Wednesday, December 10, 2014

Advent Calendar – December 10, 2014 ~ Christmas Traditions

This is part of the "Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories" by Thomas MacEntee of GeneaBloggers. If you'd like to join in the fun, just click HERE.



December 10 – Christmas Traditions

So many of us have family traditions related to Christmas that we learned as children and we still keep to this day. Do you know how your traditions started – is there a “backstory” to each one? What about starting new traditions – how do you start and then keep the tradition going? Are there any traditions which you disliked and that you refuse to keep?
Tell us about your family’s Christmas traditions and your memories of Christmases past.

In this post, I'm not going to share Christmas traditions from when I was a child, but from my own family as a parent. My husband and I have five adult children. When they were young, we would gather together in the family room and read about Christ's birth from the scriptures. Our daughter would dress up as Mary and our four boys would dress up as Joseph, the wise men, and the shepherds. When they got older, they wouldn't dress up, but we'd still read the Christmas Story from the scriptures together. It was a special way to remind our children, and ourselves, of the real meaning of Christmas.

Several years ago, we began another tradition. We started having German Pancakes for breakfast on Christmas morning. These pancakes are baked in the oven and grow puffy as they bake. It's fun to watch them crawl up the sides of the baking dishes as they puff up.

 


They come out of the oven big and puffy, but fall pretty quickly as they are brought to the table. We serve them sprinkled with powdered sugar and covered in maple syrup. They are delicious! And our family looks forward to eating these each year.

Another Christmas tradition we have is making Christmas fudge. I've been making this fudge for years and years. I couldn't even tell you how many pounds of fudge I've made since I started making and sharing this fudge with our family and friends at Christmas.

The recipe was given to my mom when I was a child. It's called See's Fudge. I don't know if it's really a recipe from See's or not. It has a smooth creamy texture and is delicious and quite popular with my family and friends. I'll share the recipe here on my blog in a future post.





What about you?  What are your Christmas traditions?

Thanks for reading!

Jana

© 2014 Copyright by Jana Last, All Rights Reserved

6 comments:

  1. I have never heard of or seen German pancakes. But I'm a fan of recipes that you don't have to babysit.

    I think it's so sweet that your kids dressed in costume for the reading of the Christmas story. In our family we could possibly have managed the story of the prodigal son.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Wendy! I'll try and share the German Pancakes recipe here on my blog in a future post. They really are quite easy to make, which is awesome.

      Delete
  2. I never saw German pancakes before. They look good!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. They really are yummy! I'll share the recipe for them in a future post. :)

      Delete
  3. I've heard of German pancakes, but never made or eaten them. Everyone I know that has loves them, so it looks like it's time I tried them.

    Since I was a child, we had peanut butter fudge every Christmas. My mom made the best and then gave me the recipe. As the grandkids came along, I ended up with 4 grandkids with peanut allergies and several with dairy allergies. So sadly it's time for a new tradition.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. They are delicious!

      Yum! Peanut butter fudge. Have you thought of sharing the recipe on your blog?

      Oh. Peanut and dairy allergies. That does not sound fun at all.

      Thanks for stopping by Michelle!

      Delete