Do you watch football every Thanksgiving? Does an elf sit on your shelf before Christmas? Or do you spin a dreidel on Chanukah? We all have our traditions to personalize the holidays and make them feel special.
But some traditions are more common than others. So we want to know... what holiday traditions do you follow each year? Tell us to win a $50 Etsy gift card and a Thanksgiving Thankful Tree Kit!
To get you started, here are some of the non-traditional traditions SheSpeaks staff members celebrate during the holidays:
We do a Thanksgiving Tree every year. Everyone gets leaves and they write what they are thankful for and then we hang them from branches that we collect together. It's very sweet. - Aliza Enter below to win your own Thanksgiving Thankful Tree Kit, plus a $50 Etsy gift card!
Each kid gets a new ornament for our Christmas tree every year. We buy it from a store that has tons of ornaments - they even write their name and year on it. My kids are now 21 and 16 so we have tons of them, everything from soccer, gymnastics and baseball to graduations and driving. - Missy
Instead of gifts every night for Chanukah, we spend some nights doing activities with the kids, usually involving food and a giant mess. We've tried making sushi (a sticky-rice mess), fondue (a chocolate mess) and pasta (the biggest mess of all - flour was everywhere!) - Susan
We make homemade pizza on Christmas Eve, for every year of my life I can remember except one! We even make the crust from scratch and everyone picks their own toppings. Even my teenage son calls it "the best tradition ever." - Carol
My New Year's Eve tradition is to make a fancy dinner at home and skip the crowds. In addition to getting some decadent food, we try a new signature cocktail, candles & mood music so we can feel like we've transformed our house into a swanky restaurant. - Emily
*One lucky commenter, Tweeter or Instagrammer will be chosen at random to receive a $50 Etsy gift card and a Thanksgiving Thankful Tree (if the tree is sold out, the prize will instead be a $75 Etsy gift card.) Giveaway is open through November 25th, 2018 to U.S. residents at least 18 years of age. Entrants must be a member of SheSpeaks. If you are not a member, click here to join. Winner will be notified by email.
Update: Thanks to all who entered! Congrats to our winner, SheSpeaks member peter26.
Eating
Making cookies
Watching Dallas Cowboys football and eating pumpkin pie!
Close the Thanksgiving Tree. We have small cards and write out names. After desert and or during. We draw from the empty cranberry dish. Names for Christmas presents !!
I bake all the cookies for the family. When we all get together I give each family member a cookie box and they all fill their boxes with the cookies they like. Its really fun.
i love baking and putting up lights
When our children were growing up, we gave each of them a personalized Christmas ornament each year. The theme of the ornament was something that was special in their lives that year. When they each got married, we gave them a box of their own childhood ornaments. We have continued gifting yearly Christmas ornaments to each of our grandchildren.
My favorite holiday tradition is creating a gingerbread house with my kids!
My favorite holiday tradition is opening Christmas presents from Santa on Christmas morning...even though my kids are 19 and 17 years old!
We owned an upscale catering biz for years and my favorite was on Christmas eve when all our regular clients would come in and pick up their side dishes and desserts by late afternoon. It was great to catch up with everyone and thank them! Then we'd take a little time to give our staff presents; after they went home, my husband (and chef) would take a little tour of all the Christmas lights in our neighborhood, capping it off with a nice bottle of champagne and tree trimming at home. It was a lovely time to reflect on the year and relax (though we had one boxing day client, so the day after Christmas we were back at it!
We are hosting Thanksgiving dinner every year.
I absolutely love putting up the Christmas tree! I sure don't like taking it down.
We used to do a Thankgsiving Tree when my kids were younger. I would save the leaves and put them up each year and it was so cute to see what the kids were thankful for... one year my daughter put "Toylit Papr" haha :) :)
Chinese food on Christmas and movies!
Enjoying the day with all my kids and grandkids