December 11, 2017
One of my favorite aspects of the holiday season is the celebration of family traditions. Some people live and breath the holiday season. I love it too. In fact, I like to joke that the holidays are winter’s only redeeming quality. The fact is, I’m not a snow lover. I don’t like the cold. I don’t ski, ice skate, or enjoy shoveling. Although, I do love a good old fashioned snow storm, with the fireplace blazing. One each year is enough. I don’t even mind losing power, because it means we bust out our Jenga Guest book and enjoy a glass of wine while reading sweet sentiments from the family and friends that celebrated our wedding day with us. Maintaining and creating your own family traditions can be a challenge in today’s fast-paced technology-fueled world. Holiday traditions for engaged couples are an important bonding experience for couples.
Spending time together with your soon-to-be life partner that will help you to establish traditions that will result in a solid foundation for a marriage that includes quality time with the one you love. Traditions serve an age-old purpose: creating bonds that connect generations. Many family traditions have been passed down through multiple generations. Continuing them in your own family is a great way to honor your past, teach your fiancé about your family, and together, develop traditions that you will honor with the family you are creating. So today, I thought I would share with you a few ways in which engaged couples can begin their own holiday season traditions.
There are a number of ways to go about getting a Christmas Tree. Christmas tree shopping and decorating are a great way to being holiday traditions for engaged couples. You can drive over the river and through the woods to a tree farm and cut down your own. Just don’t forget the saw and inspect the tree carefully for critters. Or, you can do what Richie and I do. We hit Wawa for a cup of coffee (hot chocolate for the offspring) and head to Home Depot. Once there, I spend a ridiculous amount of time trying to examine the tree’s shape, color, and top branch (it has to be perfect for the star). While Richie reminds me that we only have 9-foot ceilings. I then promise that they always underestimate the height, and we can fit a 10-foot tree! We always settle on an 8-foot tree, and I usually have to trim the top a smidge.
While some people are big on having trees with a theme, I’m not. I choose white lights and a gold ribbon to tie the design together, but each of my tree’s ornaments was either from my childhood, hand made, or a gift from someone special. My husband was raised in a Jewish household, and did not come to our home with his own ornaments. So, it’s been super-important to me that he also has ornaments on the tree. Every year, I shop to find a few ornaments that I know he will enjoy getting on Christmas morning. In fact, I found this year’s ornament today! This way, every year when we decorate the tree, Richie has ornaments that he knows are “his” as well. It makes for an eclectic tree, but I love it. Together, Richie and I find one ornament that we pick together.
holiday traditions for engaged couples can include a yearly event in your community. Long Beach Island has the Christmas Parade in Ship Bottom. Santa rides by in a boat with a Christmas tree on the bow. It’s adorable, and my daughter loved going as a child. Some towns have tree lightings. But I know that every year, Santa will ride through our neighborhood on a sleigh being pulled by eight men dressed like reindeer riding quads. The town publishes Santa’s schedule on their website, but if by chance we forget to check the schedule, you can hear them from miles away, because every single fire truck and ambulance in town precedes Santa and Mrs. Clause. When Richie and I met he had never experienced anything like this event. Not surprising.
If you enjoyed today’s blog, be sure to check out next week’s blog when I share a personal look into the holiday traditions Richie and I enjoy most. In the meantime, enjoy the holidays and celebrating the season. Be sure to spend some time with the ones you love and supporting a few small businesses with your holiday shopping! One of my favorites right now, and a great gift for any newly engaged couple, or recently married, is a custom address stamp from The Shaded Maple! You can read more about the Shaded Maple in my BWE Vendor Spotlight, here.
Thank you to the photographers who allow us to use their images on our site:
Ashley Mac Photographs, Heather Palecek Photography, Idalia Photography, Jessica Erb Photography, Susan Elizabeth Photography, Delaney Dobson Photography, Ann Coen Photography, Lovesick Inc., K Hulett Photography & Melanie Cassie Photography
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