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I love Christmas! The lights, the cookies, the gift-giving, the movies, the music, the crafting! A Christmas tradition from when I was a kid was watching the infamous It's a Wonderful Life movie with my dad. Such a beautiful reminder to be grateful for what we have and to not underestimate the effect we have on others. 💖 I also make cookies with my mom and sister, where the decorations get a little out of hand! 🍪 One of my favorite Christmas traditions is the ornament making my friends and I do. We each make each other a home-made ornament with the date and now our Christmas trees are filled with memories of the years! 🎄 .

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I was married two years ago and truly feel like I hit the jackpot with the in-laws I was given. Every Christmas, my mother and father in law hide a very tiny pickle ornament in the Christmas tree. Our group is growing - so we now split up into girls and guys. Each group is let loose in the living room to find the pickle hiding in the tree. The first girl and guy to find it wins a special Christmas gift. It is so much fun and a tradition I will continue with my own children someday!

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When my brother and I were little, every year my dad would take us to the Hallmark store and we got to pick out one ornament each. Whichever one we thought was the best, and my dad never questioned our choices (which we did pick out some pretty amazing ones.) I probably have 6 Barbie ones. Every year we pull out those ornaments and reflect on those memories. I hope to continue that with my own kids.

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I have known my husband since preschool and we started dating in high school. Growing up, my family always had an artificial tree so I would tag along with his family to cut down a tree at the Christmas tree farm for the past ten years. Now that we are married, we have continued the tradition, but we have added on to it! For the past three Christmas seasons, we go to the same Christmas Tree Farm and cut off a part of the stump to make it into an ornament. We write our names and the year before hanging it up. This is the first year we added another little human name to the ornament! We are excited to continue this tradition and to one day have our children in charge of writing on the ornament!

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As a kid, my favorite holiday tradition was driving around to look at lights and setting up our tree together! This year, we started a new tradition with our boys of getting new pjs on December 1st and starting a book countdown to Christmas, which means each day we open a wrapped book to read that night before bed. It has been so fun to share old traditions and start new ones with our family! Happy Holidays to all!

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As a family we like to go and see holiday decorators. It brings so much joy to us. We either drive around and find a Candy Cane Lane, go to a display or just simply drive around the neighborhood. We make a night of it. This year we were able to go and see "Let It Shine" in Northbrook. Absolutely beautiful. Merry Christmas everyone! Let the joy of the holidays bring you all joy and peace.

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Every year after opening Christmas presents my family goes to my Grandma's house for breakfast. We all sit around talking in our pajamas while she makes a breakfast feast of french toast, eggs, bacon, and toast. This is something I look forward to every year because I get to spend time with my family and cousins!

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Every year, my entire family gets together and we have a Christmas sing-a-long! We have huge packets of Christmas music and we sing through around 30 songs together. We have so much fun! We dress up, have instruments, and make it really silly. My favorite part is that at the end, we sing the Twelve Days of Christmas and we all get into teams to sing and act out our part. It has been a tradition in our family for over 70 years :)

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Our family is all about traditions and spending time together. We love to pick out the perfect tree together and spend time baking cookies. The last few years we have added the tradition of going to the Morton Arboretum on Christmas day. There is something so calming about being out in nature which lets you reflect on how important family is. I wish everyone a happy holiday season!

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One tradition we have in our family is to decorate the Christmas Tree the day after Thanksgiving. We play Christmas music and the Christmas spirit begins.  .  After the decoration, we enjoy watching a Christmas movie with a  hot cup of chocolate......

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Every year, the day after Thanksgiving is THE day to decorate. Since I was little we would  put on the Andy Williams Christmas Album while decorating our tree-oftentimes on repeat! Lucky for Alex, my fiancé, we continue that tradition! We also keep our tree up until January 8th, which is the day after Ukrainian Christmas. We LOVE the holidays!

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My Mom always baked cookies before Christmas with her Mother and sisters and passed this fun tradition down to me. I always loved baking with my Mom and Aunts so now that I have kids we do the same and end up making around 40 trays of sweet each year and pass them out to our family and friends. My Mom collected cookie cutters so it's the most fun doing the homemade sugar cookie cutouts and decorating them.

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My family and I have a ton of traditions during the holiday season! One of my favorites is, the day after Thanksgiving we all put up our Christmas Tree, together. Sitting by the fire with eggnog, Holiday music, gathered by the tree we just put up, is one of my favorite moments. Another tradition I have is driving around our neighborhood looking at all of the amazing lights our neighbors have put up, with a warm Starbucks of course! Nothing beats the holiday season. :)

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We always play soooo many board games and card games! We typically play Sequence, Catch Phrase, Code Names, Catan, & Spades! (to name a few)! Another favorite tradition is making kolaches, eating pierogis, & getting pastries/coffee cake from our favorite Polish bakery in Carol Stream. Lastly, we always have a "Home Alone" movie marathon :)

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One tradition we have in our family is to watch A Polar Express and make hot chocolate. (The hot chocolate is made from Hershey bars and whole milk. It is DELICIOUS!) We then go crazy singing the hot chocolate song! This tradition started before my brothers and I started having kids of our own so it will be even more fun now that we have our own kiddos!

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We have a Christmas calendar.  Each day of the month we pull an ornament out of the dated pocket and put it on the little tree.  Before we pull from the pocket, each family member guesses what the ornament will be to see who has the most "wins" by Christmas Eve. So far, Mr. Levato has the most correct guesses this year!

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Since my son is 3 he finally understands the glory of the season! So we started several traditions this year! One of which, is a reading advent calendar! (shocker the librarian has a reading tradition!) Each day a new Christmas book is placed in a special cloth bag and left on his special reading chair by the library elf. We read the book and then color in on our calendar!
Can you tell where I colored and where my son colored, teehee?!

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Every year we try to watch as many crazy Christmas movies as possible!

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Every year my family would cut down a Christmas tree on the day after thanksgiving. We also visit my dad's side of the family, it's the only day that the majority of us are able to be in one place 

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Every year my family would cut down a Christmas tree on the day after thanksgiving. We also visit my dad's side of the family, it's the only day that the majority of us are able to be in one place 

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Every year, we take a family photo and decorate our tree together. We usually have big family gatherings with both our families that include crazy family games and Christmas movies!! And then midnight Mass. This year will look a little different, but it will still be fun. loving and memorable.  

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Every year, we take a family photo and decorate our tree together. We usually have big family gatherings with both our families that include crazy family games and Christmas movies!! And then midnight Mass. This year will look a little different, but it will still be fun. loving and memorable.  

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Each year we usually go caroling, but this year we are singing and recording them.  Baking cookies, decorating, going to lighting displays are our biggest traditions. :) 

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Each year we usually go caroling, but this year we are singing and recording them.  Baking cookies, decorating, going to lighting displays are our biggest traditions. :) 

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Every year, my family and I decorate our Christmas tree together! We love looking at all of the ornaments we have gotten over the years. We try to get one on every trip we take, and my mom buys us all a new one each year. We also have some made by my great grandma, so it is amazing to have all of those memories to think of when we see each ornament!

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Every year, my family and I decorate our Christmas tree together! We love looking at all of the ornaments we have gotten over the years. We try to get one on every trip we take, and my mom buys us all a new one each year. We also have some made by my great grandma, so it is amazing to have all of those memories to think of when we see each ornament!

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Every year, we cut down our Christmas tree together on the day after Thanksgiving! 

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Every year, we cut down our Christmas tree together on the day after Thanksgiving! 

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Each year, we decorate the house and watch our favorite classic holiday movies. My personal favorite is Home Alone!

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We have Mexican food for Christmas dinner and after dinner we play games as a family. We also enjoy looking at all the ornaments on my Mom's tree. Every year she gets an ornament that has some significance to that year. It's fun to look back and remember the story behind each ornament.

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Each year we love to re-watch all of our favorite movies. Especially Christmas Vacation!

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Each holiday season... we tend to spend sometime driving around and checking out the light and decoration displays, decorating out tree and remarking that we've too many ornaments [and somehow Mrs. V will get a few more], and try to snap a kids pj pic in front of the tree [last years]... We tend to head to grandparents homes as well and simply enjoy the day spending time with family..

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We always take lots of naps and admire our tree :) Ovie is new to our family this year and he is catching on!! I hope your holiday also brings you time to rest, relax, and enjoy each moment! 

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We always take lots of naps and admire our tree :) Ovie is new to our family this year and he is catching on!! I hope your holiday also brings you time to rest, relax, and enjoy each moment! 

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- Ms. B

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We love decorating our tree together.  Last year our tree broke and now only the middle lights up!! Now we have a new tradition of adding extra lights to the top and bottom! :)

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We love decorating our tree together.  Last year our tree broke and now only the middle lights up!! Now we have a new tradition of adding extra lights to the top and bottom! :)

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Every year we decorate our tree on my husband's birthday, Dec. 2.

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Every year we decorate our tree on my husband's birthday, Dec. 2.

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As a family we bake all different types of holiday cookies to delivery to family and friends.  As the girls get older, less and less make it out of the house. 😉

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As a family we bake all different types of holiday cookies to delivery to family and friends.  As the girls get older, less and less make it out of the house. 😉

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Every year my great aunt and I make TONS of holiday cookies. We deliver to fire departments and libraries in the community. I DEFINITELY eat too many when they are fresh out of the oven because that's when they are the BEST. :) 

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Every year my great aunt and I make TONS of holiday cookies. We deliver to fire departments and libraries in the community. I DEFINITELY eat too many when they are fresh out of the oven because that's when they are the BEST. :) 

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Unfortunately this year hasn't been the same with Covid. :(

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We love to drive around and look at the festive holiday lights!

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We love to drive around and look at the festive holiday lights!

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A tradition in our house is to take a serious holiday photo...

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A tradition in our house is to take a serious holiday photo...