One would walk into our house and ask us one question:
"Where's the tree?"
This is because we don't really do the Christmas tree. a while back we decided to put the focus more around what Christmas was about, which was Christ's birth, so that he would die for our Salvation. This is why about a decade ago the entire family got together and voted, on whether or not we were going to put our presents around a tree, or a Nativity.
it was unanimous, Nativity won. We had always enjoyed decorating a tree, but everyone liked the nativity idea more, so that year we went out and bought a really nice Nativity, and for once we did not put up a tree.
This worked out quite nicely actually. the Nativity did not take up as much space, so our living room did not feel crowded. (Which happens if you have a small living room) We also had fewer quarrels over setting up a nativity than putting the "good" ornaments on the tree, and most of all, it really DID put more focus on Christ, and not a tree.
We held this vote every year for about five years, when that last year, my parents decided it was set in stone: Five years of unanimously voting for the nativity was getting kind of old, so now it's one of our big Christmas traditions.
Now though, we did not have a huge display, so we went to work putting decorations elsewhere, and it payed off, instead of having one big pretty display, we made the entire house look nice, and fewer people fought STILL because everyone has their own project.
this si one of our traditions, and we love it, what are some of your unique Christmas traditions?
Our special Christmas tradition is our nativity. We have this little plastic-rubbery type nativity scene where the Baby Jesus comes out of the manger. When I was about three years old, I lost Baby Jesus and it took quite the search to find him again (he was under the couch cushions when my dad swore he'd looked there at least five times. Well, to keep that from ever happening again, we got one of those plastic ornaments that open so you can put whatever you want in it, and we fill it up with those icicle decorations and put Baby Jesus in it, then we put Him in the arms of this knitted tree topper angel that's too floppy to be a tree topper, and we hang them both on the tree. Then on Christmas Eve, we have the oldest son (Levi) take him down and put him in the manger while we sing Away in a Manger. ^_^
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