Traditions – The Salty Exchange

I love a good gift idea, give me all the clever, cute, fun, unique gift ideas PLEASE!! When Kendall mentioned sharing our combined list of our favorite gifts and traditions this year I thought it was genius. Reminded me of the guide we created in 2022 which you can find here if you are interested. Again, we are sharing a few of our favorite things so that you can benefit from what we’ve learned, how we’ve celebrated, and what we are looking forward to giving this year.

Shari’s Top 4 favorite things:

A Sauna! I joked on my personal Instagram that I am not an influencer but if I was… I would say “BUY THE SAUNA” because let’s be honest, the benefits are extensive. Want to listen to a book all about winter and why to purchase a sauna? Check out “How to Winter” by Kari Leibowitz. But seriously, I liked above the exact sauna that my husband and I purchased and I can confidently say it was the best purchase of 2025!
Tradition – Family Dinner with the Christmas “holly” Lennox set. Last year we started a tradition with some family members to celebrate our late Aunt Kory. I inherited all her Christmas Lennox dishes and I wanted a reason to use them so we call it “Aunt Kory Christmas” and we serve ham and potatoes and a variety of side dishes and exchange gifts in honor of Aunt Kory who would have beamed with joy that we kept her Christmas traditions alive! Doing something in honor of someone we love just fills my cup so full during the busy holiday season.
For the kids – we are in an interesting stage of life with the big kids being pretty “big” these days and gifting for them is harder than I care to admit. I wanted to make sure I kept the magic from our 18 year old to our 3 year old so I have to be strategic with gifts they wont know about. I still follow a lot of activities listed in this past post on advent activities and try to keep the Christmas feeling alive during the month of December in our home.
For my girlfriends I have had so much fun putting together a little set of my favorite things… think tiny, cute, and practical. After I gift them all I can share exactly what I am gifting but it is literally a bunch of my favorite tiny useful gadgets from travel to everyday use items. I will tell you a few… my favorite Jack Black lip balm and hand sanitizer… just to name a few. I am having so much fun putting these little sets together and can’t wait to see what my friends think of all my tried and true must-haves! Bonus they are small and actually useful!

Kendall’s Top 4 favorite things:

In recent years I have embraced this time of Advent. Every year it means something different but this year in particular I have embraced the idea of spiritual preparation ahead of Christ’s birth. I’ve gone to confession, contemplated where my heart needs to be, and examined my life as a whole. It’s more somber than the typical in your face Christmas season but this focus has allowed me to open my heart in different ways. Family time, keeping things in moderation (no going overboard on gifts), and prayer have actually caused me less anxiety than I normally have. In past years I have felt like a failure for not hitting all of the things on the Christmas to do list. I was in competition with a version of myself that just doesn’t matter. Implementing little things like weekday mass, doing the Theo app at night with Rosemary, and taking moments to really sit with my husband and my family and spend time together have felt incredibly healing and emphasized the reality of what is important in our lives. Advent looks different for everyone and this is just where I am this year.
Gifts. I used to love gift giving. Now, I really don’t. People already have so much stuff. My children already have so many things. This year, Issy and I are keeping things simple. We aren’t doing a lot of gifts. BUT something I do love to give people is food. I love cooking for our friends and family. I will do a few batches of different things between now and Epiphany to give to people. Think homemade salsa, cookies, etc. The storage of food is usually temporary AND it is being made with love.
Every year, Issy and I watch “White Christmas.” It’s our favorite movie. We love to pour something tasty and snuggle up and get lost in Irving Berlin’s genius. This time together means so much to me. The tree is lit up, our house is cozy, the kids are safe and in bed, and Issy and I get to just be for a few hours.
The Polar Express. ALL ABOARD… ALLLLLLLL ABOARD! It has become a yearly tradition to take the kids on the Polar Express. They love it. Riding a train, listening to a read aloud of the book, meeting Santa and getting their very own bell are the things that they look forward to every year and will talk about all holiday season.

What establishes a tradition? Well, Google states that it is a custom or recurring activity passed through generations. I would argue that in our minds we all have traditions that are simply considered yearly activities or events that we enjoy doing with our families. This year it may not be so easy to keep some event-based traditions alive but there is always time to create new traditions… At least that is my philosophy!

Let’s take it back to my childhood… I have so many great memories of Christmas. Mostly the excitement to be with family, opening gifts, and decorating the Christmas tree (which was always taken down from the garage rafters and was quite the production to set up). The ornaments that pre-dated my arrival to the family were always some of my favorites and each year we would add another personal ornament to the tree. Those personalized ornaments were my favorite to hang each year after that. Although our house rarely had Christmas lights on the outside, my mom always made sure it looked like a holiday explosion inside! My mom’s love for Christmas could be an entire blog post all on its own. Our family usually made an effort to go drive through the “Christmas Lights on James Street” every year. It was a local mobile home neighborhood that would get all lit up to THE extreme; from the lawns to the rooftops, the driveways and often even the cars, the James Street houses did not disappoint. We would ohh and ahh over the bright magical displays and talk about any other neighborhoods that might also be decorated nearby, I think we just liked driving around as a family.

One Christmas tradition that stands out above the rest is decorating sugar cookies with my mom. Since my mom is an amazing cook, she would make an effort to bake and decorate sugar cookies with me. We’d pull out cookie cutters, food coloring for frosting and ALL the sprinkles in the baking cabinet. Bless my mom’s heart because it was always such a mess and I rarely helped clean it up. I remember having the best time and getting extremely excited when my dad picked out his favorite frosted cookie that happened to be one I decorated. As an adult, I like to buy the premade Gingerbread house kits for the kids and now my mom typically will still do sugar cookie decorating with the grandkids. So sweet…literally!

Are you ready for my favorite Christmas tradition OF ALL TIME? The Christmas Eve Service at my Grandparents Church, trust me it was quite the production. I still remember the smell of the church, the color of the carpet, the pews that were handmade by my Great Uncle Ed, and the slightly terrible childrens performances that made you both laugh and cringe at the same time. The youngest kids would sing “Happy Bells” which is the cutest little song when coming from a 3 year old who is simultaneously shaking the bells in their hand as fast and hard as possible. As a group (congregation) we would take out the hymnals from the back of the pew in front of us and open to whatever page we were instructed to sing “O’ Holy Night” and numerous other Christmas songs. What made this so special was the unique sound of the organ piano. They save the best for last and as you left the ushers would give you a bag full of hard candies, peanuts (with the salty shell), and an orange. I loved this Christmas tradition and even typing about it makes me ache deep down inside, I miss it so much! The church built a new building and it just doesn’t have the same feel (or smell).

Although those are some of my more treasured traditions from childhood, the beauty of growing up is incorporating new traditions and evolving your knowledge and understanding of a holiday. Over the past few years I have poured myself into my Scandinavian heritage only to learn about the Norwegian Nisse, the Rommegrot porridge that the Nisse eats, Krumkake baking, candles and the (quite popular) concept of Hygge. It’s been so much fun to incorporate what I am learning back into my family traditions, hoping that something I am doing was what my great grandmother’s family did back in Norway.

Traditions can be beautiful and special when passed down from generation to generation. They can be a memory that you hold dear, or they can be something you just started doing this year. I would love to know (in the comments below) what holiday traditions are your favorite? What are some traditions that you are hoping to create?

Tag: Traditions

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