Looking foward to making new traditions

[Akasa]

As some of you may remember I moved to Hawaii a couple years ago. I spent last year's xmas on the mainland with my family due to illnesses and deaths in the family. This year is the first year in many years I've had a boyfriend, let alone a serious boyfriend for the holidays, and I'm spending it in Hawaii away from family. So we're looking at starting some traditions of our own. Getting our own tree, getting a couple tropical "We were in Hawaii this year" ornaments to go on the tree in case we ever wind up moving out of state.

So I'm looking for input as to some traditions that you guys have that we may like and take for ourselves as a single couple who will have no children.

[zombiequeen]

It might sound odd, but my husband and I last year volunteered as present wrappers for a charity. We did it to get away from our families for the day, but it ended up being really fun and we had a great time.

We also made chocolate/peppermint bark and peanut butter buckeyes (well, I made, hubby ate) and we'd sit down every night the week before Christmas with a hot beverage and some homemade goodness and watched television and talked. It was special because we talked about whatever, not just "how was your day" and such. That's what I remember the most about Christmas last year, other than my parent's surprising us with our tree and we had a great time decorating it by ourselves.

[MaggieTheCat]

This will be the first year that my husband and I will be spending Christmas on our own, as well. Last year we went to his parents', but it's either a 9 hour drive or a plane ride to get to them, and...well...his family is a little grating anyway. This is also the first year we've celebrated Christmas in our new house since we bought it last spring, so we're going to start our own traditions as well.

I'm not entirely sure what we're going to do. I do know that at some point between now and Christmas, I want to host a dinner party for all of our friends, because I love to cook and have people over. Sort of a combo Thanksgiving/Christmas celebration for non-family members. We'll probably also go out to lunch on Christmas Eve to a restaurant that's sort of become our go-to spot for holiday meals (we're going there tomorrow for Thanksgiving as well). It was the restaurant we went to for lunch after we got married (we had a very small wedding and no reception to speak of) so it's sort of become tradition to go there on special occasions.

I'll also be baking a load of cookies and candy and distributing them to friends and co-workers. I haven't finalized my list yet, but a few things I usually make are rolled sugar cookies, some kind of spice cookie, some kind of peanut butter cookie, some kind of fudge, turtles, and chocolate covered candies (such as cherries and PB balls.)

I like zombie's idea of doing some kind of charity thing. That's really sweet. This will also be the first year we'll have a tree, since the apartment we were living in before was really small and we didn't have room for one...we'll see if a tree survives our three cats!

[Seshat]

Make an ornament or a pair of ornaments for the tree - something that symbolises the year for you. Maybe it's the year you got a new car, or one of you survived an illness, or - as in this case - you moved to Hawaii.

Over time, you'll have a collection of ornaments that celebrate your life.

[Lady Legira]

I'm going to be making some traditions this year, since the loss of my husband just after Christmas last year. I know I'm going to be spending it at home partly to get through that part of the grief that is left but I will have good company in my sister, her bf and my new partner who all knew him.

I found a card in the shops this year for Ian which I can place somewhere, it a memorial card done in Christmas card style.

Aside from that it's going to be odd and yet still the same.

[Jarissa]

My household hosts gaming every other weekend, except of course during December when we're all busy except maybe one weekend. So on that weekend, we do a Themed Potluck Dinner.

Half of us are lousy and uneducated cooks, by the way. So dinner itself tends to be an Adventure In What Was It Supposed To Be?

One year, we did the Whoville Feast. The person who chose "Roast Beast" picked up some sliced sandwich meat ahead of time and shaped it on the tray into some sort of critter-like lump. I don't know if it was supposed to be a squid or a Rust Monster. Who-pudding probably said "Jell-O" on the side of the container before it was put in the serving dish, and the fanciest, most homemade stuff of all was the Who-Hash (browns!)

We can do better than that, though. We've had themes that required most of us to either do actual cooking, or go to local bakeries: Fairy-Tale Foods, World of Warcraft Cooking, this year I'm thinking about suggesting Supervillain Sampler. Certainly someone will bring Lady Fingers and someone will bring Roast Pixies, but it'll be interesting to see what other ideas people will have.

[CaroPhoenix]

My husband, myself, and Child Rum, all sit around Christms morning, the fireplace (which is shown on TV for a few hours) is on the TV, and we eat cinnamon rolls & drink hot chocolate. Yes, it's simple, but it's still nice.

This year, now that Child Rum is older and understands a little more about Christmas, either Mr. Rum or myself are going to go downstairs, check to make sure Santa left stuff, and ring a bell to let Child Rum know it's okies to come down the stairs.

Not sure about other traditions we're going to do, but it'll be fun to make up some new ones in the years to come.

[BethB]

making candy is FUN with or without kids. Though without kids you get more for yourself