A New Christmas Tradition

It's starting to look like Christmas everywhere you look. Let the traditions begin!

Many families have similar traditions, the joy of presents, food, the neighborhood light drive, Santa Clause, and of course, the tree decorating. Every mom desires to provide the best Christmas experience for their children.

Our family's Christmas traditions have aired on the side of what most would consider the typical American Christmas. The best Christmas experience for the kids equated to having all the gifts; anything they asked for, I made my mission to find and provide to the best of my ability. My eyes would light up, watching them rip open each gift.

Within days, gifts were broken or lost, and the magic had faded away into just images of the day.

As the boys grew older, my thoughts changed on what the best Christmas experience equated to. I realized that my time with them was limited, and while the pictures of the opening gifts are great, I really wanted to focus on making each holiday count. My desire to provide the best Christmas experience is still there, but now we focus on new adventures as a family.

I knew I had to win over the family, though, so the boys opened their one Christmas Eve gift, per tradition, and were surprised with a trip to Disney World for the first year on Christmas Eve. The joy in their eyes made my heart smile, and just like that, a new Christmas tradition was born.

Of course, we've kept most of our holiday traditions alive such as cookies for Santa, gingerbread house building, tree decorating, and the opening of two or three gifts. But for one week out of the year, during the most magical time of the year, we travel and experience each other. We get to see neighborhood lights and experience new foods in a different part of the world. Now the kids don't have so many gift requests, and their eyes light up when we reveal our next holiday destination where we get to create new memories and experience new things together.

I hope this is a Christmas tradition passed down in our family for generations to come!