Annual traditions that make you say, "ouch."

[JustEm]

St. Nicholas day. I am now stuck filling shoes with candy followed by stockings with candy later in the month.

Everyone thinks I'm crazy but we do stockings on St. nicholas day. It is a wonderful tradition I started 3 years ago for my family. The reason I started it was because I kept putting off doing the tiny bit of decorating I love until last minute. Now that we do stockings in early Dec the mantle has to get decorated before then.

[JustEm]

Those d@mn elves!!! What was I thinking? it was so cute when they were little, but now at 12 and 9, it just doesn't seem quite as cute. But they both love them. And they have become a part of our Christmas season.

 

Nothing like lying in bed, ready to drift off to sleep when it hits you...you forgot to move the elves. Just...ugh!!!

 

The elf is dh's job, he quite enjoys it. I enjoy being woken up to, " Mom we found Gilly!!?" Last night out almost 2 year old was up late so she saw dh move him. She looked at him like "wtf are you doing." She knew it was wrong, ha. And she is going to attempt to tell her siblings in the morning I'm sure because she talks nonstop but I don't think she'll have the right words for them to figure it out. I'm interested to see what happens.

[MEmama]

Advent elves. Hands down the most stressful thing about the holiday.

 

MIL made a beautiful advent for DS for his first Christmas and every year I struggle with what to put in it. He's never believed the elf story but goes along with it, and loves finding something in there every morning. It's impossible though; he doesn't like sweets (!!!!!) and has no use or interest in little trinkets. So it gets very expensive very fast. This year DH is taking over, but it was still me who woke up early in a panic on the first and had to rush to the bins in the basement and hang up the calendar. When DS was little we used to hang it in his room for some reason (oh the nightly stress!), but we moved when he was 5 and started hanging it in the hall. That was an improvement.

 

The tooth fairy situation resolved itself when a dear family friend gave DS a beautiful tooth fairy box. From day one it lived in the kitchen, not in his room! :). He never believed in the tooth fairy either, but who is going to complain about getting cash for doing nothing? The last teeth he lost he forgot about the money.

[Tenaj]

 

Tonight, when I was walking around Walmart considering whether to buy a $30 Lego set to fill the stupid calendar, (I was late filling it--I had to stuff some old Halloween candy behind door #1 so they'd have something in there when they woke up this morning), I had an inspiration in the puzzle aisle.  A puzzle!  I'll put in a few pieces every day and the boys can slowly put it together from now until Christmas.  I hope it goes over well.  The puzzle was under $8 so that's a plus.

 

 

 

What a great idea!  We have the door advent box also and I've never managed to put anything in it (well, I think there was some candy in there one year behind one door!)  I'm off to find a puzzle today!  

 

This is how pitiful it is with this silly advent box thing . . .my 13 yods yesterday is all excited, "Hey, it's Dec. 1st.  Can I open the door?"  He's knows there's nothing in there . . .he's just thinks you're supposed to open one of the little doors each day!

 

My "ouch" Christmas tradition is the 10? layer jello that's on the Pioneer Woman's website (or used to be).  One year I had extra time and made it to go with our traditional ravioli Christmas Eve dinner.  Now it's a tradition and remembering to put all those layers on, one at a time, while I'm cooking everything else required for the next day's feasts is a pain . . . not to mention that it has to sit perfectly in the middle of a whole shelf of my refrigerator or else it gets tilty.  But . .. it's tradition so I do it.

[JustEm]

I hate baking Christmas cookies. They are messy and I hate the taste. I think I'll happily pass that tradition onto someone who enjoys making them.

[Garga]

Nm--misread post

Edited December 2, 2016 by Garga

[The Girls' Mom]

I think mine is the "homemade" stockings I made for the kids years ago.  They are so ugly.  I bought some of those plain, cheap, red stockings and sewed cut out felt images on them.  The girls each have a very simplistic angel in different colors, I have a paintbrush (artist) and dh has a saw (he was into woodworking at the time).  I don't like them at all, but the kids have absorbed them into "the things that make it feel like Christmas" and won't let me buy pretty ones to replace them.  I'm going to make them all take theirs with them when they move out and buy some pretty ones.

 

 

[JustEm]

I think mine is the "homemade" stockings I made for the kids years ago. They are so ugly. I bought some of those plain, cheap, red stockings and sewed cut out felt images on them. The girls each have a very simplistic angel in different colors, I have a paintbrush (artist) and dh has a saw (he was into woodworking at the time). I don't like them at all, but the kids have absorbed them into "the things that make it feel like Christmas" and won't let me buy pretty ones to replace them. I'm going to make them all take theirs with them when they move out and buy some pretty ones.

We had those cheap red stockings with our names put on them with glue and glitter. I loved that stocking. Then I married dh and his aunt made me a beautiful one with an image and my name cross stitched into it. It is tradition in their family that she makes you one on your first Christmas as an infant or as an in-law. So all my children have one too. They truly are beautiful and look nice together on the mantle but I still mourn the loss of displaying my cheap one every year i see it when I go through the Christmas stuff. I quickly move on once I see my beautiful homemade one from dh's aunt but I still can't toss the other one. Maybe this year I will be able to.

[Rebel Yell]

I hate baking Christmas cookies. They are messy and I hate the taste. I think I'll happily pass that tradition onto someone who enjoys making them.

Do you have a Gordon Food Service store near you? Mine sells boxes of frozen shaped dough... 72 bells/trees/stars for $9.99! I think maybe 50 gingerbread men, and 100 round cookies for $12.00 I buy the dough, put it on a tray, bake, and frost with the $8 tub of frosting. I HATE baking cookies, but these I can do.

 

I even had an elderly gentleman get mad at me because I wouldn't give his wife the recipe. He didn't believe it was frozen dough and thought I was holding out on a secret family recipe.

[Cinder]

Come to the dark side.

 

I don't decorate for Christmas. We let my kids enjoy my MIL's tree.

 

I don't cook for Christmas because my FIL does that. MIL frosts cookies with the kids (if they are interested.)

 

I made tacos for Thanksgiving. DH made homemade jello for dessert. I think I made some cookie dough.

 

For Halloween I told the kids if they wanted the porch decorated, they had to do it all, including taking everything down. My 10 and 7 year olds were quite pleased to do it all.

 

Most holidays just seem to mean extra work for moms. Just say no to the expectations!

 

How I wish! We live about 20-hours drive from the nearest family. However, we did long ago adopt a friend's tradition of serving junk food (taquitos, frozen pizza, eggrolls,etc.) for Christmas instead of making a fancy holiday dinner.

[Cinder]

Filling stockings in general is so darned expensive! And I handmade adorable stockings for each kid when they were small, but those suckers are HUGE! Every year I bemoan all the extra carp I have to buy just to fill up those bottomless pits!

 

I've started resorting to whole fruit, socks, and undies. :leaving:

 

A canister of Pringles takes up a lot of space. And getting their own canister is a big treat, y'know.  :D

[JustEm]

Do you have a Gordon Food Service store near you? Mine sells boxes of frozen shaped dough... 72 bells/trees/stars for $9.99! I think maybe 50 gingerbread men, and 100 round cookies for $12.00 I buy the dough, put it on a tray, bake, and frost with the $8 tub of frosting. I HATE baking cookies, but these I can do.

 

I even had an elderly gentleman get mad at me because I wouldn't give his wife the recipe. He didn't believe it was frozen dough and thought I was holding out on a secret family recipe.

That is way too many gross cookies in my house😀 But honestly it isn't the cookies my kids want it is the cutting them out and decorating that they want.

[JumpyTheFrog]

How I wish! We live about 20-hours drive from the nearest family. However, we did long ago adopt a friend's tradition of serving junk food (taquitos, frozen pizza, eggrolls,etc.) for Christmas instead of making a fancy holiday dinner.

Hey, that is a good start.

 

We are 14 hours from our families and we go back twice a year. Most of my Christmas stress is cleaning the house and packing before our trip.

[lynn]

That &*$%*$?! tooth fairy! It's not the $, it the placement!

 

Who decided that teeth need to go under the pillow? The tooth should sit by the front door, far away from any sleeping children. And why was I not smart enough to think this through with my first child before I went on to have four more kids.   :lol:

 

In case you can't tell, the tooth fairy had to do some creative story-telling this week when she got busted during the tooth-for-money exchange.  :001_rolleyes:

 

The tooth fairy does not work for my dd.  The first time she lost of tooth and put a dollar under her pillow.  The next morning she woke up threw away the dollar and asked that we get her tooth back.  She is not a brat, she simply  does not like anyone real or imagined taking her things especially not her teeth.  So the tradition stopped with her.

[Guest]

Every year when I see my friends' advent calendar and elf sagas on facebook, I thank God that I never started either of those messes. There is no way I could keep up with either of those.

 

I don't really have a lot of Christmas "traditions" as in "we have to do this every year." We do different things each year, which I think is more fun. I hope I'm not screwing up my kids. :P

Me too. If their chief complaint is "Mom introduced too many things for Christmas! We were traditionless!" in their therapy sessions or discussions with friends, I'd still rest pretty easy. :)

[Dmmetler]

I need to run out and buy a lego Advent calendar. I didn't get DD one for her late Nov Birthday because she didn't have legos on her list this year, but found out yesterday that apparently I was in violation of an important tradition. Luckily, she has a 10:00 class today....

[Anne in CA]

A canister of Pringles takes up a lot of space. And getting their own canister is a big treat, y'know.  :D

I do expensive energy drinks.

[RioSamba]

We also use a special tooth pouch that makes the switch easier to accomplish stealthily. It's the long , elaborate notes from the magical folk that sometimes send me around the bend. They started out short and sweet, but then the children started leaving longer notes with many *questions.* Each being has distinctive handwriting, and I think I need to employ a continuity editor, because I cannot remember all that's gone before!

 

I mostly love it, but now with olders, sometimes I don't like the pressure of getting things done magically and beautifully while keeping up with their regular commitments.

[Cecropia]

Everyone thinks I'm crazy but we do stockings on St. nicholas day. It is a wonderful tradition I started 3 years ago for my family. The reason I started it was because I kept putting off doing the tiny bit of decorating I love until last minute. Now that we do stockings in early Dec the mantle has to get decorated before then.

 

We tried to resist the whole Santa thing, but grandparents on both sides imprinted the myth on our sons at an early age (thanks a lot, guys...).  I'm pretty sure my 9yo still half-believes.  Anyway, we do St. Nicholas Day as a sort of compromise.  That's the day that Santa gets his milk and cookies and leaves some small gifts.  He doesn't make an appearance on Christmas at all.

 

Filling the bulk of a stocking with a pringles can is a brilliant idea! :D

[sassenach]

We go to Disneyland every year while the Christmas lights are up. It is our absolute favorite tradition. When we started, I think tickets were around $65 each. They are now $105 (they could go as high as $120 if we went on the super peak days, but we're not). So what started as a $325 expense is now a $525 starting price. And we still have food.

[sassenach]

How I wish! We live about 20-hours drive from the nearest family. However, we did long ago adopt a friend's tradition of serving junk food (taquitos, frozen pizza, eggrolls,etc.) for Christmas instead of making a fancy holiday dinner.

I think we may do that. Though we've already started the KFC for Easter tradition, so maybe I shouldn't let us slide down that slippery slope!

[sassenach]

What a great idea!  We have the door advent box also and I've never managed to put anything in it (well, I think there was some candy in there one year behind one door!)  I'm off to find a puzzle today!  

 

This is how pitiful it is with this silly advent box thing . . .my 13 yods yesterday is all excited, "Hey, it's Dec. 1st.  Can I open the door?"  He's knows there's nothing in there . . .he's just thinks you're supposed to open one of the little doors each day!

 

My "ouch" Christmas tradition is the 10? layer jello that's on the Pioneer Woman's website (or used to be).  One year I had extra time and made it to go with our traditional ravioli Christmas Eve dinner.  Now it's a tradition and remembering to put all those layers on, one at a time, while I'm cooking everything else required for the next day's feasts is a pain . . . not to mention that it has to sit perfectly in the middle of a whole shelf of my refrigerator or else it gets tilty.  But . .. it's tradition so I do it.

:lol:  :lol:  :lol:  This brings me such joy.

[sassenach]

Quiver's cinnamon rolls on Christmas morning. Because I don't do enough baking over the holiday season, I have to stay up the night before making dough and hope it all rises by breakfast. The rolls are delish... now my kids don't want any other cinnamon rolls on Christmas. Cinnabon is good enough for other times though.

We moved that one to New Years. Start the year by demolishing any diet plans.

[school17777]

I need to run out and buy a lego Advent calendar. I didn't get DD one for her late Nov Birthday because she didn't have legos on her list this year, but found out yesterday that apparently I was in violation of an important tradition. Luckily, she has a 10:00 class today....

 

If you have a Wegman's around, yesterday I saw they were on sale for $19.99.

[ILiveInFlipFlops]

We moved that one to New Years. Start the year by demolishing any diet plans.

 

You know, this was my original plan, except that we either host a gathering or attend a gathering on NYE, so there was never time to make them the night before so they could do the second rise in the fridge. Now we start the year with this (except with like, 6 eggs and way more cheese, which basically makes it a breakfast casserole), leftover treats from the night before, and leftover champagne :D

 

I also made the traditional Hoppin' John for a few years, but no one was really into it, so I let that go. We're not from the south anyway!

Edited December 2, 2016 by ILiveInFlipFlops

[Spryte]

NYE traditions: our funniest, no longer practiced now that the kids are older... we used to set all the clocks forward a few hours. We'd watch the ball drop in a different time zone, we'd have our party and wear hats and make noise at 10 pm. The kids would be tucked in and sleeping by 10:30, feeling they'd stayed up. Am I evil? :D

 

Now we have an annual balloon drop in our foyer at midnight. That's fun.

[fraidycat]

Christmas gift giving. :)

[Kassia]

The tooth fairy does not work for my dd.  The first time she lost of tooth and put a dollar under her pillow.  The next morning she woke up threw away the dollar and asked that we get her tooth back.  She is not a brat, she simply  does not like anyone real or imagined taking her things especially not her teeth.  So the tradition stopped with her.

 

My daughter wouldn't even put the tooth under her pillow for the same reason.  

[PeachyDoodle]

I made little bitty patchwork-quilted ones for my whole family using holiday fabrics.  They're probably 4"x7".  They're still expensive to fill, but not nearly as bad as the normal-sized ones.

 

See, you're way smarter than I am...

 

A canister of Pringles takes up a lot of space. And getting their own canister is a big treat, y'know.  :D

 

I like it! I did do full-size bags of Goldfish once. We never buy them, and the kids like the specialty flavors like cupcake and s'mores.

 

I do expensive energy drinks.

 

Ack! Picturing Christmas morning with ds6 hyped up on Red Bull... :scared: 

[Wheres Toto]

A canister of Pringles takes up a lot of space. And getting their own canister is a big treat, y'know.  :D

 

This is a great idea!  My kids love Pringles.

 

Except I have more than enough stuff for stockings this year because I totally screwed up the Advent calendar.  Last year we did Playmobile ones and the kids liked it but it was expensive and they aren't THAT into Playmobile or Lego.  So my idea was to buy small red boxes, decorate them and put my own stuff into them this year.  I ordered the boxes and the stickers from Amazon in November.  I was pretty sure I noted when the box came (it was the only thing delivered that day) but I didn't open it right away since there was no hurry.  I ordered mini-Pokemon, and Mindcraft mini-figs, and bought Hershey kisses (only candy my son eats), and Trolls figures, and stickers, and..... lots and lots of tiny little things to fill the boxes.  Except I went through all the boxes that had been delivered to date on Tuesday and none of them were the little boxes and stickers.  And Wednesday was December 1st.  So I couldn't do the Advent calendar.  The kids have said nothing about it so I decided to just throw all that stuff in their stockings, maybe use some to make ornaments and call it done.  

 

The tooth fairy wasn't a big deal here.  My son decided with his first tooth that he "didn't need the money and the teeth look kind of cool" so he kept them in a plastic container.   Found out last year that he was doing that to save them up, put them all under his pillow at once and get all that money in one big windfall.   :lol:   Except he didn't tell anyone he was sticking all those teeth under his pillow, so of course she didn't come.  I explained to him that she only gets the notification to come pick up the day a tooth is actually lost.  

 

We don't believe in the tooth fairy here anymore.  Or Santa, or the Easter Bunny.  Santa was actually the first to go, last Christmas.  We told ds not to tell his sister and he was really good about it, but he is the absolute worst liar you have ever met.    They spend all day every day together so it wasn't going to take long. 

[Amy in NH]

We do the "junk" food smorgasbord on New Years, but it's more like eggrolls, shrimp cocktail, a cheese ball, spinach artichoke dip, potato skins, leftover Christmas cookies, etc.

 

Our advent calendar is a Christmas tree with ornaments in the pockets, similar to this one http://www.lillianvernon.com/product/christmastreecountdowncalendar.do?code=16JAO726&zmam=78703194&zmas=1&zmac=14&zmap=Z810619&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=shopping&gclid=CIjD24-h19ACFQKBswodb6EMpA

 

Teeth go into a little wooden box, which is easier to find under the pillow. You ladies who started off with the tooth in another room are brilliant! Tooth fairy is often late here, especially if the kids stay up later than me. As they get older, though, I just hand over the dollar when the tooth comes out, and everyone is happy. :)

 

My biggest pita is Easter, when the kids expect an egg hunt around the house with a clue in the special egg to find a gift. Why did I ever think that was a good idea? I'm often up past midnight to perpetrate that one. I'm sure I'll look back on it fondly in a few years when they're all gone.

Edited December 3, 2016 by Amy in NH

[Amy in NH]

We told ds not to tell his sister and he was really good about it, but he is the absolute worst liar you have ever met. They spend all day every day together so it wasn't going to take long.

I looked at your signature and was confused about your 11yo not supposed to tell your 22yo! :roflol:

[heartlikealion]

I never wanted an Elf on the Shelf. We got sucked into it because MIL had one and so did SIL. The cousins and MIL talked about it a lot when ds visited a year ago. I thought so what, not our house. Not our problem. But then dh got one for our home last Dec.? because ds had been brainwashed. He initially thought they were full of crap (well not his words) so I didn't think I'd have to deal with it. Dec. 1st I forgot all about it. Our elf didn't show up til Dec. 2 this year. Ours isn't naughty but still we have to remember to move the darn thing.

 

$60 on candy? No way. Just say that Santa wanted to give him something else instead. Find a replacement item. Leave a note from Santa if you must. Excuse yourself from that price gauging. It should be okay, really. And if it's not, then maybe tell them they should be glad it's not coal lol

 

MIL has a stocking for every.single.person in the family. Adults and kids. She buys candy and toys without us. But we buy some stuff as well. So basically the kids get overkill for stockings. Like items that don't even fit in the stockings sometimes.

 

Regarding the tooth fairy, ds didn't want to give up his tooth last time so we left a note asking the TF to please leave it. LOL We told him he wouldn't get any money and he said that was okay.

 

Dh is the real baker in the house. I like to decorate cookies, but not make them. I have a bunch of cookie cutters, but hate the process. I don't know if he'll do it this year. Ds has a bake sale next week and I think we're gonna end up buying cookies at this rate. We'll see. I have tried making cookies with already made dough, but it was either the wrong kind of cookie dough or I just suck. That didn't go over very well.

[scoutingmom]

This wasn't a family tradition..... But when I was a girl guide leader we had a cool camping tradition. Sunday morning they would wake to find that breakfast was missing (story depended on the camp). There would be a clue or map and compass information, and basically a big treasure hunt.

 

Well, the girls would sometimes grumble, but breakfast would be found. Then the one year, Saturday evening we had an invasion of flying carpenter ants... It was horrid. We were camping in old canvas tents without screens. Fortunately, a friend had her Brownie Pack starting in the cabin at the camp, so we slept on their floor. By the time we were settled, trying to make a treasure hunt outside (with the ants) was not really a high priority for me, and the guides wouldn't care as they always complained, Right?

 

Nope... They were so disappointed. It was something they looked forward to. So I agreed make a short course for them if they agreed to pack up camp quickly with the other leaders while I did it.

 

Yup, be careful of traditions you make because it is hard to stop them. (I didn't regret that tradition although I was often up late on Saturday, as it was great fun and good practice on skills for them.

 

Sent from my SM-T530NU using Tapatalk

[Carrie12345]

I have no idea why I started a socks and underwear in stockings tradition.  It was fine with 3 or 4 little kids.  Now, with 3 teenagers and 2 bigger little kids, they take up ridiculous space and are EXPENSIVE all together!  I'm considering skipping it this year, but I don't know if I can bring myself to break tradition.

[Sherry in OH]

Decorating a gingerbread house.  We use a kit.  When I am a careful shopper, we get a prebuilt house. My children insist we need a gingerbread house, but their chief interest seems to be how much of the stale candy they can eat.

 

The tooth fairy needs to be fired.  One day oldest ds came to me crying that he knew the tooth fairy wasn’t real because he put a tooth under his pillow the night before and it was still there.  I wish I had grilled him to find out who told him about the tooth fairy.  This was the fourth or fifth tooth he had lost and we had never been visited by the tooth fairy. Instead I foolishly comforted him by telling him that if the child was still awake when the tooth fairy stopped by, she left and came back another time.   Later in the day, I put a dollar under his pillow.  After that every tooth had to be saved for the tooth fairy.  She almost never manages to get the tooth the first night, or even the second night.   More often she comes when the sheets get changed.

 

The children used to get advent calendars at church.  They were happy with stickers.  Then one year, the church didn’t have the sticker type. My children were so disappointed that I found a printable calendar and we taped figures to it that year.  The next year I made a felt wall-hanging in the shape of a tree with little numbered pocket ornaments.  A blurb about the image on the ornament is supposed to be tucked into each one.  The calendar is cute and the boys love it.  But, I wish I had not numbered the ornaments and had made them without pockets.  Every year I have to make new slips to put into the ornaments. Every year I think how nice it would be if certain ornaments matched our activities – gingerbread man on the day we make cookies, for example.  I do not have the time or energy to remake the calendar. Plus, my children would object to changes. 

[The Girls' Mom]

Reading about everyone and the advent calendars...

 

We have a calendar that is a bunch of little board books that hang on the tree.  We've had it since my oldest was a baby.  My kids, who are 20 (next week), 16.5 and 16.5, ARGUE over who gets to read the little book each day and hang it on the tree.  In fact, they made me promise the other day that I'd read them and hang them on the tree after they moved out.   :lol:

[historically accurate]

Do you have a Gordon Food Service store near you? Mine sells boxes of frozen shaped dough... 72 bells/trees/stars for $9.99! I think maybe 50 gingerbread men, and 100 round cookies for $12.00 I buy the dough, put it on a tray, bake, and frost with the $8 tub of frosting. I HATE baking cookies, but these I can do.

 

I even had an elderly gentleman get mad at me because I wouldn't give his wife the recipe. He didn't believe it was frozen dough and thought I was holding out on a secret family recipe.

Thank you for this info! I have to take sugar cookies to Mother Daughter book club on Monday. 

[Tree Frog]

We also use a special tooth pouch that makes the switch easier to accomplish stealthily. It's the long , elaborate notes from the magical folk that sometimes send me around the bend. They started out short and sweet, but then the children started leaving longer notes with many *questions.* Each being has distinctive handwriting, and I think I need to employ a continuity editor, because I cannot remember all that's gone before!

 

I mostly love it, but now with olders, sometimes I don't like the pressure of getting things done magically and beautifully while keeping up with their regular commitments.

Dh did tooth fairy. All the the notes were written in special font on tooth fairy letterhead. He has a file on the computer where he stored all the letters so he could easily cross reference previous notes. He loved doing it! My only contribution was adding a foreign coin to the $1.00 tf left. The kids enjoyed finding out where the coins came from, who the faces on the coins are, and in some cases why they're no longer in circulation.

[Jenny in Florida]

A few years ago, when both of my kids were already teens/young adults, my daughter and I thought it would be funny to do the Elf on the Shelf thing in a more . . . adult . . . way. For the first year, my daughter and I took turns helping the elf get into trouble each night, trying to play off of or one-up what the other had done. It was fun and silly.

 

Then she moved out. And the first year she was living on her own we missed her so much and wanted her to feel connected to home that I made a big deal of doing the elf thing and e-mailing or texting her photos every day of his adventures.

 

It was such a hit that I then felt obligated to do it again the following year.

 

Needless to say, after three years, it's gotten a bit difficult to come up with new ideas for elf debauchery. 

 

And here we are at the beginning of December, with me recovering from (relatively minor) surgery and still trying to integrate a new kitten into the household . . . and the last thing I have the time and energy to tackle is brainstorming new avenues for elf degradation.

 

What I really want to do is send our little friend to an elf re-education program where he will stay until there are some grandchildren to keep him in line.

[RioSamba]

Dh did tooth fairy. All the the notes were written in special font on tooth fairy letterhead. He has a file on the computer where he stored all the letters so he could easily cross reference previous notes. He loved doing it! My only contribution was adding a foreign coin to the $1.00 tf left. The kids enjoyed finding out where the coins came from, who the faces on the coins are, and in some cases why they're no longer in circulation.

Well, your husband is a genius. It's deciphering the old notes and writing the new notes by hand in the wee hours that's such a killer. Maybe this is a switch I can make with our caboose.

[chocolatechip]

We always put the tooth in a cup on the dresser or windowsill (away from the bed) after the kids saw The Tooth Fairy and saw the dangers that the under-the-pillow location caused for the fetching fairy.

 

We had a forgetful tooth fairy who tended not to show up the first night.  Sometimes she came the following morning, sometimes during the day, sometimes it was a few nights later.  We usually excused her because it was hockey season, or football season, or pick-your-tooth-mangling-sport season.

Growing up my parents always told us that if the tooth fairy didn't come right away she must be in Africa collecting teeth from children there.   :smilielol5:

[Meriwether]

My aunt sent me a used Raggedy Anne costume for my oldest for Halloween when she was two. I used a cheap pattern and some scrap material to make a Raggedy Andy costume for my one year old. I've been sewing Halloween costumes ever since. I don't really know how to sew. Material is expensive. Material is really expensive when you have five kids and your oldest is almost 6 feet tall. Yards and yards of material. A week (or more) of my life every year. Last year we did Lord of the Rings. Pants, shirts, cloaks, and tunics as well as a dress and a vest. It took me a month.

[Tap]

NYE traditions: our funniest, no longer practiced now that the kids are older... we used to set all the clocks forward a few hours. We'd watch the ball drop in a different time zone, we'd have our party and wear hats and make noise at 10 pm. The kids would be tucked in and sleeping by 10:30, feeling they'd stayed up. Am I evil? :D

 

Now we have an annual balloon drop in our foyer at midnight. That's fun.

My SIL would change the clocks in her house so the kids would think it was midnight, so she could go to bed early.

 

She actually confessed that she also changed the clocks to get them to go to bed early on random days when she just needed a break (single mom). LOL  Both of her girls were avid readers so she would just send them to be an hour early and if they didn't fall asleep, they would feel like they got a treat being able to stay up late reading LOL 

[Guest]

NYE traditions: our funniest, no longer practiced now that the kids are older... we used to set all the clocks forward a few hours. We'd watch the ball drop in a different time zone, we'd have our party and wear hats and make noise at 10 pm. The kids would be tucked in and sleeping by 10:30, feeling they'd stayed up. Am I evil? :D

 

Now we have an annual balloon drop in our foyer at midnight. That's fun.

You're not evil, you're genius.

[Carol in Cal.]

We got a horrible, cheapo Advent calendar made out of felt as a gift when DD was a baby. 
I thought it was fine until we found something nice, but alas, it became a beloved tradition.

It's so ugly.  But it's not optional.
Ugh.

[TranquilMind]

My family has this "happy birthday" song that became a tradition in our family when I was a kid (thanks to my older brother).  It's really regrettable.  It's sung in a dirgey tune:  [in case it isn't obvious, this is supposed to be funny]

 

Happy birthday, oh happy birthday

Grief and sorrow and despair

People dying everywhere

On your birthday, oh happy birthday

 

I think I started hating it when my friend died on my birthday.  :/  My family won't give it up.

 

That's awful!  I'm glad I never heard of that before.  Ugh. 

 

[Tenaj]

 

She actually confessed that she also changed the clocks to get them to go to bed early on random days when she just needed a break (single mom). LOL  Both of her girls were avid readers so she would just send them to be an hour early and if they didn't fall asleep, they would feel like they got a treat being able to stay up late reading LOL 

 

I'm glad I'm not the only one.  This only works with my youngest two right now but they love, love, love to read and think it's a great privilege to be sent to bed with a book.  They usually don't think to check the clock because they think it's such a treat!  This works especially well when my dh is out of town for one reason or another and I just need a long evening!

Edited December 15, 2016 by JanOH