It's Christmas Eve.  My children have already started to get excited.  Eh ~ who am I kidding?  They were excited a month ago!  They aren't looking forward to saying goodbye to Tinsel and Holly but I think the presents from the "big guy" will help to smooth that over a bit.  Speaking of the "big guy"...he went WAY overboard this year.  He usually does...because he stinks at sticking to a list and a budget.  It's going to be a Merry Christmas, for sure!

I wanted to share some pictures of a family tradition that we have in my family.  I called my Dad this morning to ask him how this started - because I never thought to ask before.  I just knew that it was something that we did in our family.  For first Christmases, we get a Santa.

It started with my Dad (pictured above with his Santa).  His Grandfather bought him this Santa for his first Christmas.  He still has it today.  It is as old as he is.  I remember knowing this when my dad was in his 30s and thinking, "Wow, that's an old doll."  Now I'm in my 30s.


This is my Santa.  It's not in the best shape but it is 33 years old.  It has a hard face and if you pull the beard down around his mouth you can see how white the beard once was.


 This is Jerry's Santa.  Obviously, he didn't get it on his first Christmas.  He did get it on his first Christmas as part of my family.  It has one of those "Awww" stories behind it.  When I was in High School, we use to go and help the nuns at the mother house in Baden during their Harvest Festival.  There were all kinds of things that happened that weekend but one of them was a giant flea market.  People would buy the most bizarre things to take home.  I remember one year someone bought a lawn mower that we had to take home on the bus.

Anyway, I found this Santa.  It was in really good shape but needed some stuffing added to it.  I decided to buy it to give to whoever I married.  My mom added some stuffing to it and I gave it to Jerry on our first Christmas 11 years later.


 This is Nate's Santa.  My Dad got it for him.  He searched and searched when he found out I was having a baby because he wanted to give him the perfect Santa.  He ended up finding it on ebay - it's vintage!  The kids don't play with their Santas.  They have Tinsel and Holly and other Christmas toys to play with but these stay high up so they can't get damaged.


 Here is Danika's Santa.  Nunnu went straight to ebay for this one!



This isn't part of the tradition...but I thought I would add a picture of it ~ since I was taking pictures of our Santas.  This was mine when I was little.  It jingles when you play with it.  It bobs and rolls when you push it and all 4 of my kiddos have played with it, too.  :)

Have a Merry Christmas and enjoy remembering all of your traditions and even finding some new ones to repeat next year!