Christmas Customs

Received a lovely email from the Mumsnet Team this week www.mumsnet.com/ which highlighted some Christmas customs it might be nice to 'borrow'.

Run Up To Christmas
We have a little elf who 'arrives' on 1 December bringing our Advent calendars and then sits on various shelves round the house watching the children to check if they're being good. On Christmas Eve, he disappears to report to Father Christmas how good they've been and whether they will get any presents!

Christmas Eve
We do PJs and Christmas books. Apparently, they fall off Santa's sleigh.
We make a runway from tealights in jam jars in the garden on Christmas Eve so the big man knows where to land.
We do milk and a mince pie for Santa and a carrot for the reindeer.
We must watch the Muppet Christmas Carol DVD on Christmas Eve, otherwise it's just not Christmas.
We live in north Norway and the main day of Christmas is 24 December. After Christmas dinner, we head up to the cemetery. We have candles, seasonal decorations and a bottle of water to make the candles freeze in place. It is still and serene; totally dark except for thousands of candles on decorated graves. We decorate and light the candles, give thoughts to the year that has passed, remember our ancestors, and head home.
When my children were small, I would sprinkle talcum powder (snow) around the tree and my brother would put on his big work boots and walk through the talc. The children were convinced Santa had been and brought the snow with him.

Christmas Pleasures
The sheer magic of story-telling, singing, baking, crafting, going on long icy walks, whispering about magic late at night, dressing up, laughing and sharing is what it's all about. The whole family comes together and the same traditions are entered into with the same joy each year.
The children unwrap little stocking pressies, all covered in separate Santa paper, with messages on the cards, such as 'For working hard on your maths' or 'For being kind to Nanny'. And then potatoes, wrapped too, with messages like 'For getting stroppy with your brother again'!

Aftermath
When we are tidying away the decorations, we write a little note to put in with them, saying what we hope for in the year ahead. It is lovely when you open the decorations box the next year and see what you have written.