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November 24, 2014

Holiday Cards with Minted + GIVEAWAY!!

Shutterbean + Minted

YOU GUYS.

I am done with my holiday cards!!! Wait. That doesn’t mean I’ve addressed them yet… but anyways this is the first year EVERRRRRR that I am going into December with our holiday cards in MY POSSESSION. Last year was so hectic, I almost sent out New Years cards and then realized I would have thrown off my tradition and wouldn’t have a 2013 card in my collection; I couldn’t let myself do it. The thing is…now that we have a child, it’s been a nice way for us to see how much Cooper has grown over the years. It’s kinda like collecting baseball cards. We’ve been using Minted for our holiday cards since 2011 because I’ve always enjoyed their designs. They appeal to the graphic designer in me and their paper quality pleases me greatly. Totally top notch and the user interface is really fun to work with.

Here are some of our past designs from Minted:

shutterbean + minted giveaway

shutterbean + minted giveaway

shutterbean + minted GIVEAWAY!

He’s getting so big, huh? I imagine that he’ll have lost some teeth by the 2015 card. AHHHHH.

So let’s talk about the GIVEAWAY. The kind folks at Minted are offering a $300 credit to ONE lucky Shutterbean reader.

I hope you go crazy and get sparkly envelope lining and OH! that means you can splurge on having your return address printed on the back of the envelopes (SO HELPFUL).  You should totally use Thanksgiving as an excuse to take holiday pictures. Bust out your holiday sweaters! Also, can I suggest that you make sure to include the year on your holiday cards? I’ve forgotten to do that a few times and it’s sometimes hard to know what year it was. 

If you’d like to enter this giveaway, please leave a comment telling me:

favorite holiday

ONE entry per person.

US residents only.

I’ll pick the winner (at random!) on Thursday 11/27 night at 11:59 PM and announce it on my I LOVE LISTS FRIDAY post this coming friday 11/28.

Winner will also be emailed.

Good luck!

  • Nicole Oehme

    I love your cards!! My favorite holiday tradition is decorating our Christmas tree as a family!

  • margaret

    We used Minted for our wedding invites! My favorite holiday tradition is just the people. Thefact of everyone I love being in the same place at the same time.

  • Kristen

    My moms sweet potato casserole!

  • Debbie

    It’s a recent tradition, but since we’ve moved to Florida, we spend Christmas day at the beach. Then we have a big beef roast for dinner. I experiment with a different dessert each year, and we end the day with a bottle of St. Bernardus ABT 12.

  • Amy U

    Spending time with family, wherever that may be. I also love to decorate our Christmas tree as it is filled with Christmas memories from the past, each ornament has a special meaning. Happy Thanksgiving to your family!

  • Dana S

    making latkes for Chanukah with my whole family. my dad grates onions and potatoes by hand, my sisters and I mix the ingredients together and make little patties, and my mom fries them up. my sisters and I savor the little scraps of lone potato that my mom fetches out of the hot oil for us. such a fun tradition, even if my sisters and I are all in our mid/late 20s now.

  • Micquie

    I love putting the ornament up on our Christmas tree – my collection includes ones that my Mom gave me from her collection and new ones that my husband and I have added. It’s heartwarming to go through each one, remembering how we got it while putting it on the tree!

  • Erica

    My favorite holiday tradition is when my very musical and artsy relatives perform for the rest of the family!

  • Autumn

    My favorite holiday tradition is assembling the recipes for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners. I aim for at least two new recipes to add to the classics each holiday. This year it’s spicy green beans, french bread rolls and mini pumpkin cheesecakes for Thanksgiving.

  • Cheryl Heppermann

    i love having my family all together in the same house.

  • Frances

    My favorite holiday tradition is the plethora of PIE! Pumpkin pie, Joy the Baker’s Sweet Potato Pie, Apple pie! Toughest decision of the year!

  • ES

    My favorite holiday tradition is just being in the kitchen helping my mom and brother. It’s a place where we all have the same end-goal, the same enjoyment of cooking for others, and even (literally) stepping on each other’s toes in our tiny kitchen is a joy.

  • Grace B.

    decorating the tree and going down memory lane as we pull out the ornaments!

  • tanja

    We have too many but one of the best is having the neighbours over for supper, all of us wearing pyjamas and giving the kids matching pyjamas as presents! And for dessert, we have done this dessert three years in a row ; http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/fruit-recipes/winter-pudding-bombe/

  • Sarah

    We make grilled cheese sandwiches every Christmas eve. It’s the easiest way to relax and keep things simple and customizable 🙂 I love it!

  • Marie

    Your cards are DARLING. This is an amazing giveaway! My favorite holiday tradition is making my family’s fried corn recipe every Thanksgiving!!

  • Katherine

    Favorite tradition is cooking with the family – I love the steamy busy kitchen leading up to the Thanksgiving meal!

  • Alyson

    baking Christmas cookies with family!

  • Nikki

    My family gets Chinese takeout every Christmas Eve! It’s a tradition my parents started when they were dating and it just kind of stuck. Over thirty years of marriage later, egg rolls are still a part of our December 24th!

  • Tess

    My favorite tradition (from when I was a kid) is our day-after-Thanksgiving birthday celebration. My birthday is right after Thanksgiving, and my cousin’s birthday is in November as well, so my nana would always bring us all together for lasagna and celebrating the late fall babies. She would make the two of us our own sugar-bomb cakes (angel-food & ice cream, with a whipped cream frosting and m&m’s all over), and worked really hard to make sure that we didn’t feel left out with holiday-adjacent birthdays.

  • Jessica

    My favorite holiday tradition is our Christmas Eve buffet. Lots of great food, friends, and family.

  • Kate B

    Omg, we have a kid this year, so I can’t wait to get all elbow deep in tradition building. (Though I know he won’t remember things for a few years, so we’ve got some time to tinker. I LOVED my dad reading The Night Before Christmas every Christmas Eve and insisted on it every year, even into adulthood. I just feel like it’s special time.

  • Bootsy

    My favorite holiday tradition is making chex mix snack for my kids. Even though they are grown up they still want that chex mix for the holidays!

  • Jane M

    My favorite holiday tradition is baking and decorating our gingerbread house with my family! We just did it last night by the way!

  • Lisa

    My favorite holiday tradition is driving around to look at Christmas lights! 🙂

  • Hannah

    Easy one: After our annual Chanukah party when all of the other guests have gone home, my dad and I will roast chestnuts over the still-warm coals in the fire. We’ll stay up late cracking them open and talking about the next year to come.

  • Francoise

    We go around the table after Thanksgiving dinner to day what we’re thankful for. I love it.

  • Erin

    Sticky buns Christmas morning!…all of our traditions are food related (-;

  • cori

    Cooking a big meal with family

  • Madeline

    My favorite holiday tradition is having everyone over on Christmas Day for a dinner and presents.

  • Amy

    My favorite holiday tradition is opening stockings on Christmas morning

  • Shoshana

    My favorite holiday tradition is eating my mom’s pumpkin pie 🙂

  • Jeannette

    My favorite tradition is having “friendsgiving” with my 3 best friends from high school. (We’re in the getting married and having kids stage of life now so it’s cool to see how our tradition is evolving to include our growing families)

  • ali

    my favorite holiday tradition is thanksgiving at mom’s house and i get to cook everything and everyone else cleans up!

  • Beth C.

    I would have to say my favorite holiday tradition is going out for a ride on my motorcycle with my husband. 🙂

  • Ally

    I love all the obvious things like getting a Christmas tree and decorating, listening to Christmas music 24/7 and watching the classics like A MUPPET CHRISTMAS CARROL. Love!!

  • MaryM

    Staying in our PJ’s all day by a warm fire on Christmas!

  • Kasey

    New Pj’s for Christmas Eve!

  • Susannah

    I love the tradition of all staying together under one roof, despite how far we’ve grown beyond the number of bedrooms, beds, and air mattresses!

  • Amy

    My favorite holiday tradition is listening to my Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton Christmas record — full of classics and originals that have become classics in my world – I listened to it three times yesterday while decorating the house!

  • melanie

    my favorite holiday traditionis watching the Macy’s parade thanksgiving morning while cooking!

  • Jessica

    my favorite tradition is spending the entire day with my family-from the parade to the second or third helping at night. It’s also my dads birthday so it’s extra special around here.

  • Christy

    One of my favorite traditions is having a fondue dinner on Christmas Eve – we sit on a picnic blanket on our dining room floor!

  • Allison Strauss

    My favorite holiday tradition is spending Christmas Eve with my immediate and extended family. We enjoy a big meal, open presents, stay up very late, and then tease the little kids that Santa won’t come until they are home and in bed. Everyone is so happy. It’s my favorite.

  • krystal

    opening ridiculous, mandatory xmas jammies on christmas eve.

  • Jess

    Beautiful cards! My favorite family tradition for the holidays is homemade cinnamon rolls on Christmas morning. We bake them while opening our stockings, then eat, then return for the gifts under the tree!

  • Emily

    Baking lots of cookies!

  • DJ

    My favorite tradition is swearing that we will come up with a tradition this year… and then getting too busy. 🙂

  • Cindy M

    My favorite holiday tradition is baking holiday cookies with my mom and sister. We bake them early then freeze them to get a head start! Thanks, Tracy!

  • Emily B

    Driving to the Christmas tree farm to cut our own tree on the day after Thanksgiving!

  • Molly G

    A new tradition for our little family is creating a thankful tree with our fingerprints and filling the leaves with things we are thanful for each night in November around the supper table. It is great to hear what our little ones say and puts us in the right attitude.

  • Stefanie - Sarcastic Cooking

    Every Christmas me, my siblings, and our families all sleepover at my parents house. After the kids go to bed we all head down to the basement and play beer pong… Some years it has been water pong, but still, so much fun!

  • Katie D

    My favorite holiday tradition is our big family holiday party!

  • Allyn

    Having a real tree in the house, forever and always.

  • Kirstin

    There are so many holiday traditions I love, I’d be hard-pressed to pick just one… They include picking out the christmas tree (riding on a one-horse open sleigh!), baking cookies, and picking out that special ONE present to open on christmas eve… 🙂

  • Naomi

    One of my favorite traditions was chopping down and decorating our Christmas tree the day after thanksgiving with my brother and sister. We lived close to a tree farm and no matter the weather, went out to get our tree, put some Christmas music on, and decorated while snacking on thanksgiving leftovers!

  • Kathy H

    Sitting around the Christmas tree on Christmas eve and reading “Twas the Night before Christmas” to our daughters. Love your cards!

  • Caroline

    Getting new pajamas on Christmas Eve 🙂

  • Abby

    I’m obsessed with your card this year! What a cutie. And such a pretty design.

    My fave is finally getting the tree up. And feasting. Always the feasting.

  • Megan

    Just being together with all of our family is my favorite tradition!

  • Sarah

    Preparing the food with my mom is my favorite tradition. At Halloween & Christmas-time, we bake dozens & dozens of cookies to give as gifts. And then, of course, there is the coordination of an epic meal for Thanksgiving. But, after all these years, I still love being my mom’s apprentice in the kitchen.

  • stephanie

    my favorite family tradition is endlessly watching Albert Finney’s Scrooge. it’s a family favorite!

  • Erin

    We watch “It’s a Wonderful Life” together as a family every Sunday from around mid-November until Christmas. Our kids are 2 and 5, even they will sit down for long portions of the movie and watch. It is a good reminder to us that Christmas is really a time to be thankful for the friends and family that mean so much.

  • Lindsay

    since we had our daughter, 4 years ago, we’ve been going as a family to cut down a christmas tree together. it’s the ONE thing we do the same every year!

  • Kimberly

    Decorating the Christmas tree with my family– we always eat fondue and listen to Christmas music while we do it!

  • Kristin

    Oh! We love Minted, too! And, it’s so much fun looking over old cards, isn’t it? My favorite holiday tradition is sitting around the fireplace on Christmas morning with my family and just being together, talking, catching up over coffee and a mid-morning box of chocolates :).

  • Amy

    My favorite traditions are opening one present on Christmas eve and eating cherry turnovers for breakfast on Christmas morning 🙂

  • Julie

    Thanksgiving morning cinnamon rolls!!

  • Diana

    Eating Christmas Eve dinner in my pjs!

  • Emily S.

    My favorite tradition: making Alton Brown’s eggnog recipe, getting slightly boozed up (we’re all grown up these days) and then riding around looking at Christmas lights. Note: driver does NOT partake ’til we get back home!

  • Bianca @ Sweet Dreaming

    baking christmas cookies! my absolute favorite holiday tradition 🙂

  • jen

    I love decorating our Christmas tree!!

  • Jen Clowdus

    I love the giving of a book and a fresh pair of pajamas on Christmas Eve.

  • Kathleen

    I love decorating the house and especially the tree. It’s fun going through all of the decorations with my boys, and adding to our collection each year with their homemade things.

  • Mollie @Sprinkles of Life

    I’m a holiday card sender too. I always scramble to have the cards done and addressed the first few days of December and it stresses me out to think of where we will take the family picture, but I’m so glad I’ve kept it up!

  • Suzi S.

    Listening to Christmas music on my drive back home.

  • Tina A

    I love baking cookies and making candies with my kids. It’s my favorite thing ever!

  • Catherine

    Pajamas. It’s a tradition my grandparents started with my mom and her siblings, and one that I’m carrying on with my daughter now. Every Christmas Eve all the children get new PJs from Mom & Dad to wear to bed. There’s something so nice about looking forward to getting your fresh set of PJs every year (and it makes for particularly adorable photos on Christmas morning!)

  • Bethany Kocher

    In my family, we always have clam chowder for dinner on Christmas Eve. It is our big event for the holidays and has always been my favorite tradition.

  • Erin

    It’s so hard to choose one…and now that my daughter is 2, the fun will really begin. My gramma always made something she called “poppyseed struedel,” and I taught myself from her recipe last year. She died this summer, so the process and result will be that much more meaningful.

  • Rachel Taylor

    Cooking with my family!

  • Julie @ Sugarfoot Eats

    My favorite holiday tradition is watching cheesy Christmas movies (think Hallmark & Lifetime TV movies) while wrapping presents.

  • Ris

    My favorite holiday tradition is new Christmas pajamas for the whole family. Love it!

  • Bethany

    My favorite would have to be the mandarin oranges that my mom always put in our stockings in addition to the usual stocking stuffers. It always made our stockings look ridiculously full!

  • Amanda

    Christmas cookie! I make 2 dozen different kinds every year and give them away to family and friends. I love carrying on this family tradition and seeing the smile on all the faces.

  • April

    My mom’s sister married my dad’s brother, so we always had our holiday celebrations on specific days–switching off for Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve with my dad’s side, Christmas Day with my mom’s, etc. Christmas Eve is my favorite! My grandma made a giant pot of super simple potato soup, bought a honey-baked spiral cut ham, yeast rolls, and, oddly enough, a bucket of KFC. I am an Army beat, and my family continued this tradition when we were away from “home” for the holidays. My sister and I could unwrap our gift from Grandma and Granpa after eating our soup. We usually spent the rest of Christmas Eve playing card games or working on an intense puzzle.

  • kat

    Homemade tamales & refried beans for dinner before Christmas eve mass and NOTHING can be done on Christmas morning until my father has had his hot chocolate and cinnamon rolls. NO. THING. 🙂

  • Alyssa S

    My favorite holiday tradition is going to my grandparents church for the Christmas Eve candlelight service. It’s so peaceful and a wonderful way to celebrate the day.

  • Vanessa

    Tracy your cards are awesome! We love minted too and have turned a few friends on to them for their wedding invites! My favorite holiday tradition is baking treats for everyone and seeing them fight over the last cookie or piece of cake/pie. Happy holidays to you and yours!

  • Rachel

    I put together a powerpoint with photos from the family during the year. It’s really fun as my kids have gotten old enough to take lots of selfies on their own phones. I gather those pictures from their photo feeds that we may not have yet seen and compile them into one big slideshow. It’s so fun and cozy to watch and share memories together on Christmas Eve.

  • Nikki Lynn

    Mimosas christmas morning at my house with the family

  • Danielle Taj

    my favorite tradition is baking TONS of holiday cookies with my kids!

  • Marcie

    My favorite tradition is having champagne with my husband while we all decorate the tree!

  • Jenna

    My favorite holiday tradition??

    Our family make the craziest x-mas cards we usually do it all ourselves it would be so nice to have some help this year!
    Last year this involved spraying painting the back of our house with “Santa bring toys here” and positioning our three kids in front of the “tag” with spray cans…the insert said, “Have you been naughty or nice?”
    Jenna Meyer

  • Renee

    My favorite holiday tradition is decorating the tree!

  • janeray1940

    Getting outdoors! Here in Southern California there’s no excuse not to spend the day hiking or at the beach, or both. And it always makes me smile to see others out doing the same thing.

  • Emily R

    Our extended family is pretty huge (~40 people) but I love that we still manage to get everyone under one roof every Christmas for a delicious meal and presents. It’s my favorite thing about Christmas!

  • Christine Seero

    Driving around to look at holiday lights!

  • Rachel Colton

    My favorite holiday tradition is my family’s Christmas morning schedule. We open stockings, then make a big breakfast with mimosas. Only after the table is clear and the dishwasher is humming can we sit down to open our presents from Santa! The anticipation is magical!

  • EmilyK

    My favorite holiday traditions (besides all the food) is we open our stockings on the morning of Christmas, while we are waiting for everyone to get up. My father does them every year and they are always stuffed with fun things even though we are all adults now!

  • Rachael

    My parents have been happily married for over forty years. They love and respect each other so much that I’ve witnessed few fights or disagreements. With that said, it’s become a ritual every year at Thanksgiving that they bicker over how to organize the tables. With new cousins, husbands, babies, and friends, each year’s holiday seems to require more seats. My parents’ annual argument revolves around the way to arrange the tables. Realizing my dad is being a doof, he wants for the drama to slow down, puts on some Stevie Wonder and asks my mom to dance. So cute and always the best part of the day. Plus my mom makes insane chocolate bread pudding.

  • Danielle

    It was always a rule that everyone had to eat breakfast before opening presents Christmas morning. Since I was old enough to crack an egg, I took it upon myself to make Christmas breakfast and it’s my favorite part of the day just sitting around the table eating and enjoying family time!

  • Anne

    My favorite holiday tradition is making lefse. When I was little, I made it with my mom and my grandma. Now I make it with my mom and my daughter. Nothing beats lefse hot off the griddle!

  • Lindsey

    My family always watches It’s A Wonderful Life on Christmas Eve. It’s my favorite holiday movie.

  • Wendy

    I love getting Christmas cards, especially custom ones with family pictures. But as a single lady, I’ve always thought it would be weird to send one out with just my face on it! But I’ve decided this year to just go for it! I had a photographer friend take some really great photos of me to use for my fundraising, so I’m totally just gonna own it and DO IT! Thanks for the inspiration. Cooper is a cutie!

    I’m 30 years old, and my parents STILL give me and my brother new pajamas on Christmas Eve. It’s my favorite tradition.

  • Angela A

    My favorite tradition is my Mom’s lasagna on Christmas Eve. It’s not Christmas Eve without lasagna.

  • Sam

    Grandma’s house on Christmas Eve! It is always EXACTLY the same (from the appetizers to the cookie tray, all the way to the ornaments on the tree), and at the holidays, that is just fine!

  • Patti

    Grandma’s house (apartment) a few night before Christmas. It’s a smaller get together of some Aunts and cousins and it isn’t about the presents (which are usually small and simple) but about the time together and having fun. Our family is huge so this smaller gathering is something I always look forward to.

  • Cheryl

    Watching the Muppet Christmas Carol on Christmas Eve!

  • lauren

    My favorite holiday traditions are my Mimi’s clam chowder on Christmas eve and watching the “A Christmas Story” Marathon on TBS. YOU’LL SHOOT YOUR EYE OUT!!

  • Amy S

    Since my grandmother passed away a couple of years ago, all of the cousins have gotten together to make her Christmas candy and keep her memory alive. It makes us feel close to her at a time of year she always loved.

  • Holly

    Baking Christmas cookies, from scratch, is my favorite tradition by far! We decorate our cookies with a yolk and food coloring “paint” and then add lots of SPRINKLES! It’s an all afternoon commitment and my kitchen is always a mess but it truly signifies Christmas to me.

  • Laura R

    Baking cookies!!

  • Chelsea

    On Christmas Eve my dad always reads The Night Before Christmas by Clement Clarke Moore. This year is the first time I’ll be with my husband’s family for Christmas, but I got my own copy of the poem so I can keep the tradition alive.

  • Laura

    Oooh I would love to do holiday cards this year!

  • Vanessa

    Favorite holiday tradition is making a gingerbread house with my daughter.

  • Linda

    putting up the tree after thanksgiving

  • Hannah

    My favorite holiday tradition is hot chocolate in my mom’s kitchen on Christmas morning before we all sit around the tree. The mugs have gotten smaller as my hands have grown but it tastes amazing every year…and now my son joins my sisters and me sitting at the kitchen counter.

  • Becky Nobach

    I really enjoy gathering with my family and spending quality time together. We do that throughout the year, but during the holidays, it just seems extra special.

  • Maggie G

    decorating the tree is always my favorite – it’s so magical when the lights are on and all the ornaments are in place. I love admiring it with all the lights off! 🙂

  • Alexis

    I love coming up with creative themed names for our name placards at Thanksgiving. A couple years ago it was “Honey Boo Boo” names and this year I’ll “John Travolta” everyone’s names ala “Idina Mendzel/Adele Dazim”.

  • Julie

    Our favorite tradition is piling the presents into a big mountain (there are always at least 22 of us!) around the Christmas tree after all the kids go to bed and then the youngest kid gets to climb the mountain in the morning and then act as the “Elf” who delivers presents to everyone else lazing around 🙂

  • Kristina N.

    Definitely baking and decorating with all the kids!

  • Nicole S.

    My favorite holiday tradition is watching National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation while drinking eggnog and decorating the tree.

  • Maddie

    Waking up together on Christmas morning! My brothers and I have a sleepover at my parent’s every Christmas Eve so we can all wake up in the same place and have a big breakfast together.

  • Hilary

    Christmas morning quiche!! Nom.

  • helen

    my mom bakes this yummy cardamom and raisin bread called ‘julekake’ every year, it’s a norwegian christmas bread. i can’t wait for her to come up for christmas and bring us a few loaves 🙂 it isn’t christmas without it!

  • maya

    we always have chocolate bread pudding on thanksgiving. one year my cousin had twins on thanksgiving and couldn’t come. we made her a batch and fedex’ed it.

  • Kaitlin Benjamin

    My favorite holiday tradition is the food preparations that we partake in the day before. That, and the Christmas Eve service!

  • Danielle Lenz

    It is hard to choose 1 tradition. But when I was little it was when my brother and I would have a sleep over and we would stay up all night listening for Santa. As of late, I love getting together with all of my cousins night before Thanksgiving and Christmas and baking for the family gathering the next day.

  • Jean

    Listening to Bing Crosby sing White Christmas while decorating the tree at my parents house. Always a wonderful event!

  • christina

    My favorite tradition is having prime rib on Christmas Eve with my family. It’s always an amazing feast!

  • Jennie Ridley

    Irish coffee on Christmas morning!! Yum!!

  • Robin Bakke

    As a family we spend two days in our jammies opening gifts, sitting by the fire, telling stories and laughing. Of course there are cinnamon rolls, mimosa’s and naps in between!

  • Elizabeth Becker

    favorite holiday traditions: Christmas Eve at the broadmoor and Christmas morning breakfast!

  • Keli

    Your holiday cards are fantastic!

    My favorite holiday tradition is putting out my shoes for St. Nicholas Day. At 26, I still manage to do it. In college, my mom would have my roommates put presents in my shoes, and now it’s my fiance! Some traditions are just too special to us to forget!

  • Honora

    There are so many traditions to choose from but my favorite would have to be getting all the cousins(about 60 of us) together at my grandmas house on Christmas Eve. Grams house is TINY only about 900 sqaure feet so it’s loud and hot and crowded but so much fun and so many laughs 🙂

  • Kate Nolan

    Decorating the Christmas tree. We always have a “picnic” dinner. Veggies & dip, cheese, sausage, crackers, popcorn, etc. Nothing like grazing for dinner, listening to Christmas music and decorating the tree to get you in the spirit!

  • Elizabeth Becker

    Favorite traditions: Christmas Eve at the broadmoor and Christmas morning breakfast!

  • Rcahel

    Baked French toast (with strong coffee) in the morning!

  • Kelsey Salsbery

    We got caroling…yes, old school caroling! There is at least of us that go around to the hospital, neighbors, and various friend’s homes. They all look forward to it every year…especially us!

  • shelly

    ok first of all i want to say i’m digging coopers hair in the 2014 pic. secondly if i win i’m totally making a christmas card with my cat and finally, my favorite holiday tradition is christmas brunch my dad always makes: scrambled eggs mixed with equal parts of sausage and eggs. I’m not normally a big meat eater, but its not christmas until i have those eggs

  • Louise

    Putting up the tree for sure!

  • Annalisa

    My favorite family tradition is gathering over the table, eating yummy holiday food and enjoying each others company.

  • Jessica

    My favorite tradition is definitely the arrival of the linzertorte. Every year my dad makes a bunch and sends them out to all the family members. I usually cut it in half and freeze half of it so I can enjoy it for a little bit longer 🙂

  • Soledad

    My favorite holiday traditions are the blog family gatherings both my mom and my dad’s side always habe for Christmas.

  • Lynn V

    My favorite holiday tradition is pretty much all of Christmas Eve. While my hubby works, my little boys and I dress up and wear elf head gear and deliver homemade treats to special friends. When my hubby gets home we head to Christmas Eve mass then home to make hot cocoa and drive around looking at Christmas lights. Afterward we head home where we prepare Santa & his reindeer some treats, read “Twas the Night Before Christmas” and try get them to sleep! There is NOTHING better than seeing this beautiful holiday through the eyes of a child!

  • Sonia

    My favorite tradition is making latkes for Hannukah!

  • Christina Lasalle

    Every Christmas since the beginning of time (well, my time) we went to my grandma’s house on Christmas eve. At midnight “Santa” would come pay everyone a visit. It’s SO much fun because we’ve all taken turns dressing up as Santa. The past few years we haven’t had any kids in the family but we still would dress up (we’ve had a few drunk Santa’s, makes for awesome pics of Santa with a corona) but this year it’ll be my daughters FIRST Christmas and I am over the moon excited.

    I can’t wait! Family Santa is by far my favorite tradition.

  • sara forte

    oh this years’ is adorable! I love it. Cooper is such a stud. I have been wanting to get some of their cards – they have the most beautiful designs. We are just starting traditions within our own family, but my family always does Christmas morning at my parents. My mom makes cocoa and coffee with baileys, i bring cinnamon rolls and we open gifts and then I make a second breakfast for everyone. We have a small family and it sounds typical but we don’t all often sit down together without anywhere else to be, unfortunately. I am really looking forward to it this year.

  • Christi

    We’re still in the midst of figuring out our little family’s traditions as our daughter just turned 1..but one of my favorites that my husband and I have done since our first Thanksgiving together is that as we house hop between various family member’s houses on Thanksgiving day, we officially start listening to Christmas music with Sufjan Stevens’ Christmas album(s).

  • Ashley Marti

    Starting December 1st we do 25 books of Christmas for my 2 + 5 1/2 year old, so much fun. We also each get new pajamas to wear on Christmas Eve, really I think this one is more for me. Great card, he is so dapper!

  • Elizabeth Becker

    i love the broadmoor on Christmas Eve!

  • Amber

    I love cutting a tree down and decorating it with family and friends. Once my house is decorated, it just feels like Christmas!:)

  • Jessi S

    Christmas jammies for the entire family on Christmas Eve night!

  • SJ

    On Thanksgiving Day and Chrostmas Day, my Mom and I sneak down to the kitchen very early in the morning to make and bake cinnamon rolls. While they bake, we drink copious amounts of coffee and plan the cooking schedule for the day. As I teenager I was not so appreciative of this tradition, but now that I am adult I adore the extra alone time with my mother.

  • Brianna Schmid

    Turkey Trot followed immediately by pie baking, then to Grandma’s house we go!

  • Ashley

    For brunch on Christmas Eve, we ALWAYS have stuffed croissant french toast and grapefruit. Even when schedules change and things get hectic, this is the one thing we’ve kept going, I love it. 🙂

  • Julia

    My favorite holiday tradition is eating monkey bread on christmas morning!

  • Jenny C

    My favorite holiday tradition is watching The Sound of Music while preparing our family feast, snacking on goodies and hearing the children play!

  • Mimi Holtz

    Now that my children are grown up, I miss our family traditions that we enjoyed when they were living at home. It’s a challenge to try and keep some of our traditions once they are married and have other families to consider. One of our favorite family traditions is playing cards or board games, and doing puzzles together. Since we can’t always be together on holidays, we try to enjoy these things whenever we are together.

  • Amberlee

    My husband go on a special date that call our “Christmas Spectacular, Spectacular!” I look forward to it all year.

  • Sarah

    My favorite holiday tradition is going to cut down our Christmas tree. My family always did it growing up and now my husband and I have carried on the tradition.

  • Chris Y

    decorating gingerbreadmen!

  • Missy

    My friends and I have an evening in our pajamas and have spiked hot chocolate and watch White Christmas every year.

  • Beth Ashbaugh

    My boys are 11 & 8 this year and every year we unpack all our holiday decor and with that comes our favorite books and music to get us in the spirit. #1 fav music in our house is the one and only Mr. Bing Crosby. Fav reading traditions include The Mole Family Christmas and The Tall Book of Christmas. I grew up hearing all of these over and over during the holidays and it just wouldn’t be Christmas without them!

  • Megan Hull

    The holiday cards! Love sending and receiving them!

  • Monique

    My favorite holiday tradition is done during Thanksgiving dinner. We all go around the table and say what we are thankful for before we dig into our dinners. :))

  • Stephanie

    New holiday jammies for the boys!

  • Libby

    My favorite holiday tradition is that we don’t go anywhere. When my boyfriend (now fiance) and I first got together and knew we’d be together forever, we started making holiday traditions. We work hard to visit all of the family before and after Christmas. But Christmas day is family (yeah, we’re a family) day. We snuggle on the couch, eat cinnamon rolls, and watch National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.
    It is the happiest day of my whole year.

  • Tasha

    My mom and sisters get together with our family friends and bake Christmas cookies. There’s always tons of laughter, Christmas music and hot wassail! It’s the best way to kickoff the Christmas season with some girl time and baking.

  • Jackie

    I have a lot of favorites! I think one of my top ones though is to watch the Muppets Christmas Carol with my mom the night of Thanksgiving.

  • sarah

    Choosing a favorite is tough…but Christmas baking with my Mom is probably tops 🙂

  • Corie

    Our family is still growing so we don’t our traditions tied down yet but we like simple things, grabbing hot chocolate and driving around to look at lights, reading of Jesus birth, watching the kids plays at church. Thanks!

  • Laurie Wesp

    My family always watches “While You Were Sleeping” on Christmas Eve. It’s one of my Dad’s favorite movies. Lots of laughing and crying!

  • Christy

    When I lived at home my favorite holiday tradition was going to my Grandparents house Christmas morning and helping to make and then eating my grandma’s chocolate gravy. One of these days I need to make it myself. I miss it and them so much.

  • Sarah

    My favorite holiday tradition is when my older brother gets a little carried away in cooking something different. He always had a new creative idea of something to cook for my family – tiramisu (but it has to be from an authentic recipe) or, one year, an entire goose. He gets a little intense about it, and it’s so much fun.

  • Danielle

    There is a church in our town that has an amazing holiday light display. There are tons of people and families all gathered and there is hot chocolate and chocolate chip cookies. This has fast become my first ever adult holiday tradition with my family.

  • Mandy Pennington

    When I was a kid, my brother and I always had to wait until the coffee was brewed and we had eaten breakfast until we could open any Christmas gifts. (This was to prevent us from waking my parents up at 3 in the morning to open gifts.) It was always a struggle! But nowadays, I look forward to eating breakfast and drinking a good cup of coffee with my parents before the madness begins!

  • Sarica S

    My favorite holiday tradition is making candy with my mom, cousins, and family friends!

  • anita

    Love making hot cocoa from scratch using really good whipping cream and chocolate squares. If I’m feeling extra fatty, I’ll add some eggnog and redi-whipped cream.

  • Alice Epstein

    Making ornaments – so much fun every time.

  • Danielle

    My family does a “Yankee swap” instead of everyone buying gifts for everyone else. It’s way more fun!

  • Sarah G

    I would love to be included in this giveaway! I adore the cards on minted and have been ousting after a few, but haven’t made up my mind about what to order.

  • Ginger

    My favorite holiday tradition is just simple Christmas morning at my mom’s! We drink coffee, pass gifts, and leave the Yule Log channel running in the background, and try to catch when the hand comes in to add another log. It’s not very exciting, but I always look forward to it.

  • Sandra

    Hands down my favorite holiday tradition is baking cookies with my family! We always bake 6 or 7 types and then we pack up festive tins with a few of each kind and give them away to neighbors and family. We’ve been doing this for as long as I can remember, and my Dad has kept a log of the different types of cookies we’ve made each year since the 80’s! It’s so fun to look back at what we baked when I was a kid. I’m 15 weeks pregnant right now and I cant WAIT to get the little nugget up on the counter and baking with us in the years to come!

  • Melissa Moehring

    This will my the first christmas with our daughter who will be 9 months on Christmas day! I’m so excited to find an advent calendar that decorates a Christmas tree– I’ve seen a few on etsy so I need to take the plunge and buy it!

  • JamieK

    Hiding the pickle ornament on the Christmas tree and watching he grandkids look for it. First one to find it gets a special gift!

  • Jill

    Holiday music starts the day after Thanksgiving and runs through the end of December — a tradition every year!

  • Nika

    Christmas eve dinner with all my mom’s family….its a sea food feast with lots of family and cheer!

  • Kathleen Harrison

    My favorite holiday tradition is eating enchiladas with my family on Christmas Eve. My mom is Latina, so every Christmas Eve her mother and aunt prepare red and green chili, beans, and homemade tortillas. It is a meal I look forward to all year long.

  • MeLisa

    Making cinnamon rolls on December 24th and delivering them to friends and family for their Christmas breakfast.

  • Karen@Mignardise

    Our favorite holiday tradition is a raucous round of charades after Thanksgiving dinner, followed by a quieter viewing of the movie, ELF.
    I have such a fabulous photo of my family this year – need the gc!

  • Jordan

    Seriously, could he be any cuter?! What a little hunk.
    I love Christmas cards. Borderline obsession. The picture ones are just too fun. I mean don’t get me wrong, normal ones are good too, but cmon I wanna see the family!
    My favorite Christmas tradition is crafts. Every year my dad and I pick a new craft to do for that season. We have a daddy daughter date and go to dinner and the craft store to get supplies. We throw on the Christmas music, light some candles, and go to work! It’s really fun to see the crafts from when I was just a little girl. So nostalgic 🙂

    Merry Christmas!!! <3

    Ps can I steal your handwriting? K thanks.

  • Judy Gesicki

    Listening to Andy Williams Christmas song “It’s the most wonderful time of the year” and singing along with the family. We’ve shared this since we were little!

  • Chris

    Emmet otters jug band Christmas & cookie swap on Christmas Eve! And eggnog with cheer of course 🙂

  • Celeste C.

    Our favorite family tradition is to load up into one car and drive around oohing and ahhing at Christmas lights and decorations in the neighborhood!

  • Tempa

    My favorite holiday tradition is making Peppermint Puff cookies. They involve rolling the dough balls in egg white and then sugar before baking which sounds odd but it gives them a lightly crispy shell on the outside and soft peppermint cookie on the inside. To top it all off, we press a Hershey kiss into the center of each for the last two minutes of baking so the chocolate is melty when they come out of the oven. I’ve been making these cookies each year for my family since 1985!

  • erica

    putting out my grandma’s old decorations and baking her recipes with my mom and aunt <3

  • Jen

    For YEARS my favorite tradition was making holiday meals with my grandma. She’s been gone for 5 years now and I’ve taken charge as head chef. I’ve got 7 pies to make this year for Thanksgiving! Can’t wait. I’d love to win this as my husband and I are determined to do a Christmas card this year! It would make another great tradition

  • Jennifer

    My favorite tradition as of late has been Santa flying in on a helicopter at a local golf course.
    We live in Florida, so holidays are usually 80 degrees, and don’t always feel so festive, but Santa in a helicopter is a big favorite of my daughters.
    Thanks!

  • Anu

    Cooking the meal with the fam! We always put on music and are dancing around while making the meal – so fun!

  • Athena R

    Love the photos. I’m actually looking forward to starting new traditions with my 14 month old.

  • Janice

    Picking up our Christmas tree on the day after Thanksgiving!

  • Marisa

    My favorite holiday tradition is getting the chance to decorate the Christmas tree with my sister. Our dog always ends up getting wrapped in Christmas lights, we bake and have festive drinks, and play the Chipmunks Christmas CD (so obnoxious but tradition!!).

  • Maayan

    Gathering the whole family to light the first candle of Chanukah, eating loads of potato latkes with sour cream and jelly doughnuts. I Can’t wait.

  • Molly

    New pajamas on Christmas Eve.

  • Heidi

    My favorite holiday tradition is listening to the broadcast from King’s College Cambridge on Christmas Eve morning. My dad and I always listened to it together when I was growing up and now I call him just before the broadcast starts so we can listen to the first hymn together. 🙂

  • Laura

    My favorite tradition is baking Christmas cookies and then handing them out to all the people that help me in my daily life!

  • Jessica K

    Anything and everything Thanksgiving related! The smells, the weather, the food and family. What more could I ask for?!

  • Mandy

    Every holiday season my husband and I turn off all the lights except those on the Christmas tree, snuggle up, and sit and watch the twinkle lights. It’s one of the rare quiet moments during the holiday season and it’s my favorite. 🙂

  • Katy

    Christmas eve hanging the stockings!

  • Kelly Jo

    Christmas morning my boyfriend and I lounge around with coffee and give each other our gifts while we wait for the kids to wake up. It’s become my favorite 🙂

  • Ciara

    One of my favorite things we do every Christmas is watch my mom’s favorite musical: Fiddler on the Roof. While this is probably a strange tradition (Tradition!) for a 100% Irish, Catholic family I’ve enjoyed it every year. Love your cards!

  • Alli

    My favorite holiday tradition is listening to holiday music. I am cuckoo bananas for it and I love singing along with every word!

  • Christina

    I love to start the holidays by getting our Christmas Tree right after Thanksgiving (which is also my birthday:) Then I get the Boney M holiday music going, put wreaths on the door and garlands around the fireplace! I love making it cozy even if we’ll never get real snow in southern california!

  • Emily

    Listening to holiday music while decorating the tree!

  • Hailey

    Our favorite tradition is watching “The Grinch” movie on Christmas Eve!

  • Lisa @ Lisa Living Well

    I love going to German Christkindlmarkts (in the US). One of my favorite Christmases was spent in Europe, so the Christmas markets remind me of that.

  • Maria

    Even though we moved backed to Southern California 10 years ago, my husband and I try to keep our San Francisco New Year’s Eve Day tradition of Dungeness crab and doubled stuffed baked potatoes.

  • mireya

    my family always puts on pajamas on Christmas Eve after dinner and sits around playing this silly music song/game until midnight, which is when we open presents!

  • Michelle Corbo

    Bloody Mary’s with my family on Christmas morning!

  • Belinda

    Every year we get together with friends in our apt building and have a kid friendly new years party. The kids love it and the adults get a chance to catch up!

  • Adelle F.

    Decorating the tree, hands down!We put on Christmas music, make hot chocolate and all decorate it together.

  • Zoë

    We always seem to get someone a game for Christmas. After eating a big, hot breakfast and unwrapping our little present piles we play the new game. I love holidays!

  • christine

    Watching A Christmas Story with my dad

  • Arabella

    Our favorite holiday tradition is to make traditional Hungarian Christmas dishes, to celebrate our origins. We make stuffed cabbage, and bake tons of Christmas cookies.

  • Shawna Greenway

    We have all of our friends over the first weekend in December to help us decorate the tree. We make a traditional holiday meal and afterwards have all the great Christmas shows on for the kids while the adults sit outside by the fire.

  • Tara H

    I love baking cookies with my two sisters every year! As we have gotten older it is more difficult to get together just us, but it is always a blast to mix sisters, wine, and sprinkles together ; )

  • Laura

    appetizer bar all day on Christmas day.

  • Suzanne Slagell

    I love Christmas jammies. Love, love, love them.

  • Sommer Lindsey

    Christmas was my Grandma’s favorite time of year. After she died, we were all too distraught to celebrate the usual Christmas traditions without her. So we made a decision to spend Christmas in her favorite place, Hawaii, with the only other gifts exchanged being a new bathing suit or sandals for the trip. We did this for a few years, but then as life usually goes, my brothers and sister and I got older, met our husbands and wives and moved all over the country. I fell in love with a man from Puerto Rico, and now every year around Christmas we plan a tropical escape from Ohio winter to his hometown in San Juan. It isn’t Hawaii, but the smell of the salty ocean, warm tropical air, and happy orchids that hang from trees and brightly colored Caribbean window sills remind me of her and we tell our own daughter stories about what a wonderful human being she was.

  • Katie

    Oh so many, it’s hard to choose! But I love our annual family trek to cut down our own Christmas tree. So many memories.

  • Tori

    I love having cinnamon rolls for Christmas breakfast after opening presents!

  • Stacia

    I have a huge family, so we have an annual holiday party with a fun gift exchange of gag gifts.

  • Erica

    Baking cookies with my young nieces is my favorite holiday tradition! I look forward to including my 10 month old so in the baking fun too!

  • Illyssa Tussing

    My favorite holiday tradition is one my husband and I started when we very first got married. Every Christmas Eve we pull a mattress into the living room and sleep there then Christmas morning we wake up and do presents still in bed in pjs.

  • Courtney

    After any holiday get together with family we always end the evening by playing a board or card game. Which always gets us laughing together so much.

  • Lisa Gutierrez

    When I was a kid, every Thanksgiving my family (I’m talking aunts, uncles, and cousins, too) would head downtown and watch the Thanksgiving parade. Someone would be in charge of going extra early and wait in the cold for hours with HUGE blankets to mark our territory and the rest of us would file in before it started to take our place. I loved the heck out of it, even if it meant waking up early on “vacation.” I stopped going when I had my son, but the past two years, we started joining family that has kept the tradition. I am SO excited for Thursday morning, now. My sons loved walking around downtown super early and sitting on the curb with hot chocolate. I hope we can do it every year.

  • Neena

    I love the simmering crockpot filled with boozy apple cider and cinnamon sticks and citrus slices. We do it every year with our entire family, and in recent years, have included a second booze-less crockpot for the kids. I look forward to it every single year!

  • Jessie

    Cutting down our tree on the first saturday in December and watching Christmas Vacation, “little sap…”!

  • Amanda Faught

    Hanging out with all my extended family and starting to decorate for Christmas! I love the whole holiday season!

  • Emily

    Driving out to the Christmas tree farm to pick the perfect Christmas tree! No matter the weather or circumstances, it always feels like a scene from a perfect Christmas movie or book. Love it!

  • Kaitlin

    Picking out a new ornament for my son. Every year we buy an ornament that is tied to something he was major into that year. This year’s ornament will be Curious George. I am keeping a list with little stories behind each ornament, which I will give to him some day, should he choose to use them on his family tree.

  • Christine @ BookishlyB

    Every year my mom buys us a new ornament. I have the best collection and each one remind me of each year. I’m going to start this with my seven-month-old this year (who’d look adorable in these cards).

  • Ellen @ Wannabe Health Nut

    Oh oops… but my favorite Christmas tradition is opening up ONE present on Christmas Eve. Which is usually PJs! This is my first year as a married woman, so I’m excited to start new traditions with my husband. I’m just not sure what they are yet!

  • Lauren

    My favorite tradition is putting up the tree! Where we live now we have a fireplace so I’m loving having a cozy fire going while we put up the tree.

  • Emily S

    My family HAS to go the the local Lights in the Park… The season is not complete with out it!

  • Erika W

    Our boys and I love to drive around the neighborhood and look at all Christmas lights.

  • Lindsay

    My family doesn’t really have many traditions – we’re sort of a bread and butter group. Not to say we aren’t cultured, but… we don’t have too many things we do as a group aside from the standard eating and gift giving. I guess the one I can recall that we do every year is that we pile into the back of my dad’s truck the weekend before Christmas and go look at Christmas lights. Since it doesn’t get that cold in Florida, we can get by with a jacket and some blankets to fill the bed. There’s one particular neighborhood that gets all decked out at Christmas, and they collect donations for a local charity each year – I think they rotate the charity every 5 years. All of the families who come by drive really slow around the houses, admiring the hard work. Some of the houses are so intricate… snowglobes fill the yard, lights, blow-up santas, all the good stuff. After I turned 21, we started bringing a little nip of alcohol to keep us warm, and my dad drives the truck while the kids, my mom and the pup sit in the back. We didn’t do it last year… but I want to make sure we do it again this year. We’re all a little out of money due to crappy circumstances, so we’re focusing on the bonding experiences of Christmas, rather than the gifts.

  • Meghan C

    baking LOTS of quick breads for gifting!

  • Allison

    Making Christmas cookies with my mom, from my grandmother’s old recipes.

  • Candice

    Decorating the Christmas tree! I can’t wait!!

    PS – Cooper is so big! And SO handsome! What a beautiful little guy.

  • Jill

    Decorating the house with Elf on in the background and some boozy warm drinks on the mantle. Thanks for the chance to win. 🙂

  • Katie

    My favorite holiday tradition is going on walks at night and looking at all of the Christmas lights.

  • Michelle

    A Christmas Eve party with family and friends where we all eat/drink too much and stay up too late!

  • Morgan

    This is a year of new traditions because all of my usual plans got canceled! So I guess my favorite is baking a sweet potato meringue pie, but usually it’s skiing on Christmas Day.

  • Megan

    Spending time eating tons of great, yummy food with my family!

  • Eleni

    We have an annual family ornament exchange party that we have been doing for the past 15 years. It’t fun to bring out the ornaments each year and remember who gave you the ornaments from over the years!

  • Mama Jane

    Loving a new tradition in our house… mistletoe. I’m Jewish, my husband isn’t, and our 4-year-old mistakenly called it “Mazel Toe” and I haven’t corrected him :). It’s our multi-cultural excuse to smooch each other throughout the holiday season, and the natural stuff looks so pretty hanging in our front hall. Love spreading the holiday love!

  • Karen Hartman

    My favorite holiday tradition is eating leftovers the day after thanksgiving while (finally!) watching our favorite Christmas Movies. (Hellooo Home Alone, Christmas Vacation, and Four Christmases to name a few). My husbands and I’s new tradition is watching a movie at the theaters on Christmas Day. It’s a nice little quiet moment for the two of us in the midst of all the holiday craziness.

  • Julia W.

    My favorite holiday tradition is setting the table for our Christmas Eve dinner using these amazing Christmas tree plates that have been passed down from my grandmother.

  • Joy

    My favorite tradition is picking out and sending Christmas cards. I’ve been sending photo cards since my youngest was 1–he’s 12 now. One year, I could *not* get it done. I figured no one would miss it, until I heard from a lot of my upset relatives as to the whereabouts of their Christmas greeting. That year, a New Year card went out, but I’ve been diligent ever since. Have not used Minted before. Will have to go check it out.

  • Aimee

    Our talent show. The kids are great, but I love seeing the adults being so goofy (or taking it a little too seriously 😉

  • Joanna

    My favorite Holiday tradition is having appetizer night, watching Mickey’s Christmas Carol and decorating the tree with hot cider (rum is optional.) Who am I kidding, the rum is never optional.

  • lori freeman

    Watching White Chistmas while we put up the tree. My sisters and I would sing-a-long to “Snow, Snow, Snow.” It was always so funny to me that they sang about wanting to wash their hair in snow. OBVI these people were never the youngest & thus last in line to shower of 3 sisters! 😉

  • Rachel

    My favorite tradition is decorating the Christmas tree. I love seeing all the ornaments that we’ve collected over the years. Seeing it all lit up in the evening is my favorite part of the holiday season.

  • Bonnie

    My favorite holiday tradition is to go to Solvang, CA the day after Thanksgiving with my mom to pick out decorations for the house and tree! Now that I am a grown up I am starting to collect all the Swedish decorations that my mom and Nana have all over their homes!

  • Joanna

    My husband and I have been reading A Christmas Carol aloud every year. Kind of cheesy but so fun!

  • Jenn

    Christmas morning breakfast including scrambled eggs, bacon, cinnamon rolls and orange juice. This will always be my favorite holiday tradition!

  • Jessica Pazdan

    Heading to the mountains to cut our tree. Having a bonfire and roasting hot dogs as part of the trip.

  • Kate Rickel

    My favorite holiday tradition is watching all the Friends’ episodes related to Thanksgiving the morning of Thanksgiving. The one with Brad Pitt is my favorite. Random in ridiculous I know but this was bred out of necessity when I was working at my dorm’s front desk one year and couldn’t be with my family. It has just stuck.

  • Alison

    We always make latkes and have oysters on Christmas Eve and, since we had kids, have started taking a late-night drive through the neighborhoods to find the BEST light displays. Christmas morning is chaos, but Christmas Eve is our favorite time as a family.

  • Kristin Furst

    My favorite holiday tradtion is baking cookies boxes with my friends Melissa, Melanie and Carol. The four of us get together for 72 hours of butter, sugar, flour and eggs. We use 2 ovens, 3 kitchen aid mixers, and we bake between 1500-2000 cookies to give away to family and friends. We usually make 6 kinds of cookies and then we do chocolate pretzels! It’s crazy but it’s amazing!

  • Yoshie

    My favorite tradition is singing Christmas carols between dinner and opening our gifts. We always sing 2 verses from each song, and there is some interesting stuff in those second verses! Although, I know from many years of experience that my favorite carols are “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear” and “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing”.

  • Betsy

    My favorite tradition is our family’s Christmas Eve party. It’s changed over the years, from a huge black tie affair at my grandmother’s house to a more casual, just family (and those who aren’t technically family but might as well be) event these days, and there’s always room for improvisation, but the meal is almost always the same, and the special few hours spent together that night just means Christmas to me. It’s rare and special that we’re all together!

  • Stacy

    Making cinnamon ornaments with my mom! I am getting married in September to the man of my dreams. This gift card would definitely be out to good use 🙂

  • Paula

    So hard to just pick one! Probably opening stockings. Even though we are “grown ups” my mom still makes us all stockings (and we do hers), and there are lots of amazing little finds in there to shows she knows us all really well! Santa sneaks some fun things in them too!

  • Emily

    Opening up holiday pajamas on Christmas Eve every year 🙂 We all wear them to bed and wake-up in the morning to eat breakfast and open the remaining gifts. I love this tradition!

  • Lauren

    My favorite tradition is decorating the tree and listening to Christmas music!

  • Heidi Robbins

    I love reading the Nativity story with my daughters on Christmas Eve 🙂

  • Kelly

    My husband and I just got married last year and are still working on the whole merging of our families schedules and traditions. I’m trying to embrace it, so in that spirit I will say that all traditions are up in the air and I’m excited about forming some new ones that aren’t from his family or my family, but are for OUR family!

  • Iris Dongo

    mu favorite tradition is baking Christmas cookies, this is my daughters first Christmas. I can’t wait to pass down the tradition

  • Mae

    Caroling & Christmas cookies!!

  • Leana

    My favorite holiday tradition is looking at Christmas lights after the Christmas Eve service. There’s always one neighborhood in my community that has themed lights for the whole street each year. It’s so much fun and magical!

  • Shannon P

    I love looking at Christmas lights with my family!

  • Nanette

    New Year’s Eve has changed from a grown up night to a family night. We get in the car with hot chocolate and go around to see the best light displays for the last time and pick up deep dish pizza from our favorite (but not close) place on the way home. A fun stress free way to wrap up the holidays!

  • Sarah

    Going to see the Nutcracker at SF Opera House

  • carrie

    I love decorating the tree and reminiscing about each ornament. So many memories!

  • Whitney W

    Right now my favorite tradition is going to my grandmother’s house on Christmas Eve and seeing all the little kids meet Santa. Now that I have my own daughter that will be 6 months old right at Christmas, I cannot wait to start that tradition with her! So exciting!

    Thanks for the opportunity to win! This is an awesome giveaway!

  • jan

    Our favorite Christmas tradition is our family Christmas cards.. We’ve done them ever since we were married… 25 years ago.

  • Anna Robbins

    hanging out with my niece is the best thing about the holidays for me … She brings the holidays alive for us all

  • German Lopez

    My favorite tradition of course is the making of buñuelos. We always make them during christmas and it reminds me of early times at my folks house.

  • Megan

    I love having sausage souffle in the morning on Christmas Day. I’m also especially fond of celebrating with my husband on Christmas Eve before we head out to our families’ homes together.

  • Kate Shu

    Woo woo! What a generous giveaway! I’ve been hearting the S out of minted holiday cards!

  • Kate Shu

    I also don’t follow directions very well! Yikes. Favorite holiday tradition: watching The Family Stone and drinking all the things.

  • Andria Sherida

    My favorite holiday tradition has to do with the trimmings. I adore selecting the wrapping paper and ribbons I will use that year for the holiday gifts and trying to tie that theme in with my table dressing for our big family dinner. This year I am using all white with this rich green and shimmery silver. Living in a house that is all boys this is the one girly thing I do just for me. Changing that element up every year makes it okay for the control freak inside me to keep all the other decor traditional and kid friendly which my boys love.

  • Kaitlin

    I love baking and sharing Christmas cookies and spiced nuts every year!

  • Alison

    For Thanksgiving, we always eat the main meal, and then go for a ‘waddle’ around the block before having dessert. I’ve always enjoyed that part of the day, and also the fact that we always see other families from the neighborhood doing the same thing.

  • Ashley Robinson

    Every Christmas Eve my family watches “It’s A Wonderful Life” together. It’s a great way for us to remember what the holiday is really about and to appreciate what we have.

  • MaryB

    My favorite tradition is our annual Christmas Eve brunch where family and friends come to visit, eat, and make decorations for a homemade Christmas tree.

  • Weezie

    My absolute favorite holiday tradition is reading “The Night Before Christmas” before bed on Christmas Eve. My cousins and I range from 28 to 13, but we can almost always persuade my amazing Gran to read it to us like she did when we were tiny. 🙂

  • BA

    My favorite holiday tradition is taping all the cards we get up around the entrance to the dining room.

  • Ashley V

    making homemade ravioli for christmas eve dinner!

  • Angie Jerde

    There are just so many traditions that are dear to me! A new one we started last year is going to our local general store (with my boyfriend) and pick out and personalize an ornament for the tree that is special to us. Thanks for this giveaway : )

  • Dandi D

    We love to go pick out a fresh Christmas tree every year.

  • Rachel

    French toast for breakfast on Christmas morning.

  • Jamie

    I was going to say opening presents but what I really love is giving away the presents I brought, not because I’m super nice or anything but because I’m dying from suspense to see if they like it so I want to get it out of the way right away so I can relax and enjoy my presents. = )

  • Becca

    We started last year showing Christmas movies on a big screen in the backyard for neighborhood kids. We have a bonfire and chili and hot chocolate, and I LOVE everything about it! 🙂

  • Angie

    it is so hard to just choose one!! It’s my favorite time of year….but this year the thing I look forward to most is our tradition of the day after thanksgiving night….setting up and decorating the tree and giving our boys (3 and 1) their Christmas jammies and a new Christmas movie …..a family movie night all snuggled in together by the light of the tree

  • Sarah

    It’s a tie between decorating on Black Friday or mimosas on Christmas morning.

  • miranda

    I love decorating the tree

  • gillian

    Our family is still little, so we are sorting out our traditions, but the one thing I’ve loved doing is getting my girls (1.5 and 3.5) Christmas jammies that they get to wear the night of Thanksgiving to ring in CHRISTMASTIME!! Crossing my fingers on this giveaway! LOVE minted.

  • Gary

    drinking eggnog is pretty nice

  • Bill

    bloody marys on Christmas morning

  • Brittany

    Stockings on Christmas morning! It is so fun to unwrap the little, random gifts that my mom (ahem…Santa) thought to get everyone. Even though we are all adults in our family, I think this will always be one of our favorite traditions.

  • Andrea

    I love putting up the tree the day after thanksgiving and going to see Santa with the kids 🙂

  • Beverly

    My favorite holiday tradition is starting a puzzle on Christmas Eve day and trying not to give up on it by New Year’s Eve day. ha!

  • Marci

    I make my dad’s peanut brittle recipe every year. It’s always a hit with my side of the family, and now my husband’s side, too!

  • Traci L

    My husband and I give each other hardcover books each Christmas to create our own home library.

  • Laura R.

    Making a nice big breakfast Christmas morning, followed by a long, gift opening time together.

  • Stephanie

    Tough to pick just one! I lovelovelove Christmas time! We’re a blended family, so making sure we have traditions is important for all of us. Picking out our Christmas tree each year is probably my favorite!

  • Heather Byrne

    I love making Christmas lists all around the table after dinner on thanksgiving!

  • bc in edmond

    our thanksgiving and Christmas meals are almost identical, but the one thing we never change is my grandmom’s cranberries – cook, puree, strain, cook again – they take forever, but we would never be without them 🙂

  • Jaimie

    Nutcrackers Christmas eve. It’s a new one, but one to cherish.

  • Melissa

    My favorite holiday tradition is leaving out milk and cookies for Santa, and carrots for the reindeer. That plate of crumbs in the morning makes me smile.

  • Jessica W

    Opening a new book every night and reading with my boys in their Christmas jamies.

  • Lea Anna

    Christmas morning breakfast

  • Ally W

    Decorating the Christmas tree. I love remembering why each ornament is special, drinking hot chocolate, and making our house look (and smell!) amazing!!

  • Mary

    I love the Holidays! It is so difficult to choose just one favorite tradition, but I would say just decorating with family. I’ve been overseas for the last few years and have not been able to be home, so I am excited to be back this year and experience these memories. Thanks for the opportunity!

  • Lauren

    Overeating! And bakng pies!

  • Julie

    My favorite holiday tradition is decorating the Christmas Tree, while listening to Christmas music and making yummy chocolate pie. Julie smartsavvymama@gmail.com

  • Brittney

    My favorite holiday tradition is Christmas breakfast at my grandparents house. My mom makes these ridiculously good cinnamon rolls and a few breakfast casseroles, and we eat right before opening stockings. It’s the only thing that has remained a holiday constant for me, both sets of my grandparents live in town, and we try and do all the traditional things that they did with my mom and dad when they were little, so things can get a little hectic! Sometimes we miss one or two things with each of them, but Christmas morning has remained the same throughout the years, and I love it!

  • Rebecca J

    I love starting off Christmas morning right with orange juice (or mimosas), heart attack casserole (your typical delicious sausage, egg, and bread deliciousness), and opening stockings!

  • Alison H.

    My favorite holiday tradition is getting together with all our family and watching Christmas Vacation together!

  • Megan Kopp

    Deciding where and then taking the family photo (me, husband and our amazing Frenchie). I love sending cards!! This is such an awesome contest! Thanks!!

  • Joanna

    I love watching White Christmas with my mom. I hate the movie – I think it’s so silly – but I just love being able to spend that time with JUST MAMA ever year.

  • Tracey

    Sitting in front of the fireplace and eating homemade caramel corn!

  • Elisa

    Picking out a Christmas tree and decorating it with family. Thanks.

  • kirsten Raether

    Raclette on Christmas Eve.

  • Jessica

    My favorite holiday tradition is drinking mulled cider and watching Home Alone! 🙂

  • Alison

    Without a doubt, decorating the house and tree! And then coming home every night and turning on all the lights 🙂

  • Rachel Greenwalt

    New favorite tradition!! My husband, sister and brother-in-law were helping our Mom decorate for the holidays this last Saturday when all of the sudden my sister-in-law looked at me and said ” oh my God my water just broke”!! What an awesome thing to celebrate now!! Happy Birthday baby Emory!!

  • Carolyn

    Oh man, it’s hard to choose between Pierogi Day or brunch Christmas morning (my MIL makes the best brunch!). I’m not surprised they’re both food-related though. 😀

  • Marisa

    Baking about 10 types of Christmas cookies with my mom to share with family and friends!

  • LAUREN

    My favorite holiday tradition would have to be driving around Christmas evening with the family looking at everyone’s holiday decorations. Its a slow deliberate drive filled with commentary and awe.

  • jacquelyn

    Baking cookies and cakes to deliver to all of my friends. I love being able to show them my love through the food I bake.

  • Jen

    I adore Thanksgiving the most, but a close second is using the Christmas tree as the only light source in the living room at night.

  • Molly Cover

    Taking an afternoon to listen to Christmas music and decorate the Christmas tree with my boys!

  • Kristen

    my favorite holiday tradition is watching A Christmas Story for 24 hours Christmas Eve into Christmas Day!

  • Katie

    OMGGGG, what a giveaway. My favorite tradition is taking my boys skiing with my side of the family over Christmas vacation. It’s a perfect, ultra-concentrated block of togetherness, which we all love 🙂

  • Holly B

    I always loved decorating the tree when I was a kid, and still do!

  • Robyn W

    At our house you know it is time for the holidays when you smell the crispex mix. Even my 2 year old remembers this tradition already!

  • Jillian

    My husband and I watch Home Alone 1 &2 between Thanksgiving and Christmas every year. We have done it every year for the past 12 years and it will continue to live on!

  • Nancy @ The Family Bucket List

    A tradition that we have is that I give each of the kids and my husband an ornament that signifies something important that happened that past year.

  • Sydney

    My favorite holiday tradition is holiday baking! I’m counting down the days till I can go home and bake with my fam.

  • Katja

    Watching Christmas Vacation with my husband 🙂

  • Alison

    There’s no holiday tradition that’s better than wrapping presents, drinking hot chocolate and listening to Christmas music!

  • Sarah Lindsey

    My favorite tradition is doing an advent calendar with holiday/winter themed books. I wrap up 24 (from our collection and the library) and we open one a day until Christmas Eve and read them aloud as a family. Our Christmas Eve book is always The Night Before Christmas!

  • Andrea E.

    Putting up the Christmas tree after Thanksgiving community dinner and watching “Elf” then “Christmas Vacation” while enjoying a good bottle of wine! Cant wait!!!

  • Pam Leverette

    I LOVE LOVE LOVE Christmas! The smells, lights, music, family, decorations, gift giving and gatherings.

  • Megan Myers

    My fiance and I are still figuring out our what the holidays look like to us (decorations, food, etc.), but we did no- or low-cost gifts last year and we’re discussing making it a permanent tradition. We knew we’d be getting “stuff” from our parents and siblings, so we decided to focus on experiences and adventures. This year I’m going to create a coupon book of things to do in the DC area, with activities ranging from hikes to museums to restaurants we’ve talked about trying.

  • Jackie

    Favorite tradition is an Advent Activity calendar. Totally got the idea from a blog and it was super fun last year. We hand made a calendar and wrote fun little activities for each day of December. I think my 3.5 year old will really be into this year!

  • Pam

    Every year since our kids were little we go with dear friends to a farm to cut down our Christmas trees. My favorite tradition is how much my daughter hates the tree I pick every year (we’ve disagreed since she was 5 and she’s now 14!) and simultaneously my friends’ son tries to figure out which one I love the most so he can claim it first! So many blessings!!

  • The Literary Omnivore

    Plotting the Thanksgiving and Christmas menus with my mother as we try to balance being traditional with being foodies.

  • Jil K.

    My family watches the National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation every year. I love that movie so much, not only because it’s funny, but because of the memories I associate with it.

  • rachel

    Making and eating cut-out cookies with my mom!

  • Jenny L

    Growing up, we would go to a Christmas tree farm and chop down our own tree. I always thought it was the coolest thing. Now, we make wontons as a family!

  • Nikki

    My favorite holiday tradition is going to see the Nutcracker!

  • Christina

    Looking forward to making new traditions starting this year since I just had twin boys this Halloween! But my current favorite tradition is with my family and my cousin’s family where we always watch a movie Christmas Day and go out for Chinese food after! 🙂

  • Stephanie

    Christmas cookies, potstickers on Christmas eve…every tradition has to do with FOOD. Surprise??

  • Becky

    Your son is adorable! My favorite holiday tradition is to bake my granny’s ginger cookies.

  • Brianna

    My favorite holiday tradition has to be our yearly Christmas Countdown. We do something christmas-ey everyday starting December 1st. It could be anything thing from watching, The Polar Express, to drinking Hot Chocolate. It’s something fun and it gets us in the holiday spirit!

  • Melody

    My favorite tradition is putting up the tree the day after Thanksgiving. We make some of the same appetizers and treats every year and listen to Christmas music. It’s something I always look forward to.

  • Angie

    One of my favorite traditions is making a gingerbread house with my son (the other part of this is I let him destroy it however he likes outside in January!) Last year was the first year we slept under the Christmas tree on a Friday night for something special and fun and we are definitely going to do that again this year too. 🙂

  • Anne M.

    My favorite tradition during the Christmas season is going to a decades-old theater to watch “It’s A Wonderful Life” followed by a dinner of wood-fired pizza and wine with my love. It’s the same year after year and it is absolutely wonderful!

  • Samantha

    My favorite is the box of assorted chocolates that our family passes around and shares all day in Christmas. If you’re going to eat candy all day, Christmas is the day to do it!

  • jean

    Going to see santa at the Stanford shopping center. I grew up going and it’s fun to take my two year old now. I swear that santa is the real deal!

  • Krystn

    Family gingerbread house making and decorating, with Christmas music sing a long….

  • Barbara

    Baking cookies while listening to Christmas music.

  • Caitlin

    I love decorating the tree. Each ornament is a memory, so it’s a sweet reminder of good times through the years

  • Maggie B

    The night before Thanksgiving my husband, I and our kids go out to eat for a nice family dinner. We put the kids to bed, open a bottle of wine and start cooking for the following day. We have been hosting Thanksgiving dinner since our daughter was born 8(!) years ago. I love the quiet kick off to the holiday season. This year there is the promise of snow and I couldn’t be more excited!

  • Sara

    I think my favorite tradition would have to be selecting and cutting down our tree. There has always been something magical about it. Last year my son (then four) got to pick out his own tiny tree. Watching him carry it back to the car on his sled (all by his big-boy self) will always be one of my favorite memories.

  • Lisa Vaughn

    On Christmas Eve, after the kids have gone to bed, we do some extra decorating, enlisting all of our family members to put up more twinkle lights and hang snowflakes from the ceiling. It makes Christmas morning so magical!

  • TM

    Watching Scrooged!

  • Jade Sheldon-Burnsed

    One of my favorite holiday traditions is picking out new holiday books with my husband. We started a collection a few years ago and I look forward to adding to it every year.

  • Becky

    My husband and I make homemade gingerbread houses, go to Midnight Mass, then open presents together. But now we have a baby, so we’ll see how that all goes this year. 😉

  • Michelle

    Ahhh I love minted, i’ve used them for years for work stuff and personal – what a great giveaway! My favorite holiday tradition is decorating sugar cookies with friends/family while watching a Charlie Brown Christmas. 🙂 ps. Cooper looks adorable, loving that sweater!

  • LH

    Going to church on Christmas Eve and coming back home to exchange gifts and graze on an abundance of yummy appetizers and sit by the fire.

  • Lindsay M

    Opening one present early on Christmas Eve. 🙂

  • Kelsey Galloway

    the food! homemade cinnamon rolls, peanut butter balls! the list goes on…

  • Kristen

    I like baking cookies for friends.

  • Danielle

    My favorite holiday tradition is cinnamon rolls on Christmas morning. We also LOVE A Christmas Story marathon on Christmas Day. ♥

  • Liz

    My favorite holiday tradition is stringing cranberries for the tree with family.

  • Matt

    I like decorating gingerbread houses

  • Jessica r

    Favorite holiday tradition before having kids: pie. All the pie, and then movies. Now, it is dinner with the fam, and then sweet, sweet extra sleep for baby and mama on my short break from teaching. We just bought our first house two weeks ago and I cannot wait to start some of our own holiday traditions!

  • Melania

    Cooking and drinking and Christmas music and candles burning!

  • Lynn

    Christmas Eve sitting on the couch with just the Christmas lights on, Nat King Cole playing and sipping hot chocolate spiked with peppermint schnapps and topped with whipped cream. Can’t wait!!

  • Victoria Thomas

    Cutting down a Christmas tree!

  • Michelle

    We always make aebleskivers (Danish pancakes) on Christmas morning. And opening the stockings, of course.

  • Lyka W

    I don’t think my family has traditions per se, but my favorite part of the holidays is just enjoying a delicious meal with those I love.

  • Queta

    Honestly, just getting together with the family. It’s fun to see how it’s evolved from us being the kids, to watching ours kids play and enjoy each other.

  • Trish

    My favorite christmas tradition is sitting down, when christmas day is done, with a glass of wine. The tree on, the fire going, and a christmas movie on while we fall asleep on the couch. SO PUMPED!
    Trish

  • LunaRaven

    Marathoning the Lord of the Rings films!

  • Kathryn

    Chinese food on Christmas Eve!

  • Courtney

    I am always touched by the ceremony and the songs at church on Christmas Eve with some of my family.

  • Carla (@charliesue)

    Christmas Day is TAMALE DAY! Need I say more? 😉

  • heather

    My favorite holiday tradition is baking and decorating Christmas cookies with mom.

  • Heidi

    Going to see a movie together after we open presents and watch some basketball. 🙂

  • Nicole B.

    I love stockings. We put the goofiest stuff in ours, which is always the most fun.

  • Rebecca

    Cooking in the kitchen with my sister. Since our mom passed away 7 yrs ago, we have worked really hard to make new family memories and traditions. I think, though it has been hard at times, we’ve done a pretty great job!

  • Nichole

    I love, love, love to bake holiday cookies with my little girls!

  • Ellie

    I love baking holiday treats while listening to Bing Crosby-era Christmas music.

  • Maggie

    Making chocolate covered peanut butter balls and snowball cookies with my mom using my Grammie’s recipes.

  • Vera K

    My favorite holiday tradition is making a gingerbread house with my daughter – who is grown now and lives tooo far away. 🙁

  • Alexis

    Baking sugar cutout cookies and watching Love Actually and The Family Stone!

  • Corisa Jubinsky

    most of all, spending it with family! .. but breaking the wishbone with my sister has always been special to me 🙂

  • Jenn

    listening to my husband complain about all of my decorations **sarcasm**

  • Simone

    We always went to a movie on Christmas day as a family! And I also love opening Christmas/cards/letters – so much so that I reminded my husband NOT to open them, as I would get very upset!

  • Jennifer

    Our favorite holiday tradition is getting the kids dressed up in their cozy Christmas pjs, loading up in the car with hot cocoa, candy canes, and Christmas music, as we drive around all the best Christmas light displays in town.

  • Susan

    Running the Buffalo Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving morning with my extended family while wearing absurd turkey hats and singing christmas carols the whole time. 5 miles to start the day makes all of the mashed potatoes consumed cause a little bit less of a shame hangover…

  • Urban Wife

    My favorite holiday tradition is getting a real Christmas tree and decorating it, the day right after Thanksgiving. We also watch ‘Elf’ while doing said decorating and it makes it so much more fun!

  • Meghan

    After decorating the tree, we have a picnic dinner in front of the tree and play board games in our pajamas.

  • Nikki

    Getting woken up at 5am by my excited boys on Christmas morning

  • Kelly

    My favorite Holiday Tradition is decorating the tree while listening to some old school Bing Crosby on the record player with Tom & Jerry’s in my Santa cup!

  • Millie | Add A Little

    The cards are so cute – Cooper’s grown into quite a looker – I guess it’s all the good genes 😉

  • Deb

    My grandmother’s tamales

  • Christy @TheMuddyApron

    Christmas cards are such a great way to see how families have grown over the years. Handsome boy!

  • Lisa

    My husband and I watch Elf while decorating for Christmas. I love that in the midst of all the hustle and bustle of Christmas it is something that we do together, just the two of us.

  • India

    Being with my family. It’s the best!

    Side note: I recently bought colored masking tape. Purely because you have it & I love the posts when you use it. Thanks for being an inspiration (in more ways than one)!

  • Christine

    Growing up we always made tamales and haven’t done so since I was 15! Tis year will be the first year of my own tamale making tradition and I can’t wait!

  • stephanie b

    our traditions have changed since we have kids now but the one constant is that we still go to a tree farm and cut down our christmas tree. we look forward to it every year.

  • Holly

    Opening a new pair of pjs on Xmas eve 🙂

  • Jenn P

    Baking with my daughter all day on Christmas Eve – Cookies for Santa and sweet rolls for Christmas Morning.

  • Jen

    I’m a doctor and because I’m Jewish, my holiday tradition is being on call on Christmas so others can celebrate with their families. Then they get me back on the Jewish holidays! 🙂

  • Jamie Z.

    Decorating the tree w/ freshly baked cookies and hot cocoa

  • Grace

    Baking cookies from recipes that have been in my family for generations.

  • Annie

    My favorite holiday tradition is making lefse with my family!

  • Katy

    My favorite tradition is opening 1 gift on Christmas eve. It starts with a great dinner with an intimate group and then the excitement builds and everyone goes to bed in anticipation of what the morning will be.

    It is also a favorite pass time for me to sneak back into the living room after everyone has gone to bed and look at the tree all lit up with all the gifts around it and just enjoy the quite and the magic of it all!

  • Heather R

    Board game night! We all usually take naps after eating our faces off and when we wake up it’s game time. It has been known to go until 3 or 4 in the morning and the more wine we drink the more heated the competition. My (now) husband comes from a family that never played games and I tried introducing it at their holiday one year and they looked at me like I was a crazy person.

  • Laura

    breaking up present opening with bagels and lox on christmas… a nod to our jewish side 😉

  • Shila

    I look forward to cozy afternoons with black tea with my husband’s family. Simple and lovely.

  • Alyssa S

    We do a family Christmas puzzle every year!

  • Madeline

    I love our advent calendar because we make our own tiny gifts in it which have to be homemade and “cost” nothing. Makes things fun and special!

  • Jordan

    We always go to a Japanese Steakhouse on Christmas Eve to give us a break from the kitchen and then we drive around town looking at Christmas lights.

  • Erin

    My family has been playing white elephant (aka yankee swap) forever. The gifts are always total junk, but there’s that one piece of junk that everyone seems to want… things always descend into madness, and it wouldn’t be Christmas without it.

  • laura

    church, German food, Christmas story and one gift for the kids

  • Kimyee

    I’ve got to say, just all being together and cooking. Oh, the food. 🙂 Happy Holidays All!

  • Rebekah

    PIES, all the pies. And watching White Christmas.

  • Julia

    A christmas eve crab feast that started out with just my immediate family, and has now grown to include lots of in-laws and little ones!

  • Ashley M.

    Sadly my favorite Thanksgiving tradition (going to my great uncle’s farm) ended this year when he sold the farm. But my favorite Christmas one is spending Boxing Day watching movies and building Legos before our next Christmas!

  • Natalie C

    My favorite tradition is driving around in the car with my hubby in the evening blasting Christmas music and drinking peppermint hit chocolate while hunting for the house with the best Christmas lights!!

  • Jennifer

    Watching The Night They Saved Christmas, a little-known and under-appreciated holiday movie that I’ve loved since I was 12.

  • Liz R.

    Games! Bananagrams and Boggle, to name a few.

  • Heather S

    Cutting down our own tree 🙂

  • maura

    Eating inappropriate amounts of home-made Chex Mix (extra worcestershire and peanuts) washed down with wine is my most beloved food-related holiday tradition!

  • Kayla

    One of my favorites is eating breakfast on Christmas morning with my family– Coffee cake, breakfast burritos, and Mimosas!

  • Nicole

    My husband and I recently moved away from our families, where we didn’t have any traditions. So we’re trying to start our own traditions like watching holiday movies on Christmas Day and setting up the tree the weekend after Thanksgiving.

  • Cindy Bayless

    Going to a remote cabin in the middle of nowhere is our tradition! We go with my sister and her family and make great memories with all the kiddos there !

  • Linda

    My favorite holiday tradition is being the family photo-historian and capturing everyone at their happiest, quirkiest, silliest, fullest, sleepiest, and 10 million other “est” ways.

  • Melissa

    my dad taking us to breakfast every year since we were little girls
    On Christmas Eve morning. Still happens now that we have our own families!!

  • Katrina

    Watching Christmas movies on Christmas Eve. Although my husbands favorite Christmas movie is Die Hard, so that’s a bit untraditional.

  • kate groves

    My favorite holiday tradition is wearing matching pj`s 🙂

  • Brianne

    I love rolling out the sugar cookie dough as all of my younger siblings and I cut and decorate our great-grandma’s sugar cookies.

  • Lorin

    Pie, definitely. And going to see a movie – we eat later so in recent years, my DH and I have snuck away for an early movie. We’re hosting this year, though, so I doubt that will happen. We’ll have to find a different day.

  • Emily Schoenherr

    Strawberry pretzel jello — it’s not the holidays without it!

  • Veronica

    My family is Argentenian so weirdly we don’t have a lot of family traditions when it comes to holidays…we DO however ALWAYS get together with family! LOTS of it!! 🙂

  • jessica w

    We open gifts as a family on the evening of the 24th. I like how cozy it is and as a parent I heard it is nicer because kids don’t wake you up super early. 🙂 I’m German and that is when they celebrate!

  • Jessica

    going to see holiday lights!

  • Laura

    The annual white elephant Christmas exchange!

  • Jillk

    Fondue dinner for Christmas Eve then we open gifts. Always a sparkling evening!

  • Anna

    We would always go to White Castle the night of Thanksgiving! It was our wierd family tradition!

  • Andrea H

    The cookies!! Making all the cookies. I’m excited to get my 3 year old in the mix. 🙂

  • Jen P

    On Christmas Eve my husband and I go out and get hot chocolate and then drive around and look at all the Christmas lights and decorations.

  • Kate

    Such a fabulous giveaway! One of my favorite traditions is to head downtown (we live in Seattle) and pack in a bunch of Christmas fun–highlights are the Teddy Bear room in the Fairmont Hotel, the amazing gingerbread creations at the Sheraton & one of the shopping centers that makes it “snow” every night! So magical.

  • Jenn (heartsy)

    Taking the time out of all of the craziness that is consumerism & donate knitted items to charity. Funnily, I enjoy the whole process which begins with the purchasing of yarn. Ironic, don’t you think? Sing along with me. Ha! Seriously though, it’s one of my favorite traditions.

  • Laura

    My favorite thing every year is making Christmas cookies! We always make the same 4 kinds, with a wildcard to spice things up. I bring a tray to work and give them out to friends- it’s amazing how people will go crazy over homemade cookies!

  • terri

    Making toffee popcorn balls with my sister!

  • Julie

    My favorite Christmas tradition is decorating the tree while listening to Christmas songs and baking yummy pies! Julie smartsavvymama@gmail.com

  • Sarah

    My favorite holiday tradition is making and baking stollen with my grandma, mom, and aunts.

  • Tae

    A sunrise family hike with coffee (or hot cocoa for my daughter) in travel mugs. So peaceful and simple

  • Heather Daniells

    My favorite holiday tradition is putting on our pjs, popping some popcorn then we drive around and look at the holiday lights.

  • Emma

    Watching Home Alone!

  • Krystal

    My husband and I have fondue on Christmas Eve. Always a favorite! Hope we win! Just had a baby and would love to send out minted cards!

  • Emily

    Stockings and the Christmas Eve Service at church on Christmas Eve!

  • erinlucyloves

    2012 Cooper is my favourite xo

  • Lindsay

    black Friday shopping!

  • Hannah G

    The night before Thanksgiving, my brother, sister and I karaoke at the closest neighborhood pub. The best performances of the year happen this night!

  • Jenna

    Making Christmas cookies and decorating them with my kids. I love how they eat the cookies while they decorate them, making special ones for Santa.

  • Beth

    I love my baking time with my husband. We stay up late the night before Thanksgiving and bake our hearts out….

  • Tabitha

    My favorite holiday tradition has always been my family sharing the things they are thankful for as we eat dinner at Thanksgiving. It’s the only time of the year we all gather in one place, so I love hearing what everyone from my Mommom to the smallest cousin has to share.

  • Breige

    I am one of ten children, and my parents recognized early on with their growing family the challenge the holidays pose with gift buying among siblings at Christmas. They started Kris Kringle for us with name selection from a hat at Thanksgiving around the table and a max dollar amount set. We still do this as adults, which I love as it gives me a chance to get creative and focus on one sibling this time of year now that we are all miles apart.

  • Faye

    Every Christmas Eve my parents would let my brothers and I open one Christmas present together – and it was always a Christmas book. Then, they would read that one, and the Night Before Christmas to us before bedtime. Now, we have this incredible collection of Christmas books that I hope to share with my kids someday.

  • Devon

    If I’m being honest with myself, the food! But I love the process and cooking with my mom in the kitchen again!

  • Brittany

    My favorite holiday tradition is going with my whole family to chop down a fresh Christmas tree for my parents house. We always get the biggest tree on the tree farm, sometimes having to visit 3 or 4 farms before we find our perfect tree. It always kicks off the holiday season, and is always fun (even though it’s cold), because we end up wandering around the farms together, inevitably get separated and spend the rest of the day yelling “over here!” “Come look at this one!”. It’s one of my favorite days of the holiday season!

  • Kristi

    I love Thanksgiving, I love having the family together and cooking a big meal that we all contribute too.

  • Sara

    Watching cheesy old holiday movies with the whole family 🙂

  • sarah r

    my favorite holiday tradition is our advent calendar. husband and i had the same one growing up (1982 mouse avon calendar!) and my sister just gifted us our own for our own house. i love it.

  • Mareike

    My favorite tradition is spending long evenings with good wine and my family!

  • Kavi

    Spending time with family and friends! For the last 20+ years our tradition has been to watch Home Alone 🙂

  • Marla Solano

    Baking Holiday Goodies 🙂

  • Claire

    I love thanksgiving and being in the kitchen with 3 generations of of family.

  • Emily @ Life on Food

    I love the holiday baking. I also love tearing up the bread for the Thanksgiving stuffing while watching the Macy’s parade.

  • Catherine

    Eating creme brule French toast on Christmas morning!

  • Dahlia

    I love the serenity of going to a Christmas Eve service with family and friends…singing Christmas hymns, lighting candles, and reflecting on the beautiful meaning of Christmas.

  • Meg

    Opening gifts on Christmas Eve, watching A Christmas Story, visiting a house that goes all out with a light show, and eating all the delicious food!

  • Bryant Collins

    Watching the Thanksgiving or Christmas day parade with my family. Always made us happy seeing it together.

  • Christina G

    Baking and decorating Christmas cookies!!

  • Jennifer J.

    The decorations are my favorite part. I remember them from my grandmother and mother’s house and now my kids have memories with the same items.

  • Ariadne

    Oh, definitely shopping for festive garlands, wreaths, and the Christmas tree!

  • Bonnie

    Christmas brunch at Grammy’s (that’s me) house.

  • Casey H

    I love decorating the tree to the music of Nutcracker play. We dance, we sing, we have some wine, and, eventually, the tree comes together.

  • Christine

    Baking and decorating holiday cookies!

  • Crystal F

    I just love how everyone seems so much happier than normal around the holidays….there’s always so much JOY!

  • susan

    Decorating the tree and remembering who/where each ornament came from… family heirlooms, vacations, inside jokes, creative minds. Each has a special memory and connection.

  • Christina

    My favorite holiday tradition is walking around my grandparent’s neighborhood in Santa Fe the night before Christmas iand looking at all the beautiful lights on the adobes

  • Sara

    My new family of three (as of October) gets to spend Thanksgiving together “alone” making our own traditions. We’ll join the family next year, but in 2014 we are going to make it our own 🙂

  • Laura

    Even though my little brother and i are in our late 20’s (and i’m married), we always have a slumber party christmas eve and watch the Muppets Christmas Carrol. So fun!

  • Min

    Making my world famous dry turkey! 🙂

  • Desiree

    My favorite holiday tradition is a newer one in my family but one we all really enjoy,it’s something we started doing once all the siblings grew up and our childhood Christmas traditions weren’t really practical anymore since we all lived apart. I started adding “Christmas crackers” or “Bon bons” to our holiday gatherings. They have British roots traditionally (which we totally don’t) but they’re so much fun. They each have a paper crown, a joke and a little toy inside, nothing special, like a key chain or a whistle, something like that. But they’re so much fun, we giggle and act like kids, and take pictures in the hats. It’s simple and small but I really love it.

  • Becki

    Playing “Drunk Dominos” with my family!

  • Angel

    My favorite holiday tradition is getting the family together the Sunday before Thanksgiving and having a big family meal. Doing this takes the pressure off everyone and everyone is able to make it because they don’t have any obligations that day. Then on Thanksgiving everyone that can and would like to dresses up and goes out to dinner. No slaving over the stove or cleaning up!

  • TaraO

    I like to make a big, fancy meal. Food is my love language, and it’s the way I show my family that I love them. Of course, the best part is eating all of that yummy food 🙂

  • Shannon

    Eating summer sausage for breakfast on Christmas morning!

  • kara

    Going out for Chinese food on Christmas Eve

  • Jenny

    Baking!! I love baking holiday treats for friends, family, neighbors, anyone! And of course eating some myself!

  • Meredith

    As my kid says “Spending time with our big, hilarious, crazy family.”

  • Amanda

    I love picking out and cutting down our Christmas tree from a farm in Connecticut. It feels like such an adventure away from NYC.

  • Joanna

    Decorating our Christmas tree! My husband has been collecting ornaments his whole life it seems, so we have way too many ornaments to fit on the tree. Every year we choose different ones! (But some make the cut every year) 🙂

  • Terri Lea Ikeda

    Our Annual Thanksgiving day hike with family and friends!
    This year we had 4 generations on our hike!

  • Lydia W.

    Hmm…I think my favorite holiday tradition is playing a gift game with friends on Christmas Eve, but my most delicious holiday tradition is baking cinnamon rolls Christmas morning!

  • Allie

    My favorite holiday tradition? Curling up with a homemade candy cane mocha, relaxing, and watching an NCIS marathon on black friday with my family and my dog while everyone is out in the world going bonkers trying to find the latest nintendo deal.

  • Tanya B

    Every year my aunt’s church, hosts a ladies tea. All the lady cousins (even the little ladies), get together for chatting and dinner at beautifully decorated tables. It’s something I have come to look forward to each year.

  • jessicaisbaking

    I love the family togetherness!!

  • molly L

    I love our family mug game. It is like white elephant but with handcrafted mugs. Steal one 3 times and it’s yours!

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