New Christmas Traditions

I have the worst memory, so if I want something to become a tradition, I have to write it down so I can check back and remember.
To keep Christ in Christmas, we painted a little "manger" and when the kids did something nice for someone, they got to put a piece of hay in the manger. The goal was to make a nice bed for baby Jesus, which they did.

Squiggles, our new Elf on the Shelf-compliments of D and Grande. He had fun hiding all over the place, and doing a few pranks as well.

Notice no star on the tree? Lame.

Squiggles hanging from the fan.

My friend Brandi, has an amazing tradition with her family and friends that we were privileged enough to be apart of.  She has a girls night a few weeks before Christmas and everyone brings something-a case of water bottles, hand or foot warmers, socks, mittens, hot chocolate packets, mini toothbrushes, etc.  Brandi had bough 80 stockings after Christmas last year and we stuffed all 80 stockings full of these items.  On Christmas day, we drove downtown and handed out the stockings to the homeless people.  It was a great experience for our kids to learn how blessed they are, and to teach them the true meaning of Christmas (and it made for a good laugh when Joshua asked why a pirate came to our car-the homeless person had an eye patch).