Pass It Down

As our family grows, so do our traditions. Old ones become new again when they are passed to the next generation. Here are a few traditions that my family treasures; yours may enjoy them also.

• Start a themed ornament collection for your children. Each year my father gave me a silver ornament. Last year I began my daughter’s collection.
• Serve a signature dish at each holiday. My mother is famous for her scalloped oysters. One year oysters were sold out at the grocery, and my brother complained that it just didn’t feel like Christmas without that dish on the table.
• Celebrate each addition to the family with personalized stockings. This is the perfect way to mark the birth of a child or make a new daughter-in-law feel like a member of the family. All of our stockings are hand-knitted and have our names on them.
• Use your holiday china for the entire season, not just one day. Mom always used her Christmas china the entire month of December. This was our first clue that Santa was on his way.