7th day of Christmas Tradition with Autumn.

I got to meet this amazing girl a couple of weeks ago at a Holiday Blogger Social in SLC, and she was so fun! Autumn is the author of the Design Dump, full of great ideas from painted floors to DIY. She was so fun to chat with and I hope I get to see her in many more events to come :)
Holiday greetings all!

I'm Autumn, from design*dump, and I am really excited to be here with you and share 

some of my families Christmas Traditions.

              Growing up, the Christmas Tradition that I most remember with my family was reenacting the

Christmas story found in Luke Chapter 2. Now, I was one of four kids, and the only girl, so guess which part I always *got to play? Yep...Mary. Occasionally, I would try to take over another role, but I was always met with such fierce opposition that I would relent and played Mary. 

My dad always insisted on being a very realistic donkey (complete with loud brays, fake bathroom breaks and lots of grazing), while my mom played the innkeeper, angel and narrator. My youngest brother usually got talked into being Joseph, leaving my two other brothers to play the shepherds and the *two wise men. Baby Jesus was played by either a guinea pig, a cat, or a doll.   As my brothers and I entered our teen years, and deemed ourselves "too cool" to get dressed up in sheets and towels, the reenactments stopped. But we continued to read Luke Chapter 2 every year. 

Now, with my OWN family, we still read the Christmas Story in the Bible every year, (minus the reenactments), and there are also some "new"traditions that we have incorporated from my husbands family, as well as a few others.

                                      

Every Christmas Eve, our kids get to open one gift, and that gift is always a new pair of pajamas. I try to get them all to match, but with two girls and one boy, that can be a challenge. The kids get super excited to get their pajamas each year, and it makes for some pretty cute pictures the next morning.

                                   

                Another family tradition is that we have a Swedish Tea Ring for breakfast on Christmas morning.

It is basically a large cinnamon roll, in the shape of a wreath, decorated with pecans and red and green maraschino cherries. We also always have fresh squeezed oranges and quiche. I will make and shape the tea ring ahead of time, and then sneak away to stick it and the quiche in the oven while we are opening presents. Everything is perfectly ready right as we finish opening presents. 

                                 

One last tradition that we love is to drive around and look at Christmas lights. We crank up the Christmas music (I LOVE Johnny Mathis), and grade each house on a scale from 1 to 10. My kids get sooo excited when we get to a really well-lit house. There is usually a lot of cheerful yelling as we all call out our numbers, and then finally settle on the verdict. 

Thanks so much for having me Amanda! It was really fun to share a little bit of our families Christmas Traditions. I love the ones that we have, and hopefully, over the years, we will add a few more. I think that's what so great about traditions---some are the "set in stone/must do" kind, and others come almost by accident.

                                                              Merry Christmas everyone!
                                                                          -Autumn

See I told you she was incredible! Thanks for the great traditions...see ya soon!  My oh my, this next guest blows my away daily, she has you wanting to "linger" around her with her adorable personality and stunning fashions scene.