tradition-ing

Dear Santa, I tried. (Except we all know that I didn’t, let’s be honest.)

One of my absolute favorite Christmas traditions is, oh, um, ALL OF THEM (besides crying baby Santa photos, which is the GOAT, duh). I love creating new traditions as well, although it doesn’t always work out. For example, John didn’t really go for the “Traditional Maxing Out of the Nordstrom Card” this year.

And the whole “Getting Yourself Treats and Pretending They’re From Your Husband” didn’t really go over well either, tbh.

And to be even MORE honest, this year has been more about the struggle bus, and less about the traditions. We haven’t gotten around to visiting Santa, and Christmas cards are wishful thinking. Just pretend we’re all in coordinating outfits that aren’t too matchy, everyone’s smiling at the camera at THE SAME TIME, and no spills, stains, or crying because Bo’s outfit is “hurting his feelings.” THERE. Take a mental photo, know that we love you, and realize that this is all totally unrealistic/never happening in life.

At this moment, we’ve got a Christmas tree, and our Elf on the Shelf is hanging on by a thread (most elf duties have now been pawned off on AG, since she knows the truth about Jack Frost, and also likes to give herself “treats.” EVERY DAY. “Oh look, Bo, Jack Frost left us some marshmallows to eat before school.”)

But John and I DO have one Christmas tradition that we always make time for, no matter who I have to bribe to babysit. Or how much I have to pay them.

It’s our $30 and 30 minutes, Stocking Stuffer Challenge. And we TOTALLY CAME UP WITH THIS ALL BY OURSELVES; we didn’t NOT straight up steal this idea right off of Pinterest. Nope, we definitely didn’t NOT. *wink It’s pretty self-explanatory; we give each other $30 and 30 minutes to fill each other’s stockings; synchronize our watches, and run around the store looking like hugely suspicious creepers. I go into more detail about our #30and30challenge in THS POST, and may or may not share some additional strategy. We’ve been doing this since before AG was born, and not much has changed. Other than the number of Target stores we are now banned from. John still sticks religiously to his limit, and I still believe rules are made to be broken, clearly because I LOVE HIM MORE THAN HE LOVES ME.

Today, I’m linking up with some other mom bloggers to talk holiday traditions, so definitely go check out their posts! We’ve got:

Susannah of Simple Moments Stick

Clair of The Sprouting Minds

Jalisa of jalissaharris.com

Alia of Ali-ish

Jen of And Hattie Makes Three

Aryn of With Cream and Sugar

PLUS we are throwing a “virtual” Ugly Sweater Party on IG. Since I’ve never done one of these, it’s very likely I’ll get it wrong, so bear with me. Essentially, we are all going to post our ugliest Christmas sweaters today, under the hashtags #momsuglysweaterparty. (Remember, if it doesn't have a hashtag, it didn’t happen.) And then YOU GUYS get to tag YOUR ugly sweater photos, so we can ALL be in this together. And so John can stop talking about my “fake internet friends.”

What are your favorite holiday traditions? Sound off in the comments!

Until next time,