Christmas Traditions...

Traditions have always been a part of my Christmas. Traditions have included a big dinner on Christmas Eve followed by a family fireside where stories are told, spiritual moments are shared, and the spirit of Christmas really fills the home. Following the fireside we were allowed to open one present and then it was off to bed. In the morning you had a big, stuffed stocking waiting to be opened. Following the stocking you had to wait until everyone in the house was awake and THEN... we all went down stairs to open up the gifts. These sweet traditions are something that I will always cherish and remember. Since being married I have really thought about a tradition that Alan and I could have and enjoy every single year. Over the past couple weeks I have been thinking and even getting to the point of being really stressed out trying to think about a tradition that we could start together. While on the treadmill one night it came to me... I almost fell off the treadmill because I was so excited about this idea. I talked with Alan about it and we decided it was a keeper.

So our Christmas tradition is this... On Christmas Eve we will read the Christmas story from the scriptures. After we have read the story we will write down our testimonies. After we are done writing our testimonies we will share them with each other. After they are shared we will type up our testimonies and put them in a frame by our picture of the Savior in our home. We will display our testimonies year round and then the following year we will replace the testimony with a new one and put the old one in to a book for us to keep and watch how our testimonies grow throughout the years. We also thought that it will be fun when we start having children to see how their testimonies will grow throughout the years.

We were successful this year on starting our tradition and it was so nice to have the spirit abiding with us as we read, and then testified of our Savior.

I was able to find a beautiful frames that matched and now we have this displayed in our "home." (or room.)