This month at Grace Family Church, we've been talking about Christmas Traditions, so we decided to find out what are some of the GFC Beautiful team's favorite traditions.

Kristin Bonham, director of Beautiful
"My dad gives each person in our family a theme gift.  Some of the themes have been: a time piece, a book, a game.  He shops all year in anticipation and we all look forward to seeing the connections in the gifts and figuring out the theme. There is a German tradition of hiding a glass pickle ornament on the tree Christmas Eve.  Whoever finds it on Christmas morning gets a special gift.  Here's a picture of our pickle ornament. We always have a Birthday Cake for Jesus and we sing Happy Birthday even as my kids have gotten older."

Marilyn Hinders, Beautiful small group coach
"After the candlelight Christmas eve service we always come home and have oyster stew, salami and cheese, and eat Christmas cookies while opening presents. Christmas morning is spent reading the Christmas story to our grandchildren, putting together toys and playing games with them and eating ebelskivers (Danish pancakes with apples and cinnamon or blueberries in them) for breakfast!  They love to help Nana make them!"

Paige Eavenson, Beautiful small group coach
"On Christmas Eve at my in-laws we always make Gingerbread houses and at night the kids all get some new Christmas pajamas. When we arrive at my family's house in Mississippi we all have a big dinner and after dinner we have some type of Christmas talent show. It's usually goofy but a lot or fun. Then we all play white elephant bingo. We buy crazy gifts for the winners of the white elephant bingo."

Vivian Germain, Beautiful small group coach
"We have few traditions as well. We decorate our Christmas tree together while listening to Christmas music and drinking hot chocolate. Also, starting on December 13th we sit together every night by the Christmas tree, drink hot cocoa and we do a 12 days of Christmas devotional (you can find them online). The devotional has really helped our family not to lose sight of what Christmas really is......The birth of our Savior!"

Helene Rinklin, Small Groups Ministry Assistant
"We all unwrap one gift on Christmas Eve, which are always our new PJ's that we have bought for our family. Then we make cookies and hot cocoa. We spend the day as a family talking about Christ and the reason why we celebrate his birth all year. We share how our life is going and what we can do to make a difference to those around us. Then we usually play games... and of course we compete to see who plays the best and whomever is the winner for the night rules!"

Leslee Stewart, Beautiful communications coordinator
"One of our family's favorite traditions is to put all the Christmas cards we receive in a basket on our kitchen table. Then every night at dinner, we select one card from the basket and pray for that family when we pray over our meal. Another fun tradition I started a few years ago began when my oldest son was born. That year, I bought a small Christmas tree for him and two ornaments for his tree -- one was a picture ornament that I put a picture of him in; the other was an ornament that represented something he liked (a teddy bear). Every year since, I've added to the ornament collection -- always a picture ornament and something fun (this year is a baseball because he loves baseball). When his little brother came along, I started the same ornament collection for him. My hope is that by the time my boys are grown, they will take those ornaments and have enough to decorate their own "grown-up" Christmas tree."

Let us know what some of your favorite Christmas traditions are. Post your comments on our GFC Beautiful facebook page.