My Family Holiday Gift Giving Traditions #ChosenByKids

Disclosure:  This post is part of a sponsored campaign.

Christmas is my favorite time of the year.  I love the lights, the family get-togethers and our course the presents.  Christmas traditions are important to me and make me feel a sense of home and family.  When I got married, I added in a few of my husband’s traditions and then when we started our family we created some new traditions.  While I do feel traditions are important, I also feel you should be able to adapt to change with new ones but never completely forget the old ones.

So here goes, here are some of my family’s traditions:

• Lots of Christmas decorations inside and out – my parents uses to go all out and much to my husband’s regard so do we now

• Christmas Day pajamas given to kids on Christmas Eve

• The Pickle ornament – this is a German tradition where you hide the pickle ornament and the first child to find it on Christmas morning is said to receive an extra present from Santa

• Sweater for my dad and robe for my mom – for whatever reason my parents now seem to expect these gifts that I started giving them because I never knew what else to give them!

• Christmas cookies – I used to make tons and have since slowed down to my son’s food allergies but I am hoping to start up again with recipes he can have.

• Christmas card – I always send them to everyone, just so they know I was thinking of them.

• I have a few more traditions I’d like to start but I am waiting for my kids to get just a little bigger.  Before kids I loved going downtown (Chicago) to look at the Christmas lights but trekking around with three little ones who dislike the cold is not something I want to do yet, but someday.  I also want to start this year a tradition of driving around all night and looking at lights.  Well not all night, but actually asking around what neighborhoods to check out as we used to visit a place when I was younger called Candy Cane Lane that was a whole neighborhood amazingly decorated.  My kids would love this and best yet its free!  Well minus the cost of gas, which fortunately has started to go down in price!

Whatever your traditions are, if you have kids I am sure toys are involved.  Shopping for toys can be overwhelming though, especially if you are not sure where to start.  Well Walmart is making it a little easier this year by featuring their Holiday Toyland.  You can interact with this year’s hottest toys #chosenbykids and even become an Official Toy Tester.  There will be special holiday helpers as well as a Buddy the Elf life-size cutout to check out!  You can check out the Holiday Toyland page to see if the Walmart in your area is hosting the event!  I will be heading to one in my area as I am definitely curious what it all entails!

What are your family traditions for the holidays?