Mary Ann
The 12 Days of Christmas starts on Christmas Day and ends on January 5th, the day before Epiphany. In our family, my grandson’s birthday is January 5th. I decided that I was going to celebrate these 12 days in a special way for my grandchildren. I wasn’t going to get them calling birds or a partridge in a pear tree or leaping lords. I was going to do something unique for them starting on Christmas and ending with my grandson’s birthday.
The first year, I went overboard and bought expensive gifts as all grandparents do. I wrapped them all up and presented the grandchildren a box of 12 gifts each, and this was after opening all their Christmas presents. The whole idea was that they would open one gift a day until my grandson’s birthday thus celebrating the 12 Days of Christmas.
As all children would do, they opened all the gifts at once. My bad. Their parents weren’t happy that I added more stuff to already too much stuff from Christmas. My bad! The concept was good, the execution was not. I was going to have to rethink the whole idea.
So, the following Christmas I got sets of 12 mini stockings that were about 4 inches tall for each grandchild and paired down the gifts to things that would fit in the little stockings. I got the stockings at Big Lots, but Amazon, of course, offers a variety of stocking sizes and prices. I filled them with candy, a match box car, a small game, a bookmarker, money, lip gloss, and whatever action figure was the “it” toy that year. I put the little stockings in a holiday bag and told the grandchildren that they could only open one stocking a day. Part of the fun was reaching in the bag to pick a random stocking. The toy or whatever occupied them for the day for the most part. I collected the stocking after the 12 days finished to use them again the next year. And so, the tradition began.
When I suggested that I was going to stop the stockings since they were now older, there was a rebellion. They didn’t want to stop. When they got older, I got them gift cards for iTunes or stores, movies passes, jewelry, makeup and hair adornments, and on and on. It was good to see them still excited about Christmas and that the 12 Days of Christmas was our unique family tradition.
It was always fun for me to “shop” all year for the stockings. I was always searching for something special for the grandchildren. I hope this tradition will be a nice Christmas memory for them, and maybe they will do this for their children and grandchildren. This can be a special tradition to adopt for any family. It is a fun way to celebrate the 12 Days of Christmas!
Silver Sage Sisters 