Valentines Day traditions

Today I wanted to share some Valentines day traditions that I am trying to start with my family. I think traditions have to be more than a one day thing and I figure my kids are getting old enough now "(almost 5 and 3) that they will start to make memories of things we do together so we have been doing one or two things each day to show love and appreciation to those around us.

I love Valentine's day because it is a good excuse to do things for people that might be considered corny other parts of the year but for valentines they can be "sweet" or "nice." You know? I COULD hide hearts with messages where my husband will find them when he gets ready in the morning but he might think that was a little silly but on valentines day you can bet he will find things like that and MORE. :)

For the boys, we made giant sugar cookies and decorated them as conversation hearts and delivered them to their teachers and good friends. They LOVED delivering them. We made some fun ones for the kids to decorate too. We MAY have used a whole jar on 1; but maybe not.

Of course I made a few for the husband too but he let me eat them. What a good man!

Another thing we started this year was heart attacking the bedrooms with notes of love and appreciation. The kids light up when I read them. They each wrote one for the others (they told me what to write) and got to stick them on the door.

I also planned out and got the candy for the candy grams I am going to stick on their doors so they will get them on Valentines day. I KNOW they will love these!

We also made some peanut butter blossom cookies because they are daddy's favorite. Most of them are gone now they were THAT good.

Yum!

Christmas Eve

Here it is Christmas Eve and I am probably the MOST excited. Today we are making spudnuts, decorating paper bags, delivering goodies, driving around admiring Christmas lights, doing the nativity, reading Christmas stories by the Christmas tree and enjoying the season.

There will be no shopping today, no running about, just being together.

Oh and a Treasure map is being created! I wish I could post pictures but the hubby (who is an artist) took my childish renderings to work to fix them. This treasure map will be deposited by Santa into the stocking of my oldest son.

He adores treasure maps and his dream is to make tons of maps and have me follow them around the back yard ALL DAY. So he is getting his chance to have us follow a treasure map tomorrow.

The plan is stockings here and presents awaiting us at a nearby location only to be found by following a treasure map!

Sounds fun? He will love it and I am so excited to see his eyes light up when he sees Santa left him a treasure map to help him find his presents.

Looking forward to tomorrow!

What do you do on Christmas Eve?

What do you eat Christmas morning?

Growing up we got little boxes of sugary ceral in our stockings - like fruit loops and we just ate that. We never got ceral so this was a BIG deal but I am thinking I want something a little more fancy....like egg and sausage casserole or some baked french toast. I am looking for recipes.

Also we are taking a blog vacation until the new year so there will be no new posts until then....although I might show you the MAP.

Christmas Traditions—Paper Bag Stockings

'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house

Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,

The tradition of the Christmas stocking has been around for thousands of years and has ties back to dozens of countries. I loved reading a little more about the background. In Holland, children received goodies in their clogs from "Sinterclass." Or there's the story that Saint Nicolas secretly left a little gold in the stockings drying by a fireplace of a family whose mother just died.

Still others say in North America the traditional Christmas stocking actually dates back to the end of the XIXth Century. Some believe the first mention of Christmas stockings being hung from a chimney were by Thomas Nast, an illustrator, thr ough his pictures and by the writer, George Webster, in a story about a visit from Santa Claus.

Well, in the Salisbury family, our Christmas stocking tradition revolves around brown paper bags.

OK it might not SEEM very exciting, and I remember several times growing up wondering why we couldn't have the fancy, cool looking stockings like everyone else.

It all comes from our mom's family. They had nine kids and apparently their stockings could never last. Our Grandma Minnie would make stockings and somehow they'd always get ruined and sticky from the special candy dropped inside each year. So one year she looked at what they had and decided to just use some lunch sacks. And it worked. They started out simple, maybe with just each person's name. Maybe they'd write a letter to Santa on it or draw a picture. And over the years, people got more creative, adding color, glitter, wrapping paper, glue and more.

Now every Christmas Eve, our family pulls out a package of lunch sacks and proceeds to get crafty decorating our "stockings" for that year. Sometimes we take more time, sometimes we take less. Sometimes we have to use more than one bag each because the first try simply wasn't good enough. When everyone is done, we line the bags up in birth order.

One of Jules' simple but glittery designs.

Everyone on Christmas morning showing off our stockings. I especially liked mine this year: see the tree branch border (back left)?

Another year: KK and Toots displaying the front and back of our stockings. Don't judge us from these early morning pictures!!

Christmas Traditions

Hi, Sizzle here talking about traditions today. Traditions are SO important so this week we are each sharing one of our traditions. Every Christmas our family made homemade spud nuts for friends and neighbors. Our mother grew up on a farm and they did this every year while she was growing up so we are the third generation keeping that tradition alive.

The donut tradition isn't just making donuts. There is a process...and NAME TAGS are a MUST. It isn't the same without the name tags so now even though we are all grownup and can keep on task we still insist on wearing name tags for traditions sake.



The main rolls are cutter, fryer, roller, glazer, cutter, carrier. We all wear name tags - they have gotten cutter over the years - we use labels.

Last year was the first year we made them away from "Home base" and it was the first time we had little kids "helping." It was fun and still a good result but since we didn't have all the right tools we had to improvize

No donut cutter - use a cup. No donut hole cutter use part of a lamp!

The results of this tradition are happy faces all around.

Treats for neighbors

We used clothespins for the cards to on one side, from on the other

Unfortunately you have to be home on Christmas Eve to get these treats because they take the whole day to make and tradition says we do this on Christmas eve.