Chiefs Football and Holiday Traditions – since I can remember, as a young lad, I would watch football games on holidays with my father. Our kitchen was attached to our family room where the television resided and that TV was seemingly always on. Growing up in Southern California had its share of ups and downs as I always followed the UCLA Bruins basketball team as well as the Lakers. While the Bruins offered up one championship after another and forever jaded me the Lakers kept me grounded as it seemed they could never get past the Celtics.
I have one child and she is grown now. She and I have often joked that it was too bad I didn’t have a son so she occasionally panders to my interest in the Chiefs by paying attention and actually asking me questions.
In a recent conversation, she and I got to talking about traditions with the holidays coming up and all. I live about a 30 minute drive from her family so when i got home last week from our visit, I began to construct a “Traditions List” which I will share with you today in the hopes that you will add to it as well. Your traditions list can be football related… or not. Sup 2 U. The list I’m sharing here is based on what I have mostly experienced directly, with teachers at one of my schools, or families I have known… or the making of this list has inspired a new “possible” tradition. Traditions give us the opportunities to make memories and feel a sense of togetherness at what have become important times of year to us. In many ways, this Traditions list is utilitarian, so if you see something you’d like to steal and put into action… who’s to stop you.
I once had the great pleasure to play the character of Tevye in “Fiddler on the Roof” in a local theater production with full orchestration so…
Tip, that’s not me… but singing that song was a memory not to be forgotten. Without further adieu, here are 111 Traditions to get us started:
Attend the Kansas City Ballet’s classic: The Nutcracker
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- Play a game
- Share songs
- Share a video or funny or meaningful YouTube
- Write and share a poem
- Hide a gift
- Make a treasure hunt
- Attend a midnight mass
- Sing Hymns together around the piano
- My mother used to read the Biblical story of Jesus birth on Christmas eve to us (we kept laughing and making jokes so one year she threatened that if we continued she would never do it again. We did. She didn’t.)
- Take a walk together
- Go caroling together
- Bake together
- Decorate a tree together
- Drink Hot Chocolate together (Marshmallows a must)
- Share what you’re thankful for on Thanksgiving during the meal.
- Calling an old friend to wish them a Happy Holidays
- Sending Christmas cards
- Shopping together
- Putting a new puzzle together-together (my mother’s tradition)
- Hugging each other.
- Playing a favorite card game together
- Playing pick up sticks ( a tradition I have with my daughter since she was small. I give her the same Pick-up-sticks wrapped every year as the last present, then when she opens it we lay on our stomachs in the living room and play immediately. She always wins. 😲)
- Giving a funny gift
- Filling stockings the night before Christmas in the back bedroom on the bed.
- Opening Stockings on Christmas eve, stockings that are so big a human could fit inside.
- Doing something new together that you’ve never done before… to make a new tradition.
- Baking Bread (my mother was ALWAYS baking bread… the reason I had friends)
- Having a Mexican dinner buffet style at home
- Visiting those who are shut-in on Christmas day and taking them something you’ve baked (my parents were such good people and would often do this. I miss them tons!).
- Having friends/relatives stay for the Holidays.
- Passing out gifts one by one (by my older brother Barry) and waiting for each person to open their gift before opening another one.
- Hanging a card on the tree (my grandma used to send us a card every year with a quarter in it and my mom would hang the card in the tree).
- Repeat an action: like placing a quarter in a card each year.
- Repeat Christmas quotes like “I like this a lot.” – (my sister Sheryl coined the phrase when she once got a gift she didn’t like by saying, “Gee, I really like this” — to be kind but, without feeling — and we have teased her mercilessly ever since… and used it ourselves of course)
- Watch a meaningful movie together (schedule it).
- Read a Children’s story together.
- Share a story found earlier in the year (or read it).
- Go listen to the “Hallelujah Chorus” at the Independence Auditorium on Thanksgiving week together (it stopped in 2016).
- Sit on Santa’s lap …. you know who (my son-in-law’s father is a not only a local Santa here in K.C. but was also the Santa at Universal Studio for years and was once featured in a Bob Dylan video about five years ago)…
- Make a childhood memory box for each person (takes tons of time but this was the best time putting gifts together ever)…
- Listen to Holiday songs together (see #3)…
- Have a Holiday Cookie Decorating Party (then eat them).
- Ask everyone to bring an appetizer to Christmas
- Write a jingle, limerick, or Haiku for someone or topic (give it a try, your friends and/or family will appreciate your efforts).
- Make an Origami Christmas Tree ornament party
- Go Make a Donation Together (I miss my Dad!)
- Decorate the front of the House together
- Make letters out of hangers and wrap them in lights for each window in your house (my daughter and I did this together one year and it’s still a tremendous memory).
- Make a Gingerbread House together and decorate it.
- Go see the K.C. Plaza Lighting together. Heidi Gardner who is on SNL and is from K.C. will be turning on the lights. I’ll be there too… but no one cares. Hehe.
- Make a Holiday video recording
- Watch a Slides presentation of pictures (my father used to share all his pictures via a slide projector and we thought it was pretty darn neat for a long time… then not, for a pretty darn long time.
- Dance together to some tunes (a tradition with my daughter, forever).
- Go door-to-door to deliver cookies to your neighbors.
- Go sledding (if possible)
- Go to Yule Camp (a 3-day Holiday camp for teens. Geez we loved that).
- Play “Elf on a Shelf”
- Create a shared Holiday Playlist
- Use an advent calendar to countdown until Christmas.
- Set up a Holiday Movie Schedule to watch a special movie with each person you want to see that movie with.
a.“Miracle on 34th Street”
b.“A Charlie Brown Christmas.”
c.“Wonderful Life”
d.“How the Grinch…”
e.“A Christmas Story”
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- Make a Calendar of Events for December – send it out to everyone (or make it a website)
- Make (or purchase) a special Holiday Ornament that reminds you of a specific person.
- Make a family picture to be turned into a card or gift.
- Write a letter to Santa.
- Sleep in sleeping bags (or on the couch) one night in December in front of the lighted tree.
- Read the “Giving Tree”
- Go to the graveyard to visit relatives passed ( a tradition both my cousin Shannon and my wife Violette hold dear).
- Play Secret Santa
- Draw names for giving one gift to (never a fan of this)
- Open one gift on Christmas Eve (we never did this)
- Leave a plate of cookies out for Santa
- Hang stockings from the fireplace
- Read The Night Before Christmas on Christmas eve.
- Get matching pajamas…
- Don’t open presents until after religious services or meal (how I hated this as a kid)
- Hang white surgical balls from the ceiling like it’s snowing indoors (don’t ask).
- Serve Ham on Christmas day (my mother’s tradition but my brother informs that she changed over to pot roast later in her life)
- Have a hootenanny – everyone plays an instrument – and we all sing-a-long…
- Pick out a real tree (we used to do this)
- Make a wreath out of discarded limbs (my mother used to do this)
- Take a Tour of Christmas Lights all together.
- Have a Photo with Santa.
- Take a Family Photo on Christmas Day
- Attend a service where the Nativity is being acted out ( used to dislike doing this as a kid but my brother has good memories of this).
- Go Ice Skating/Roller Skating…
- Do a Christmas Movie Marathon (now called a binge)
- Find a day to Fast- btw… Romanians (my wife’s country of origin) usually practice fasting throughout the year (Mondays and Fridays) by abstaining from eating animal products.
- Also in Romania- “Saint Nicholas” is celebrated on December 6th and on Saint Nicholas’ Eve (Dec 5th), all Romanian children clean their boots, place them at their door and go to sleep… waiting for Mos Nicolae to fill them with presents. In the morning, the most obedient of them get lots of little surprises, mostly sweets, tucked into their shoes.
I did this for Violette (my wife) on our first Christmas together.
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- Buy (donate) a goat for a 3rd world family (in honor of a family member)
- Take communion together
- Travel for Christmas to visit relatives in other states (my family did this often when I was a kid).
- Do a cookie exchange (or recipe exchange)
- Put a pine cone on the tree (to remember my mother who collected pine cones)
- Make a paper-chain to wrap the tree (like mother often did)
- Make a popcorn chain to wrap the tree (like father often did)
- Place an old gold-and-silver star globe ornament made of glass at the top of the Christmas tree. What did you have at the top of your tree?
- Drape icicles tinsel on the tree one by one (my father used to throw it on, which drove my mom crazy)
- Buy a broken-branch tree (my dad had the sometimes-tradition of getting the smallest tree or the runt of the litter, he liked the underdog).
- Make a huge Welcome Home sign for Barry (on Porch we would display a sign when my older brother came home from college).
- Make Christmas tree decorations from what’s available
- Buy matching Christmas Sweaters
- Set a time aside for sharing Christmas memories
- Buy something for a stranger (pay for person behind you)
- Make a Halo for the top of the tree.
- Buy gifts for family Pets.
- Make something for my teacher at school
- Post wish lists on the frig (my mom’s tradition and my sister’s list was always the longest).
- Do something for the 12 days of Christmas or 8 nights of Hanukkah.
- Leave a blank Holiday Memory Book out on the counter top for family members to write in each day of December. This could be a web page.
- Hot Cider Night.
- Have a foreign foods night in December.
- If you live in a warm climate, take a family bike ride in the parking lot of a closed mall on Christmas Day.
Laddie Morse — ArrowheadOne
PS Here’s the Thanksgiving Football Schedule for today, Thursday, Nov. 28
1. Chicago Bears @ Detroit Lions
12:30 p.m. ET (FOX) | Ford Field (Detroit)
2. Buffalo Bills @ Dallas Cowboys
4:30 p.m. ET (CBS) | AT&T Stadium (Arlington, Texas)
3. New Orleans Saints @ Atlanta Falcons
8:20 p.m. ET (NBC) | Mercedes-Benz Stadium (Atlanta)
PSS One of my new favorites (from two years ago) is a song from decades ago called, “Driving Home For Christmas.” Enjoy… if you like this kind of music.
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