What are your holiday traditions? Do you stick to old ones or try to create new ones? We’re going to be starting The Elf on The Shelf with Augustine this year! I know he’ll think it’s so fun! I asked on Instagram for some of your favorites so I thought I’d round them up below if any of you need ideas on how to make this holiday season extra special:

Your Holiday Traditions

• “Reading the night before Christmas with my parents in our living room and then listening for the reindeer outside my window! (My dad would ring jingle bells outside at the end of our driveway so I couldn’t see him, and I totally believed it lol!)” – Elle Elisabeth
• “Decorating the Christmas tree together is my all time favorite family tradition!” – Pollyana Ferreira-Lonas
• “We always watch a Christmas story on Thanksgiving day. Now it’s ELF literally every morning with my kiddos” – Andee Layne
• “I watch all the classic kids movies (Frosty, Rudolph, The Grinch, Charlie Brown, etc) and now have Penelope watch them with me. We also go to this one street in our neighborhood that goes ALL OUT with decorations and light and music shows and Santa and on and on. We love going to look at any and all Christmas lights as a family.” – Michelle Gibson
• “A tradition we’re starting with Hazel this year is an activity advent calendar. I shared a blog post on it with a printable. But basically, each day Hazel will open the advent calendar and it will have a piece of paper with an activity written on it…a Christmas craft, donate food/gifts, dance to Christmas music, have a picnic under the Christmas tree, etc.” – Kacie Ellis
• “Opening PJ’s and slippers every Christmas Eve” – Elle Coffman
• “I would leave notes and treats for Santa on Xmas eve, and carrots for the reindeer. My dad would smudge the napkin with soot from our fireplace and take bites out of the carrots… that was so magical to see in the morning!” – Laura Gallup
• “The past several years on Christmas Eve my family has gone caroling to all of the older relatives who live near us which I love!” – Claire Fox
• “At Christmas Eve dinner we wear red Christmas sweaters, all of us. This year me and my cousin have a Grinch one! But the men have one with Santa and the women have one with a reindeer. Or cool Christmas hats, we use always something related with Christmas for dinner and then take Christmas photos!” – Margarida Duque
• “Listening to Frank Sinatra Xmas music we recently had a friend visiting and he loved the warm ambiance from the music.” – Shaffali
• “We eat cheese fondue for Christmas Eve dinner” – Holly Sax
• “Wearing Christmas PJs all day on Christmas Eve.” – Daisy Zavala
• “We have an advent calendar with an ornament for each day. My daughter loves putting the ornaments on the tree!” -Lauren Hansen
• “My family always makes sugar cookies and homemade icing to decorate them.” – Kasie More
• “Nutcracker ballet” – Sara
• “We celebrate with fondue and matching pajamas!” – Renee Butler Breiten
• “Making gingerbread together!!!” – Lish
• “I love and look forward to the service our church gives every Christmas, and singing carols and traditional Christmas songs with our church family is incredibly beautiful. I also am an avid Baker, so each year, only at Christmas I make the most amazing from scratch cinnamon rolls and icing and my hubby and I deliver to our friends as a gift. We just had our first child a few weeks ago and we are so excited to share these traditions with him and create new ones in the years to come.” – Angela Hines
• “So far our biggest tradition is going on a sleigh ride up in the mountains! I hope to do it with my little ones every year!” – Ally Gradley
• “Every year on the Saturday after Thanksgiving my family plays Christmas themed bingo! There are usually around 20 of us. This tradition has been going on since before I was born, so over 30 years!” – Rachel Chiariello
• “My favorite tradition is a scavenger hunt! Every year on Christmas my parents hide one of our gifts (normally the biggest or most expensive or the one that both my sister and i get). They premake clues ahead of time and after all other presents are open we hide in the bathroom while they set it up and then we come out and they give us our first clue which leads us around the house to each next clue eventually to the present. As we’ve gotten older my parents have tried to find ways to make it more difficult too.” – Mariah Rickard
• “I’m from deep in the European Alps, from a small village up in the mountains. Here, we still have a lot of traditions — mostly religious ones that are based on “heathen” practices though. One of them is smoking out all the rooms in every building with incense (while praying the rosary). It sounds super-religious, but it doesn’t feel that way at all. It’s quite mysterious, walking through the snow in the dark with the smell of incense all around. In the mountains we also kept the essence of this holiday, so presents aren’t that important.” – Hemma J
• “Whenever we go on vacation we always buy an ornament for the tree. When it comes time to decorate the tree we also get to reminisce about our getaways and where we got the ornaments from.” – Claire Gallo

I love how many of you have the tradition of Christmas pajamas on Christmas Eve! That is so so fun! In case you missed it, I rounded up some really cute options last week! Let me know if there’s one of yours I can add!

One of my favorites holiday traditions was making Christmas cookies with my mom and I am so excited that Augustine is finally old enough to partake in this activity. Well he can at least eat the cookies for now! Speaking of cookies, I’m so excited because this year I want to feature my readers’ FAVORITE Christmas cookie recipes! I would love it if you would leave one of your absolute favorite cookie recipes in the comments or email me at hello@mlovesm.com. I’ll be featuring them in an extra special post before Christmas! I hope it will inspire some of you to make some delicious holiday treats!