My good friend, Behka, who is new to the blogging world, asked this question on her blog and here are my answers. What are your favorite Christmas traditions? What do you make sure you do each year? What do you love about the holiday season?

*A favorite tradition for me has always been cutting down the Christmas tree. It was always so much fun growing up and it is so much to go out with my own kids and see the excitement in their faces too.

*I love sending out and receiving Christmas cards, too. I almost always make them (for the last 6-7 years anyway) and normally I have them made, addressed and stamped by Nov. 15. And there they wait until after Thanksgiving when I mail them out, but it was Dec. 7 before I had my cards out this year.  And I still have a stack I need to finish.  Augh!

*I love making the goodies for Christmas. My mom always made homemade chocolates, just like her mom, and now I do too. I love to make sugar cookies and decorate them with the kids and last year I started making caramels as well. And the caramel recipe is super easy.

*Christmas Eve was always the best at my parents house. We would start the festivities with an odd assortment of food for dinner – cheese fondue, li’l smokies, veggies, cheese ball and crackers, chips and dip, turkey and rolls for sandwiches, etc. There was always a Christmas puzzle up to work on during spare time. We play our home-made Christmas bingo until everyone had won a prize or two. We use M&M’s as place markers and try not to eat them all before the game is done. We read the story out of the bible, although now we read it from this book. It is a beautiful book, and it quotes the King James version of the bible. And we always get to open a gift on Christmas Eve. It is always pajamas. Growing up, my mom made the pajamas for everyone. As a married woman, my mother-in-law does it for the grandkids but she didn’t this year, so they will open the pajamas that I got at Wal-mart for $5 on “black Friday.” After that we put out chocolate milk and home made chocolates for Santa and try to go to sleep.

*Each year my mother-in-law buys an advent calendar for the kids that has a chocolate for each day leading up to Christmas, and my kids look forward to this every year. When Oldest commented that his cousin was lucky (being the only child) because he didn’t have to share his chocolates with a brother and a sister, we talked about how he doesn’t have to share but he also doesn’t have a someone always there to play with.

*Christmas music. Growing up my mom always played a lot of great music at the Christmas time and I do as well. I have probably 12 cds that I just love to listen to so we listen to Christmas music non-stop from the day after Thanksgiving until New Years.

*A few years ago our Bishopric gave all the families in the ward these beautiful little white felt stockings, with a poem inside. Each year we put a personal goal, and family goals in the stocking as our “gifts” to Christ. The following Christmas Eve we pull out last years “gifts” and start again. My kids are getting old enough to do this now too and I can’t wait.

Your turn. Tell me about your favorite Christmas traditions in the comments or on your own blog.