Question of the Week

What is your favorite holiday tradition?

Chick Jeanette  My favorite holiday tradition of recent years is to attend the Norwegian service at Minde Kirken in Minneapolis on Christmas Eve with as many family members as we can gather. The service is mostly in Norwegian -- both the singing and the lessons and the sometimes the sermon. Sometimes the children get the giggles but they really do enjoy it too.

Chick Megan  Definitely the day we go get our tree. We scrutinize each and every tree until we get just the right one, then we go home and trim it right away. That night I make a great dinner (if I do say so myself), and then we adjourn to decorate... complete with Santa hats and loud Christmas music. As we unwrap each ornament we always get a little emotional; so many of them have special meaning -- my Bronner's ornaments from my Grandma, each child's first ornament, the ornament Kevin got me when we celebrated our first Christmas as a family, etc. Then we clean everything up and sit back with our (spiked) egg nog and the girls have their hot cocoa. The lights go off, and voila.... we ooooh and aaaaah at the fabulous job we've done. After the girls are tucked in, Kevin and I will hang out by the tree and talk about how lucky we are! It is something we look forward to every single year.

Chick Lorene  My favorite holiday tradition is on Christmas Eve; we all open our new ornaments for the year and hang them on the tree. I buy one for each of the kids, every year (so when they leave home they have a collection from their past, and their family history), and one for the family (so when all my kids leave home with theirs and I am sooooooo sad that they are gone, I still have some, and all of the memories attached to each of them). It makes me cry every year!!!

Chick Karin  Besides the usual traditions of Christmas concerts at the kids' schools, leaving cookies for Santa, visiting Santa, Christmas Eve candlelight service, big meals, football, fires, chestnuts etc.... I don't really have a lot of traditions. To be honest, I feel a lot of stress during Christmas. Phil only gets two days off, (Christmas Eve and Day) and we either travel by plane to visit family (and with all these kids, it ain't the easiest to pack them all up for a two day visit, have them look pretty, behave, and have great gifts to dish out), or we have people come and visit us in a new city. A new city means a new church, no family and not many close friends that are available to spend the day with us. Now that I'm back in Minnesota permanently (still without Phil, though he gets the two days off. Do you see why July 4th is my favorite holiday?), I'm looking forward to starting the Housley traditions of snowmobiling, Christmas caroling, getting settled in the church down the road, and having family and friends close by! We do have one very strong tradition... our Christmas picture and letter! It's "our" thing to do each year. We each take a turn writing the letter (I would never even think about helping them) and send the cards out to all of our friends. It's our way of celebrating the holidays with the people that we would love to be with at Christmas, but can't. Please ask me again in ten years and I'll have forty traditions to tell you about, but as for now, my Christmases are hectic.

Chick Jana  'Tis the season, right? I love the whole Christmas season, getting all the boxes xmas stuff, decorating the house and tree, putting all the outside lights on the house and bushes, baking cookies, sending and receiving Christmas cards and going to church and singing some great Christmas songs. The holiday tradition I miss the most is going over to my Nana Olson's on Christmas Eve and putting on the Christmas program with all my cousins. We each played an instrument and said our Christmas pieces taken from the Bible. It was so much fun to see us all performing and being blinded by the light on my Uncle Lyall's home movie camera.

Chick Kristin  I love to open gifts with my family on Christmas Eve. We normally have a late dinner and then open gifts while listening to Christmas music. Afterward, we used to go to church together for the late service, which was my favorite! I also love that my parents keep a live Christmas tree up through my birthday, Jan. 6th.

Chick Julie  My favorite holiday tradition is going to candlelight service in my home town with all of my family on Christmas Eve. I don't think we've ever missed a year and some of them were in pretty bad snow storms.

Chick Cheryl  Whether while it was growing up or now as a parent, I have always been the gift organizer. That is to say, I'm the one who passes out the gifts from under the tree, deciding who is to open what next. My siblings called me a control freak, but really I just wanted everyone to feel included. It cracks me up that I still do this. Truth be known, I secretly know that everyone loves that I've taken up this role... after all, they just get to sit back and drink their coffee while I repeatedly hand them gifts and take away the discarded paper!