For many of us, the holidays consist of parties, food and socializing, but there are many traditions that are near and dear to every family.

The Diva Team came together to share a few of their favorite holiday traditions.

Paige

Oh, the holidays, my favorite time of the year! Who doesn’t love the endless amounts of sweets, dinners and family gatherings? For my family and I, we’ve had the same tradition since I was born. Every year on Christmas Eve we head to my grandparent’s house for presents, food and of course a ton of laughs.

The same things happen every year when we arrive at my grandparent’s house. We greet our family who drove hours to celebrate the evening with us. We catch up with cousins, aunts and uncles and we open presents!

My favorite part of our tradition is seeing everyone gather together and celebrate such a joyous holiday. But, as the years go on, and my grandparents’ age, the tradition will soon have to change.

This holiday season will be the last year celebrating Christmas Eve at my grandparents’ house. It’ll be bittersweet seeing my family and I gather around such a sentimental place for the last time. Just because one door is closing, doesn’t mean another can’t open. Our family will have to start a new tradition and gather at another family member’s house and continue our tradition for years to come!

Kristen

For my husband and I, the holidays are all about spending time with our loved ones. Our tradition is pretty simple, but to us, it’s something we look forward to every single year. On Christmas Eve, we spend time with my husband’s family. Being from a small town, it makes it easy to go from one house to the next. The party is usually the same every year: food, presents and more food!

When we get back home, we always take a photo of our house. We love to look back and remember if it had snowed or not (can you tell we’re Canadian, eh?).

Christmas morning is extra special to me. My husband and I wake up and exchange our gifts. It’s nice to be together without the chaos of all our family members. Once gifts are opened and we’ve spent time together, we gather at my parent’s house for Christmas dinner and our classic Christmas crackers and paper crowns!

Family Holiday Traditions

Shelley

I know that the idea of movies and Chinese food for Jewish families on December 25th is not a new one, but I have got to say that my family kills it! We don’t watch *a* movie, we go to the theater and watch 4-5 movies. Planning our movie adventure starts days in advance includes a lot of help from friendly cinema employees, and necessitates a lot of flexibility. For my family’s holiday movie fest, it’s always quantity over quality and so when you are trying to see as many movies as possible, scheduling is absolutely everything!  

Though websites and newspapers can give you the start time, what you need to get from the theater itself is the actual film start times (you know after all the car commercials and previews) as well as the end times, and screening room proximities. It’s good to try and get about 10 minutes between the end of a film and the start of the next for washroom breaks, popcorn refills and navigating massive multiplexes, but this does not often work out. Most of the time we are jogging from one screen to the next as soon as the credits begin to roll.

It’s the perfect kind of holiday chaos. We may not have a tree, presents or a turk, but we spend the day together and boy do we ever have fun. This is how my family has been doing December 25th since I was a kid and I couldn’t picture spending the day any other way!

Kobi

Part of being a millennial means I was raised almost entirely by television. Some of my fondest childhood memories are avoiding holiday hysteria by sinking into the couch with the company of Rudolph, Frosty and the lovably depressing Charlie Brown. For me, the holidays can’t begin until I’ve blown off my Christmas shopping for a few hours of hot cocoa and holiday classics.

Penny

We live in a small town, so one of our holiday traditions is to drive into the city. We may go to a musical or a play, or we may just visit something fun like the aquarium. I like taking my son somewhere to have an experience, like learning something new or simply seeing something new. The city is neat to visit at this time of year. Sometimes it’s busy with people ice skating at City Hall or walking around, and sometimes it’s like a ghost town (maybe because the city dwellers are driving out to small towns like mine to visit family).

We would love to hear about your holiday traditions! Share them with us below or on our social media channels.