Christmas and Advent Season has always been a quiet and peaceful time of the year, growing up in Germany we had many traditions and I loved them. Christmas was always special at home and now with my family here in Florida I try to keep as many of my German traditions during the Christmas season each year and it’s so much fun. My kids are getting older and they never really known traditional American Christmas and always thought the things I do every year for the Holidays are totally normal until a few days ago when we pulled out all the Christmas décor and my oldest son’s girlfriend asked to help us decorate.
She thought she would come over for a tree decoration and that would be it, little did she know that we decorate almost the entire house including 3 trees, we also had so many different traditions and ornaments that she had never heard off and all that made me realize that the way we celebrate Christmas now here in Florida is not really how everyone else celebrates it, it always and still is totally normal to me to have St. Nikolaus come visit on December 6th and bring goodies for the kids, providing they cleaned their boots and placed them in front of the door the night before, you should have seen the eyes my Son’s girlfriend made when I told her if she is here that day to make sure she has her boots cleaned and put outside the door and she may get a surprise, too. It was so strange to me to explain all our traditions, but I loved it.
We also have an advent calendar that each year I create for the kids and starting December 1st they get to open or unwrap their little goodie of the day and will do so till Christmas Eve, this has always been a wonderful tradition when I grew up and I sure wouldn’t want my kids to miss out, when I heard that my son’s Girlfriend never had heard of the Advents Calendar I quickly went out and bought her and her twin sister one, too. It’s a tradition, you just have to have at Christmas 
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Another Christmas tradition is Advent, we decorate candles or a wreath each year and place 4 candles on the table, the 4 Sundays before Christmas one candle gets lid till all 4 are lid, which means Christmas is near. It’s something I couldn’t celebrate Christmas without.
Do you have Christmas traditions in your Family?
I know there are a lot of traditions that are in the US that we don’t have and somehow maybe my kids are missing out? So this year I decided to do Stockings, yup… we never did stockings before. I made a list of some ideas I think would be great in the stocking and decided to share them with you, incase you need a little extra help this year.
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Small toys
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Coloring, crayons and small books
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Tea and hot chocolate packs
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Healthy Essentials like Listerine, everyone needs to keep their dental hygiene going during the holidays and all year, why not include it in your stocking or how about Band-Aid they come in many different design and the kids always need them. I know my kids can’t get enough of the Band-Aid’s.
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For mom you could include some Neutrogena Mascara or Aveeno products, these are always welcome in my stocking, in case someone is reading it.
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For a cookie lover you could include some Splenda Sugar blend and maybe some measuring spoons and cups to make the stocking special.
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How about Soap and hair shampoo? Why not include them in your stocking ideas, they can be used all the time and you can never have too much of it. My daughter is totally obsessed with the Johnson and Johnsons no more tangles
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Favorite candy and sweet treats
There you have some of our family traditions from Germany as well as hopefully some helpful stocking stuffer ideas for the entire family. If you decide to add some Healthy Essentials to your stockings this year be sure to grab the $35 worth of savings if you go visit the Healthy Essentials website during the month of December. I love saving money so this is a great deal.
What stocking stuffer ideas do you have?
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