It's just about time for the Sneaky Snowman to make his appearance at our house!! Can't wait!! If you weren't around the first time I blogged about our magical little friend, then here's the scoop.
The Sneaky Snowman, a stuffed fellow, hibernates in a box with Christmas decorations. We always find him when we open those boxes up. Once he's freed from the box, the kids play with him for the rest of the day.
At night they each have to hold him and say "Sneaky Snowman so cold and white, please go hide while we sleep tonight". If they all do that, then the Sneaky Snowman will hide somewhere in our house while we all sleep that night. If they fail to say the magic words, then the Sneaky Snowman just stays wherever he was last put. We've had that happen a few times around here when the kids forgot to say goodnight to the Sneaky Snowman.
We realized that the Sneaky Snowman is pretty gracious toward young kids who don't quite talk, as Naomi would just touch him as a four month old and hug him while she jabbered as a 16 month old. However, he's pretty firm with adults. It seems that no matter how much an adult wants to find him, he's only visible to children when he's hiding. Tim and I are completely unable to figure out his hiding spots.
Each morning the kids go looking for the Sneaky Snowman. Sometimes they find him right away and other times it takes hours for him to be discovered. Once he's been found the kids can play with him until bedtime. Then the magic starts again and continues until the Christmas decorations are packed away. The boys have asked how the Sneaky Snowman gets around the house, but we've never been able to figure it out. It's magic!
Now, I just happen to know that our Sneaky Snowman has two friends who want to adopted by someone looking for a little Christmas magic in their home. One would like to stay close to home, but the other wants to do a little travelling. So, here's the plan. If you leave a comment telling me one (or more!) of your Christmas traditions from childhood or as an adult, then you'll be entered into a drawing to win a Sneaky Snowman. You're welcome to comment more than once if you remember another tradition you wanted to share, but you'll only get one entry in to the contest. The contest will run from now until 11:59pm PST on 11/29/09 and I'll announce the winners on 11/30/09. Two winners will be chosen - one in Oregon for the Sneaky Snowman who is a homebody and one somewhere else in the United States for the Sneaky Snowman with an adventurous spirit. You don't have to have an account in order to leave a comment, but be sure to leave your name so that I can contact you.
Looking forward to hearing your Christmas traditions!!
12 comments:
Our family supplied hundreds of Christmas trees to a store and our Christmas tree lot every year. That meant lots of walking through snow and cold feet for days on end.
The thing that became the tradition was my dad teasing me about not getting a tree for OUR family. Every year it became a game. I would start pointing out possible trees right after Thanksgiving (we had 12 foot trees so we did have to search), knowing we never got ours until the week before Christmas.
mompotter
Our family always went to midnight Mass when I was a child. When we were younger, we would sometimes fall asleep on the pews in the Church, but as we got older, we appreciated the tradition of being there, worshiping God, and giving thanks.
When I was little, the first thing we did on Christmas morning, before even being allowed downstairs, was to arrange ourselves on the steps for a picture, PJs, tousled hair, crying younger siblings, and all.
My brother and I always "steal" something from my sister sometime before Christmas and wrap it up in many many layers of tape, cardboard, newspaper, etc. so that it takes forever to open and from the outside looks nothing like what it really is. She's driven crazy every year trying to figure out what we might have taken.
We almost always travel between here and my Mom's house. So we try and make up little bags of candy,trinkets,scripture of the Christmas story and a message from our family. When we stop at a rest stop,restrant or anyplace,we give them to somebody. It is our way of spreading joy on the 7 hour drive.
I will enter for Nicks family tradition. They always woke up Christmas morning had Janes famous Coffee cake and Listened to Willie Nelson Christmas music While opening their gifts, We continue that tradition With homeade Cinnamon rolls but with the same music!
We do advent calendars with our kids. We have a set of tree ornaments that are actually little books. One little book ornament is read each night at bedtime and then put on their little mini-tree in their room. The books trace salvation history from Adam & Eve on Dec 1 all the way up to the birth of Christ on Dec 24. The kids look forward to this every year.
--CroppinIt from SL
growing up we didn't have a lot of traditions, but dh and I have tried to do a lot: we have an Advent calendar, we have cinnamon rolls, fruit salad and juice on Christmas morning, and we also bought one of those outdoor plastic nativity sets - and set it up in our living room! The first yr we did it, the girls put their blankets on Jesus and fed cheerios to all of the animals. The other thing is mine: I put out different decorations each night after the kids go to bed, and they try to figure out the new ones each morning.
thanks, B!
-Liesl
We hide a Christmas Pickle (an ornament) on the tree. The kids search the tree on Christmas morning and whoever finds it gets to open a special gift.
The special gift is labeled {To:The World From: God} and is the baby Jesus from our nativity scene. The child who finds the pickle then gets to place baby Jesus in the Nativity.
Thanks!
My Gramma, my mom, me, Carson and now Gabe will join us in the tradition of making Rommegrot every Christmas Eve to eat Christmas morning before we open gifts.
First - a tradition - this is actually more of a memory from my childhood. We had this plastic squeaky Santa that was in our boxes. Our dog would remember this year after year and would hunt for it as we got in the boxes. He would be so happy to see it.
Second - if I don't win, can you post a picture of Sneaky Snowman?
Our tradition is that we have the "Adams Family Christmas", usually the weekend before Christmas Day. We usually travel to my hometown for Christmas with my extended family & most of them are Easter/Christmas Christians, so it's nice to have a Christ-centered Christmas celebration with just us - we read the story of Jesus' birth, put baby Jesus in the nativity scene, and take turns opening gifts. It's a very nice, low-key & laidback Christmas!
One of our annual traditions during the holidays involves Santa Claus Girls. SCG is a charity organization that provides gifts (not just toys) to needy families. Every year we help deliver the items to the families in our area. The kids wear their Santa hats and take turns with myself or Dad at each house. It's a wonderful springboard for conversation re: attitude, thankfulness, giving, etc. and each year I've seen my dc grow from this experience.
~Motoxmom
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