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Monday
Dec222008
Contest: Mok Duk
Anne Benjamin, illustrator and designer, recenlty e-mailed us to introduce her company, Mok Duk. Mok Duk is a line of finely crafted cards and custom invitations. Each one of Anne Benjamin's designs for Mok Duk is designed and printed exclusively for each client. Here is a small sampling of her gorgeous custom work. Enter the Mok Duk giveway for a chance to win a custom Mok Duk design created for you!
Win: A custom designed wedding logo and 75 letterpressed (with logo) thank you folded cards and envelopes.
How to Enter: Leave a comment on this post telling us about a unique holiday tradition of yours.your favorite holiday tradition. Winner will be chosen at random.
Contest ends Monday, December 29th at midnight!
Monday, December 22, 2008 at 01:00PM
Reader Comments (67)
We always open all of our gifts on Christmas eve and stockings on Christmas morning. But I'm looking forward to creating new traditions with my fiance!
This is an Oklahoma thing, but every year my family sings the BC Clark Anniversary Sale jingle! The jingle was created in 1956 and most Oklahoman's know it by heart -- but my family goes the extra mile, whips out the keyboard, and we all sing in unison. It's a blast (and oh so catchy)!!
Over the past few years, I have relocated frequently for my job. Some years, I was unable to make it home for Christmas. My mom began the tradition of mailing me my favorite southern grocery store chain cake. Now, even though I'm back in the South and can run down the street to that grocery store, and even come home for Christmas, she still mails me a special Christmas package that includes the cake!
While most people stay home for dinner, we head out to a fancy dinner on Christmas Eve. It's always fun to see the restaurants decked out for Christmas and they are never crowded. It's always a great night!
I have 2 favorite holiday traditions now that I'm engaged. When we celebrate with my family, we always go to the movies on Christmas Day. You'd be surprised, but the theatres are actually quite busy on Christmas. And my second... when we're with my fiance's family...his mom's delicious tamales that only come out during the holidays! They're delish!
I have a huge family, I am one of 5 kids my mom is one of 10 kids. So when all of my cousins and I get together instead of getting gifts for everyone, we have a "Yankee Change". We try to bring the "best" or funniest gift for around $20. Then we pick a number to see who goes first, they open a gift, then the next person can either steal the first person's gift or open a new gift, and so on. This can sometimes last for hours. Usually siblings stick together to try and steal from other familes, its always a really good time! But I usually end up with a "Chi-a-pet" or something stupid.
My dad used to tie our gifts to kite strings, then wind the bobbins all over the house. It would take hours to find the gifts, and they'd usually be within 20 feet of the starting point. I've started doing that with my friends now, and it's so much fun!
My other favorite? Making tons of cookies!
I celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve - opening presents and all. My father was a firefighter for many years and always had to work on Christmas Day. We'd all have a big dinner at my grandmother's house, then go home and open presents that night. Even though my parents and I live in different cities now, we always still celebrate Christmas on the 24th. Christmas Eve has a magic feeling that Christmas day doesn't seem to have. :)
Its a tradition that we no longer have since I have taken over doing the preparation of the Holiday meals. However, growing up it was tradition in my house that I was the "taster" for all the dishes. As my grandmother and mother prepared our holiday meal I was called in to taste the dishes as they were prepared to see if they were seasoned or flavored right. I think it started as a way to make me feel as though I was helping out in the kitchen (though I was too young to do any of the serious cooking), however, it helped me to learn all the recipes from my grandmother and mother, ones which I lovingly prepare for my family now.
Hopefully when my fiance and I have children we can make them the special "tasters".
Ever since I was a little girl my mother has let us pick one gift to open on Christmas Eve. This tradition started because me and my sister would drive her crazy begging to open presents. Now, even though we are both in our 20's, we still get to pick one gift to open. :) I'd be lying if I said it's not as exciting today as it was then.
Happy Holidays!
We would go outside and grab some clean snow, then swirl maple syrup over it. Tasty :) and suitable for us poor people. After that, we'd be all sticky while opening presents, but that just made it easier to get the wrapping paper all in one heap -- stuck to our fingers.
We have so many - but one of my favorites is that on Christmas Eve my family opens just one present after the midnight candle light church service. We have done it every year since I was young, it's a tradition that I can't wait to do with my future family.
Every year after Christmas dinner and the family has exchanged gifts we all sit down and play games-- Wheel of Fortune, Deal or no Deal DVDs are among the favorites. It is always extremely intense because everyone is so ridiculously competitive. It definitely makes for fun times every year though!
For the last fifteen years or so, our family tradition on Christmas Eve has been to have fondue for dinner. When I was in high school, we had a German exchange student and she told us this was one of her family traditions. It's one of my favorite things about the season!
When my parents first moved to the U.S., they didn't have enough money to spend on unnecessary items like a tree and ornaments. That first Christmas here, my mother and brother hand made ornaments. Thusly, they started a family tradition where each person gets to make an ornament out of whatever they like. They're considered family heirlooms and every year, we pull them out and decorate the tree with them as well as store-bought ornaments. Each one has a story though and the ornaments have chronicled my family's history here. My mother keeps them all and delicately wraps all of the ornaments up after each Christmas - some are just made with photographs or cutouts of Holiday books with toothpick glued onto them as frames. It's a tradition I hope to continue when I start putting up my own family tree.
We have a tradition at our house called the "Night Night Fairy." She comes on Christmas Eve Eve (the 23rd, of course!) to bring my Dad, Mom, sister and me pajamas that we wear on Christmas Eve! Though my sister and I have graduated from college, we still come home every Christmas, and the Night Night Fairy still brings us beautiful PJs (we called them "night nights" growing up) for us to display Christmas Eve and Christmas morning when we open presents! The Night Night fairy even brings my fiance PJs!
Christmas eve cooking!!!! Lots and lots of stirring in the kitchen and weird enough, barbecue in the middle of the night. My siblings and I really love it. More than the gifts I think it's the togetherness of the family that makes holiday worth celebrating.
My favorite holiday tradition is Christmas Eve with all of my dad's family--all of us (there are 12 now that my sister and I are married or getting there!) pile into the living room at my grandparents' house for good food and gifts. We have to wait till the sun goes down before we can open presents, and it's the LONGEST day EVER (at least for the youngest ones!)
We always have my mom's beef stew on Christmas Eve with homemade cornbread, and on Christmas day we make sure to watch either A Christmas Story or National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation so we get in some good laughs together.
Baking all our old-family recipes for holiday cookies and eating half the batter before they ever hit the oven. :)
For large gifts (coats, sporting equipment, off shapped gifts, etc.) my family starts with one written clue on the Christmas tree that then leads to another clue hidden somewhere in the house. The recepient follows the series of clues and discovers the present at it's final destination.
When I left for college my mom wanted to make sure I stayed in the Christmas "spirit", so she would send me a "12 Days of Christmas" box filled with little gifts all wrapped with ribbons and bows. I would unwrap one present every day and it always helped me get through the last, tough weeks of the semester. After I graduated I was sure she'd stop...but she hasn't yet! I still get a "12 Days of Christmas" box and I hope she continues to do it even after the wedding!
Gosh, this is the reason I love Christmas so much...everyone has something so special. We actually do two unique things...when my mom was a little girl her mom always bought pomegranite's for the children so we do the same thing. My mom also still buys me an Advent calendar every year. I still get just as excited as I did to open it every day as I did when I was a little girl!
We always read the story of Jesus's birth on Christmas Eve from Luke. It's a wonderful way to remind us of what Christmas is all about.
We have a tradition at Christmas, every year, no matter how cold it is...all of my cousins, my brothers, my step dad and a few of my uncles and me get out and play basketball in my Ma-Maw's front yard. Everyone is so competitive and is so much fun trash talking people you only get to see a few times a year. Its all in good fun and we have a blast.