Holiday Traditions Part II

Speakers: John Holt, Public Relations & Content Writer. Allison Dickson, 3rd Grade Teacher. Julie McLeod, Head of School

Julie McLeod: With my kids being grown, we don't have a lot of the excitement of Christmas morning, anymore. But we do have the holiday meal that we still gather for, with extended family. And so that has certainly been a holiday tradition that has stood the test of time for us. And it, it really is one of my favorites. That goes back to when I was a child, we would do the holiday meal, at my grandparents houses with, extended families and then we still do it and, have grandparents over and things like that. So that has been something very special for me. One of my favorite parts of the holiday meal is we have a recipe of my grandmother's hot rolls and she, she never used recipes. She just would throw all the ingredients together. And one year my mother made her slow down enough to actually write down the recipe and measure things and things like that. And it drove her crazy because she had to slow down. But we're so grateful now that we have the recipe and I still make those hot rolls and it's my favorite part.

John Holt: There's so many favorite traditions. Growing up as a kid it was, always in the afternoon after opening up presents, going to a movie at the movie theater, with my family. We'd always usually go to one that opened up just that day or had recently opened up. That always seems to be the, the best time. The best movies come out on Christmas Day. That was always fun. Also watching some of the marquee matchups, NBA Lakers Celtics, games like that. Try to tune in a little bit for some of those. Now more recently, my wife and I usually in the month of December, we, try to watch one Christmas movie, per night, throughout the month of December. So that's a lot of movies, but there's new ones coming out every year and sometimes we watch repeats. Then also, you know, trying to take a family walk, later in the day being outside, is really peaceful and, we usually do that as well now. So a lot of great traditions and they're all special.

Allison Dickson: A new tradition that the Dixons have picked up is a great Dixon bake off modeled after the Great British baking show. And we plan ahead of time with our partners. It's usually an adult and a kid and we have a theme that we all go off of whether it's maybe a breakfast good or a showstopper cake. And we spend all day in the kitchen, everybody together. It's a huge mess. And we have one dish boy who ends up very cranky at the end, but he's happy when he's gets to be the judge of our baked goods. And we have a wooden spoon that goes to the winner and it's just a really fun time to be with family and to spend time together and laugh at our fails or celebrate with some delicious cake and, or fruit loop French toast that we've had in the past. So it's a fun tradition that we do together and it's one way to get the season started.