Amanda’s Favorite Winter Traditions

This may be one of my favorite blog posts to share to date. Christmas is a season that feels just so full of love, joy, gratitude, hope, and comfort so I try and surround all my traditions around those feelings I want to cultivate.

So, today I’m sharing my favorite old and new Winter (Christmas and NYE) traditions!

Old Traditions:

• Finding incredible Christmas light displays with a packed thermos of hot chocolate. This year we’re looking for a drivable or socially distant light display. I’ve only ever attended the Lake Lanier lights since I’ve lived in Georgia – so if you have other hidden light gems let me know!
• Decorating our home with dried orange and grapefruit garland – it’s fun and your home will smell lovely all season. Here’s an easy DIY tutorial to make your own.
• Watching ALL my favorite Christmas movies which include: the old claymation films, Elf, Home Alone, White Christmas, the Holiday, the Grinch, and all the Harry Potters…I’ll just use any excuse to watch HP.
• Following along in my favorite advent devotional by Paul David Tripp.
• This last one is a family NYE tradition – we place money, bread, and wood in the North facing window for luck to have enough resources, food, and a home for the coming year. It’s a small but favorite family tradition of mine!

New Traditions:

Since this is our first married Christmas there are some new traditions in store for us this year that I am looking forward to!

• Filling out our Christmas Memories Book! This book has space to share our memories for 20 years of Christmases and I think it’s such a lovely way to showcase and remember our holidays over the years.
• Sending out family Christmas cards. This year we ordered our first ever cards through Lairsey Paper Co. and they turned out lovely.
• Attending a German Christmas market and adding one new intentional holiday item each year to our Christmas display.
• Gifting friends paperwhites to fill their home with a little natural joy.

No matter how you are celebrating the holidays this year we wish you a very Happy Christmas and hope it’s filled with lots of love and joy!