It's funny how traditions form. Sometimes they're intentional, but often, they just come from a single event that everyone decides is the way it will be forevermore.
Christmas is prime time for traditions. We have many Christmas traditions--cutting the tree, Grandma Bishop's molasses cookies, Lindt truffles in the stockings--but one of my favorites is Sunday nights in Advent.
Advent is the season of the four Sundays leading up to Christmas in the church calendar. An Advent wreath is used in Catholic churches and many homes to mark the Sundays. It's a circle of four candles--three purple, one pink--one of which is lit for each Sunday. When I was a kid, my mom taught us a song that we sang whenever we lit one of the candles. Now I sing it with my children for our own Advent wreath lighting.
Sundays are also the day I bribe my children to do their bathroom chores with a special dessert, so during Advent, we have dinner, they go do their chores while I get dessert ready to serve, and then we light the candles, sing the song, and eat our dessert by the light of our Advent wreath.
I don't know how many of these traditions will go along with my children to their own homes and families when they're older, but I'm enjoying them now, anyway.
Do you have any family traditions, Christmas or otherwise?
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