The importance of Christmas traditions is a paid collaborative post with Christmas Tree World.  I am not going to lie, this year has been a challenging one in The Mad House, a person very close to us died and it has weighed heavy on my mind and in my heart since. They left behind a young family and that is what inspired this post and cemented my thinking about the importance of Christmas traditions.

The Importance of Christmas Traditions

As a mum, I am often the one that carries the physical and mental load when it comes to carrying out and carry on Christmas traditions and sometimes that can be exhausting. So exhausting that I often think “why do I bother”? Well, the fact is traditions bring with them comfort and also cement memories for both children and adults alike. For me, it is the everyday traditions of Christmas that demonstrate hands-on love for my children. As my boys’ are getting older it is often the smaller or what I feel to be the less significant traditions that they insist we keep and that mean the most to them.

It is not just old traditions that are important it is also key to be open to establishing new rituals and recognising when the time has come to retire older ones. All of this is challenging enough for a mum but once you add in grief then it becomes an even harder balance to achieve.

One of the things I have found over the years to help out traditions run smoothly is always expecting things to never run smoothly but also to understand that Christmas makes children and some adults really excited and that very easily tips in to over excitement and mayhem. So when it comes to things like decorating and putting up the tree it is often best to put the lights on and do the faffing before letting the kids add the decorations. That way they don’t get impatient at waiting for you to get the tree just right and you don’t feel pressured to get it done.

My best friend is great at creating and keeping the joy of Christmas alive in her home and was delighted when we were gifted a 7-foot Majestic Dew Pine Tree to replace her very old tree from Christmas Tree World. She was delighted with the tree and how easy it was to put up and how beautiful it looks with all their decorations on.

I have always loved her tree as it is filled with baubles and memories added over the year and this year we added some of the Feather Remembrance Baubles that I made.

Last year we created our own new tradition when it came to trees, rather than using a fake tree we all go as a family and choose and collect a real tree. We did this as my boys’ were not interested in helping decorate the tree but I didn’t want to do it on my own.  We all really enjoyed our new tradition and didn’t miss the old one. The only downside for me it that means that we don’t get our tree until mid December, but G always puts their up at the beginning of December, so I get to enjoy the beauty of her new tree.

Doesn’t the tree look amazing and I think the children did a fabulous job of decorating it after G had popped the lights on earlier in the day when they were at school?  What are your favourite Christmas traditions? Is there any that you wish you hadn’t started or wish had been around when your children where younger?