Christmas is around the corner, and many families have already gotten started with their Christmas traditions. Many families stick to old-fashioned decorations while others prefer more stylish choices for décor. You can watch traditional Christmas movies, or sprinkle in a few modern ones. While an old-fashioned Christmas is beautiful to look at and listen to, sometimes having a mix of both is just as fun. That’s how we like it in my family. We do some traditional activities and get a little creative and different by watching movies and baking treats.
In my family, we take turns on which Christmas movies we like to watch. Each of us usually has a list of our favorite Christmas movies with a mix of both modern and traditional. For example, on my favorite Christmas movie list are Home Alone, The Santa Clause and The Lion The Witch And The Wardrobe just to name a few. My mom likes It’s a Wonderful Life, A Christmas Story, and Love Actually. We always kick off the holiday movie-watching season on Thanksgiving with my brother’s favorite Christmas movie, Miracle on 34th Street. My dad loves The Year Without a Santa Claus, which we all love to watch!
As Christmas gets closer, I start wrapping our presents, and I always get excited when the base of our tree starts getting full. Of course, I am even more excited when it is time to open our gifts and see what we got. We always open gifts on Christmas morning.
Aside from watching Christmas movies and wrapping gifts, we make a few baked goods during the holiday season. Two of my favorites are Christmas Tree Brownies and Chocolate Chip Cheesecake.
The brownie recipe is one that my mom got from a cute, little recipe book when she was in seventh grade, but you can use your own family recipe or a favorite boxed mix. We always bake in one pan and decorate in another pan, a very old one that my mom and dad got as a wedding gift many years ago.
Once the brownies are baked and cooled, just cut them into triangles by cutting a straight line from one end of the pan to the other, then making small diagonal cuts on both sides of that line to create triangles. Next, add a candy cane trunk or pretzel stick trunk, squeeze on some green icing in an S formation or simply spread on green icing. Then sprinkle on your favorite toppings, like green and red M&Ms to look like ornaments.
Our Chocolate Chip Cheesecake is a recipe my dad got when he worked at an Italian restaurant when he was a teenager, so it’s been in our family for a long time too. Here’s the recipe:
Ingredients:
1 can sweetened condensed milk
2 packages of cream cheese (8 oz. each)
2 tablespoons of lemon juice
1 to 2 cups of mini chocolate chips (or use the entire bag)
9-inch Oreo cookie pie shell OR 9-inch graham cracker crumb pie shell
Directions:
When my mom and I first made this, we would use about ¾ cup of mini chocolate chips, which may have been the original recipe. Then it became a cup, then two cups. Finally, we decided, why not use the whole entire bag? Now we use the entire bag and cannot imagine it any other way, but my grandmother sticks to ¾ cup. In other words, you can put in as much or as little of the mini chocolate chips as you want.
Our Christmas traditions include a mix of watching movies and baking treats, all of which include family time together. I hope your Christmas traditions are just as fun as mine, and maybe you can add one of our movies or one of our recipes to your family holiday this year.
Located in Alabama on Lake Martin, Camp ASCCA offers campers a wide variety of traditional recreational and educational activities with a unique design for accessibility.
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