More holiday traditions

 I had grand plans on blogging about my favorite Christmas traditions throughout December.

Well... December got the best of me. But I took these pictures on the last day of December so I totally made it, right?

These traditions come courtesy of both of my grandmas.

Ornaments have always been a big part of Christmas growing up. Every year we would get a new ornament to put on the tree. The ornaments are a perfect scrapbook of what types of things we were into that year. I have one with The Little Mermaid and I graduated into shoes. My grandma Tilly began giving us ornaments every year as well, and mine were shoes. Each shoes is so unique with personality. And they still adorn my parent's tree. One day when we get our own big tree, I might have to sneak them out.

Once I got married, I graduated from shoe ornaments to the these beautiful 24K gold ornaments from my Grandma. They have inspired our whole tree for a gold motif. I adore these ornaments.

Advent calendars: Another yearly tradition from my childhood. I can't remember not having an advent calendar. FYI: Advent calendars help countdown the days until Christmas. In addition to this chocolate one (where you eat a chocolate for each day until Christmas), we had a cloth advent calendar with a little mouse that we moved each day to count down until the 25th.

Jacob and I have our own advent calendar and we race each day to find our chocolate first. I cannot wait to carry this tradition on in our family.

What are some of your favorite traditions?