Christmas Traditions | North Carolina Photographer

I was sitting at my desk thinking of how I was going to write up my next post and tie it up to my next installment of Christmas favorites when a twitter question came through from the amazing Jaclyn Michele asking her twitter pals for some Christmas traditions we all have. Well, that’s when the light went off and thought this was a great way to tie everything together so thanks Jaclyn for the inspiration for this post.

xmas-traditions

We have several traditions in our family that we love that I hope that when my son is grown he will look back and treasure.

The first one that comes to mind is the yearly viewing of National Lampoons Christmas Vacation we love that movie and no matter how many times we have seen it we crack up each time we see it like it was the first. The tradition started on my first Christmas as Mrs. Gruszczynski we were home from work just chilling out when they played the movie on TV we enjoyed it so much and laughed so hard together that we mentioned it my mother-in-law and the following Christmas she gave it to us as a stocking gift with a note that said I hope it brings you many more years of laughter together and we have been watching it ever since and that was 17yrs ago. Our Christmas would not be complete without watching it.

Another tradition we love is our PJ’s tradition that we get for Christmas. Growing up my hubby and I remember always getting PJ’s for Christmas so we kept that tradition going as I feel you can never have too many but we put a twist on it the year my son was born and he celebrated his first Christmas and New Years.

I had heard a whole bunch traditions over the years that families or people do for new years and one of them was that you were supposed to greet the New Year wearing something new so that year way back in 1995 when we celebrated our first holiday with our little boy we decided to greet the New Year in our brand new PJ’s snuggled in bed together awaiting the new year and have been doing it ever since.

Another one I love is The Gruszczynski Christmas Breakfast where we make a huge meal with every breakfast item you can think of and eat it after we open presents that morning which in most times was around 7am as my son always managed to wake us up at 6am or earlier to tell us that Santa came. The great thing about this one is not the eating but that we make the items together and have fun doing it.

The last tradition I will share with you even though there are a ton more is the yearly ornaments that my son and our doggie get for the holiday. Each year on Thanksgiving weekend we put up all the Christmas lights and decorate the tree now normally for most people the angel is the last item to go on the tree but for us it’s the new ornament they get from grandma & grandpa. Each year the ornament giving has to do with something that happened that year in my son’s life. Like the first year he started school he got a school house ornament or like the year he started playing in the school band he got a clarinet ornament and the most recent from last year was the cap & diploma ornament with the year to celebrate the fact that he was graduating from middle school that year.

Midnight always gets some great ones as well first year was a bone with a ribbon with her name on it then she got a wonderful frame that we added the beautiful Christmas photo we took of her that year and for the last 3 years she has received a different Black Lab ornament that are absolutely adorable and place them all on the bottom level of the tree so she can see them all.

I hope you have enjoyed reading and learning about some of the Christmas traditions we have and that you have some of your own that you treasure.

I end this post today with just a few of the traditional Christmas music I love. Enjoy!