Our Simple yet Magical Christmas Family Traditions

Does your family have its own Christmas tradition? We have our simple yet magical Christmas family traditions that we practice every single year although this year things might be a little different. For as long as I can remember we have religiously practised our Christmas traditions without fail and I hope one day when I have a family of my own, we can do something similar or better yet create our own Christmas tradition.

For most families, Christmas is the time of year when everyone gathers in one location (usually your mother or grandmother’s house) and eat till you pass out whilst creating memories with those you cherish. This year like previous years, we had planned to spend Christmas with my parents and for the first time ever, I was going to be hosting over Christmas. I was very much looking forward to reliving our simple yet magical Christmas family traditions.

Our Simple yet Magical Christmas Family Traditions

Even though this year has not been the best of years and for many of us it has knocked us for six, it has also reminded us of the importance of keeping in touch with our families and friends. Thanks to advancements in technology, even when we were alone for months on end, we still had each other via the power of social networking sites and we spent more time catching up than ever before. Whilst it’s nice that we’ve been able to connect the way we have done in the last few months, there is nothing like being together in the flesh.

Christmas this year for many will definitely be different but that doesn’t mean we can’t continue with our simple yet magical Christmas family traditions. Even though this year it will most likely be just my sister and me, I am determined to ensure we make our Christmas as normal as we possibly can. In this post, I want to share with you our top 5 Christmas family traditions that we have practised since I was born and hope we can continue for many more years to come.

1. Church on Sunday morning

Coming from a Christian family, Christmas is an important event in our church calendar and for four weeks leading up to the day, we celebrate advent and light one of the four candles weekly until Christmas. When I was young, I remember being rustle early in the morning, showered, dressed and fed then ushered to church with the rest of my family. I remember this fondly and even though when I was younger this felt like torture waking up so early on a cold crisp morning.

But once we got to the church, the magic of Christmas would hit me in the face and I didn’t want to leave. We would meet up with family friends, extended family members and neighbours, it was magical. I remember spending hours on end at church from Sunday school through to fellowship after the main service. By the time we were leaving the church we were absolutely beat and couldn’t wait to get home and tuck into some nice foods.

2. Cook Lunch together

But before we could tuck into that food, you had to cook it and this part as fun as it was I disliked. We would as much as possible prepare what we could before we left for the service and since there was no one left at home, we wouldn’t risk leaving the turkey cooking for hours on end not knowing when we would get home. It meant, the minute we got into the house, the turkey cooking would begin (and most years, we opted for chicken as it was faster) and we would prepare the sides.

We often had our lunch around 2-3pm and this is one of my favourite memories. After slaving for hours cooking multiple dishes in between singing songs and chatting away, we would finally sit at the dinning table and tuck into the heap that was our Christmas lunch. Thinking about it now I am feel stuffed and I haven’t eat yet but excited for tuck into the food in a few hours. Often we ate so much food that you would find yourself in what I could only describe as a food-coma for many hours after eating.

3. Nap for lunch

Most families would go for a walk after eating but ours, more often than not we slept, the house goes from being absolutely loud filled with laughter and joy to a ghost town. Our food-comas were a true thing, I remember feeling absolutely spent as if I just run a marathon but on a full stomach and everything feels heavy that bed is the only solution. I appreciated that this happened to all of us in the house and we all napped albeit at different times.

4. Eat whatever you fancy for dinner 

Dinner time was also another favourite part of Christmas for me because we didn’t bother to cook anything new because we had enough left overs to feed a community somewhere in the world. I remember we would wake up, catch for what felt like ages but its only minutes because our food-coma naps would spiral into a full blown sleep and we wouldn’t wake up for a good 5-6 laters. This meant everyone would stay up late and wouldn’t go to bed until the wee hours of the morning but before then its cake.

5. Mum bakes a cake the night before

My mum makes the best cakes in the world, since I was young, I watched my mother bake and picked up some of her baking skills but her cakes are still better than mine. It is part of our family tradition for mum to bake the Christmas cake the night before Christmas because any earlier, as history had taught us meant we would it before Christmas – defeating the all purpose of a Christmas cake.

When we had survived our food-comas we would often nitpick what we would eat for dinner because we didn’t want to jeopardise the Christmas cake space we have left in our stomachs. It always amazed me how much cake we would consume even after having eaten so much only a few hours prior. But its tradition, the cake with a nice cup of tea to wash down the stress of the day is the best Christmas ending ever.

And there you have it, our simple yet magical Christmas family traditions that my family have practised for many years and I hope we continue to do so. Obviously this year is a bit different but we are keeping the Christmas spirit alive until we can celebrate like this again in the not so distant future. Does your family have any Christmas traditions?