Great start, and thank you for hosting, Lee.

One of the traditions I established when we built our home in 1987 was
decorating every tree, every bush, every pole in our yard. That added
up to just shy of 15,000 lights. I had one huge weeping cherry tree,
22 hemlocks and numerous bushes.

Well, after New Year's day in 2009, I fell out of our large weeping cherry
tree when taking down it's 5,000+ lights. Bruised, but no major injuries,
I said to heck with it, I'm leaving them up all year. Unfortunately, the
tree had a real growth spurt that year and the bark grew over the lights
so I had to cut them out.

I broke the news to our close friends that I wasn't going to decorate that year,
and lo and behold, they showed up, unannounced, with lights, and drug
me and Sally out of the house to get it done.

I alluded to this tradition a while back. For at least 13 years, my oldest grandson and I have a special day together before Christmas. Now instead of involving a model train display and a carousel ride in the local mall - it means shopping, and a doughnut from a specialty donut shoppe. It's always included lunch out, the Symphony's Christmas program, pizza for dinner, wrapping and an overnight at "Gimmie and P's" (our grandchildren given nicknames). The horse wagon rides through the city are no longer a feature - we loved them. It is indeed special when a 17 year old wants to spend a day with his grandmother. On overnights, I'd usually tuck him into bed and we'd sing "You are my Sunshine" - he had a yellow elephant that played the song. When we called it a night this past Saturday I said I guessed we wouldn't be singing the song any more. He very adamantly asked me if I had gotten rid of the elephant too! (he knows I've been going through things). "Maybe it will re-appear some day." was my reply. I have some special memories, like the elephant, tucked away in a box upstairs. Perhaps I shall get it out and it will find it's way to a spot under the Christmas Tree.

It’s time for a new challenge…”Traditions”. Although Christmas is coming soon and many of us probably have traditions, both handed down from previous generations or those we have created ourselves, go for it. Also, traditions occur throughout the year and certainly don’t limit what you cover to Christmas, New Years, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Chinese New Years, Winter Solstice, etc. We have a great variety of people and Canada Day, Australia Day, 4th of July, St. Patrick’s, National Patriot’s Day, and Easter. Who knows. Especially with you UHHers’ imagination, I’m sure you’ll have a lot to offer.
Here are a couple of own family traditions. We’re big on decorating for Christmas and these have become some traditional decorations for us. Our son gave us these reindeer for Christmas many years ago and Rick arranges a display now every year.
The church was Rick’s mothers and was once his Grandparent’s. Rick puts it out every year along with the candles that she also used to put out.
Rick’s mom gave us, Rick’s son, and her best friend this puppet for Christmas one year, probably almost 40 years ago. We have kept it out and ever since our granddaughter has been very small, she always wanted to go into the room with “Sam”. And, we have always brought him out for Christmas. He’s family and gets a gift.

It’s time for a new challenge…”Traditions”. Although Christmas is coming soon and many of us probably have traditions, both handed down from previous generations or those we have created ourselves, go for it. Also, traditions occur throughout the year and certainly don’t limit what you cover to Christmas, New Years, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Chinese New Years, Winter Solstice, etc. We have a great variety of people and Canada Day, Australia Day, 4th of July, St. Patrick’s, National Patriot’s Day, and Easter. Who knows. Especially with you UHHers’ imagination, I’m sure you’ll have a lot to offer.
Here are a couple of own family traditions. We’re big on decorating for Christmas and these have become some traditional decorations for us. Our son gave us these reindeer for Christmas many years ago and Rick arranges a display now every year.
The church was Rick’s mothers and was once his Grandparent’s. Rick puts it out every year along with the candles that she also used to put out.
Rick’s mom gave us, Rick’s son, and her best friend this puppet for Christmas one year, probably almost 40 years ago. We have kept it out and ever since our granddaughter has been very small, she always wanted to go into the room with “Sam”. And we have always brought him out for Christmas. He’s family and gets a gift.

Very nice start, Leek, and thank you for jumping in to host a challenge. Sam is a cute member of the family

Whenever and whereever we would travel it became a tradition to buy an ornament to hang on our tree at Christmas, and we would remenis about our adventures each year as we decorated the tree.