.  The fun for them is in not knowing which books lie under the Christmas wrapping.  I like that it gets them more excited about reading.

Yesterday’s selection

 

What about you?  What are some of your favourite Christmas traditions?