Christmas time is my most favorite time of the year, it's the holiday I most decorate for and the one I look the most forward to. There's something so special and magical about this time of year. Today I wanted to share with you some of our favorite Christmas traditions we do as a family. Some we've done since before we had kids, but having kids makes this time of year even more special.

I always love hearing about things others do in their families, I think it gives everyone ideas too. There's nothing better than sharing special moments with you family.

One tradition that we do that I'm sure every family does but it's always so fun, is decorating our tree and putting up decorations. We take a whole Saturday and decorate the house.

I've been making Christmas sugar cookies with my mom since I was a kid. Using my Great Grandma's recipe. It's a tradition I look forward to now with my own kids. This year my mom will be in town so we're holding off making these till she gets here. Ava is very excited to do this with Grandma.

One of my favorite traditions that Orion and I started when we were newlyweds and spent our first Christmas together. Every year we take a picture in front of the tree, place it in an ornament frame and hang it on the tree the following year. I love pulling them out each year and seeing how we've grown and changed over the years. It makes this tradition all the more special. Seven years of frames, I can't wait to have our tree covered in them one year.

Last year my sister and I started this idea with our kiddos called "night before Christmas boxes." We filled boxes with matching Christmas jammies, hot cocoa, pop corn and a Christmas themed movie. We gave them to our kiddos and let them stay up late Christmas eve with their cousins and enjoy the movie and some treats. It was so fun to start this tradition. My sister even had the idea to reuse the same box each year which I love!

Last year I hand painted these Santa mugs for my children. I imagined them drinking cocoa and watching movies together each year. This year they've done exactly that. It's so cute to watch them get to excited, count the marshmallows and giggle together. Simple things like this are truly the best.

As a family we also enjoy bundling up and driving around seeing lights. We bring some snacks along to enjoy as well.

We buy gifts for foster kids at Christmas time. We let our children each pick out a child and bring them to the store to buy for that child.

This year we're adopting two new Christmas traditions that I wanted to share with you. Ava asked a few weeks back if she could buy a Christmas present for Zane. It was so cute and she totally brought it up all on her own. That we thought it would be fun to make a new tradition of each year the kids buying a gift for each other.

Also this year we're going on a horse drawn carriage ride together. This is something I think is such a cool idea and neat experience for them.

What are some of your family Christmas traditions? I'd love to hear about them, tell me in the comments below!

Andrea Worley