(Updated) What Are Your Traditions?

Note: We've given all of these away, but we'd love to hear more traditions!

We received a pile of the wonderful New Orleans Christmas CDs from Putumayo for listener giveaways. So, let's hear some holiday traditions! Send an e-mail (show AT sparetherock DOT com) and talk about you or your kids' favorite traditions during winter -- whether holiday-related or not -- and your mailing address.

Depending on how many responses we get, some or all respondents will get the CD, which is a really terrific compilation of music, with a portion of proceeds going to the New Orleans area Habitat for Humanity and its Musicians' Village project.

(And if you have someone who would fit in either a onesie or a size 4 t-shirt, mention that too, and you might get a Bloodshot Records shirt/onesie!)

(I'll be posting responses here, so sending the e-mail in is your consent to that.)

Update: Melinda of Ohio writes:

I have a 4 yr old son and an almost 1 year old daughter. Ever since my son became interested in trains we have enjoyed the many train gardens that pop up this time of year. Last Saturday we visited a wonderful one at our local Botanical Gardens and soon we will be going to Baltimore and will make sure to visit the one at an old shopping center. And this year for the first time, my son will get to set up a train with his grandfather. Sure to be a hit!

Thanks, Melinda!

Jeffrey of New York shares:

Ben, who turns six next month, didn't really see the purpose of sledding when he was 3. We had a light snowfall that winter, and he had to be secured on my lap (since my wife wasn't confident about holding onto a board and a
boy, but was fine with a camcorder). That changed in 2005, when Ben was 4 and we had plenty of snow. I would come home from work and my wife would say, "Ben wants to go sledding." Of course, it would be dark out and I'd have to tell him, "This weekend," and by the weekend the snow would be gone. Last year, we had a bumper crop and I left a shovel in our trunk so I could dig out a spot by the prime sledding zone (one side of the neighborhood park). Last week, we heard a weather report and my wife said ominously, "They said snow flurries." Ben immediately piped up: "I want to go sledding."

From Georgia, Gwyneth writes:

Camille and Chloe love to get out the Christmas decorations as soon as we get back from Thanksgiving. They enjoy being reunited with their old friends: books, music, ornaments. They love to drink eggnog while decorating the tree...and to drink hot chocolate while we work on our annual newsletter.

Camille loves being at the cabin and staying up all night for New Years' Eve.

Canadian listener Melanie (who notes that she's looking forward to the upcoming bilingual guest set):

We live north of the 49th parallel, so winter means snow—hooray! Since we’ve had kids, we’ve made a point of building a snowman/woman/boy/girl every year and taking a family snapshot with our creation. It’s kind of a fun way to make sure we at least get all the camera-shy and wiggly people in one photo at least once a year!

A new tradition this year that we’re all really excited about is this: I collected all the winter/Christmas/Channukah books in our house and checked some out of the library to bring the total up to 31… one for every day in December. I spent an evening wrapping them up and put them all in a basket. Everyday, we unwrap one book and read it aloud. It’s a great way to make sure our daily reading time doesn’t get missed in the middle of the holiday bustle (read: insanity).

Looking forward to hearing other people’s traditions!

Deb from SF makes me crave a doughnut:

We're all about the food. We get together with friends at our house and make latkes and jelly doughnuts (how much do you have to love a holiday where jelly doughnuts are the traditional food?!). This year, the kids are all big enough to help cook, so it's going to be pretty fun and rowdy. We light the candles, have a feast and actually do play dreidel for pennies. We try to keep gifts out of it for one night... not easy, but sometimes they have enough fun to forget!

Nancy has a younger holiday-lover:

My daughter loves watching How the Grinch Stole Christmas every year. Every night on the way home, we look for Christmas lights, and this year we have started making and decorating cookies together (how many bottles of sprinkles does it take to decorate one batch of cookies? as many as you have!). She has also taken a shine to Nutcrackers (loves to make them say MUNCHA MUNCHA). At not quite two and a half, she is still a bit young for helping decorate the tree, but we love talking about all the special ornaments on it. She also looks forward to Grandma and Grandpa coming for a visit right after Christmas Day.

Laurel in California likes reading:

My son has just turned two, and so our family holiday traditions are just getting underway. One of the ones he likes most right now is reading holiday books. I've bought a few that I remember from my childhood and my mother loves kids' books and each of the last two years has sent him a stack of them for Christmas. It's such fun to read them and acquaint him with the holiday through books. He's enchanted, and says "more, more, more" on favorite pages he wants re-read to him again and again.

I even have some squirreled away for next year that are a bit too advanced for him now, and before he was born, I bought Santa Mouse, one of my old favorites, because I was so excited to be able to read it to him one day.

Ginger from California (hey, we know you) has a brilliant newish tradition:

My boys and I go thrift shopping for our presents--this our second year (so it's now a tradition). It's terrific to be able to walk into a store with them and say, "Get whatever you want for your friends!" and walk out only about $7 later. I'm always thrilled with what they find. And the "cleaning the stuff up" and "wrapping stuff up" turns it into a full-blown CHRISTMAS PROJECT--especially when you add the delivery runs we make to our friends' houses the week before Christmas. It's all a hoot.

Fellow Massachusettsan (I have no idea what the right term is) Barbara has some historical features to their traditions:

We put up our Christmas decorations which tend to be at least 30 years old. We have a plastic Santa, that used to have a lightbulb in it, that my son insists on putting in his room. It was my favorite decoration as a kid,too. It's held together with black tape around the middle, where it cracked apart one year.It's at least 46 years old.