Spend the Holidays with us... Celebrity Style!
Check out these famous Moms & Dads and how they are celebrating the holidays this year! They've multi-tasked through the year and wrap up 2012 with family traditions new and old!
Melissa Joan Hart
photo courtesy of Melissa Joan Hart
Obviously family is what makes the holidays great. Carving out that time to just be together. But that aside, I think I enjoy the atmosphere of the holiday time. November and December give an air of peace and soft promise of hope to an otherwise cold and colorless season. The smells in the air, the music that seems to follow us everywhere as if our own soundtrack, and the colors of wrapping paper, store windows and lights. As people share food, gifts and decorate to make the winter seem a little more beautiful than it already is, it reminds us to enjoy life a little more.
One tradition we have started since moving to CT is going to a local tree farm and loading our boys onto a tractor and heading out into the farm in search of our perfect tree. We cut it down and then go enjoy some hot cider by the fire pit while the farm wraps the tree up to go home. Another recent tradition is our Tacky Sweater Party which has now become adults only and includes a white elephant gift exchange and prize for tackiest sweater. But we have also had to add a kids party to the season where Santa shows up or drops a bag a presents by the door. His appearance changed yearly just as my parents did for us.
Kimberly & James Van Der Beek
photo courtesy Kimberly Van Der Beek
-Jenna von Oy www.cradlechronicles.com
Mario & Courtney Lopez
Our family tradition
is our Lenox tree. My great aunt started this tradition before I was born!
Every year, our gift from her is the annual personalized Lenox ornament! Gia
already has 3+ personalized ornaments and Julio has 2! We love Lenox!!!!
Gretta Monahan
We
kicked off the holiday season with the, Thanksgiving Day Parade this year! It
was truly magical!!
Since
we celebrate both Hanukkah and Christmas we'll have a Christmas tree, and
Menorah. We'll be reading lots of stories, and enjoying some (chocolate!) gold
coins. I've already started gathering materials for Kai's keepsake
ornament to hang on our tree. This year we'll be using clay to mold his little
hands, followed up with paint, and ribbon. This will be both fun… and messy!
The 'Guncles'
Bill Horn & Scout Masterson
Photo
Courtesy of HP at Santa's Secret Workshop
To
us, the holidays are about setting our own family traditions. We spend
Thanksgiving on the east coast with Bill's parents, but Christmas is spent in
Los Angeles with our family here (Scout's mom, Tori and Dean and the kids).
Our
tradition with Simone is carried from Scout's childhood - The Magic Pajamas.
Every year on Christmas Eve, the elves leave a pair of magical pajamas for each
of us to wear to sleep that night - So Santa will find his way into our home.
We love this tradition (and the pics are super cute of Simone in her Magic PJ's
on Christmas morning!)
Erin & Ian Ziering
photo courtesy of Erin Ziering
I grew up spending the holidays surrounded by a winter
wonderland in the Appalachian mountains. My parents owned a Christmas tree
farm so the winter holiday season always came as a joyous time for
our household. Before Christmas, we would spend the weeks after Thanksgiving
selling our Christmas Trees from the farm, serving hot chocolate and helping
the other children wait in line to see Santa who would visit our farm on the
weekends. Our draft horses would take our customers on sleigh rides and
Christmas music would fill the air around the farm. My mom would spend her time
preparing hot soups and Christmas cookies in our kitchen and
decorating our home with a minimum of at
least six Christmas trees. There was never a window
that wasn't covered with garland and lights. The night before
Christmas we would all get to open one gift which was always our
"special" Christmas Pj's and our father would read us the
night before Christmas around the fire. I remember waking up early
every Christmas morning with my two brothers and running out to see
the most massive Christmas tree surrounded by perfectly wrapped presents.
The smell of sticky cinnamon buns always filled the air and the rest of the day
was filled with food, our small family and lots of love.
Ian grew up with a very
different holiday season. He grew up in a traditional reformed Jewish Household
celebrating the eight nights of Hanukkah They would light candles
for each of the eight nights and Ian and his brothers would
all receive a gift for each of the nights. Ian's childhood memory of
the holiday starts with the smell of Brisket in the oven signifying the
first night of Hanukkah His mother would make a beautiful meal for
their close friends and family to celebrate the first night. They would gather
to light the candles and say their blessings. After the meal they would
play dreidel games and if they were good would get to eat the gelt.
(Ian usually didn't get any ;-)
When Ian and I planned on
getting married he expressed that having a Jewish family was very important to
him. His father was a Hebrew school teacher and instilled some very important
beliefs in Ian. We agreed to raise Mia under the Jewish faith and Ian agreed
that my holiday traditions could still be apart of her life. With Mia only
being 19 months old we have been having so much fun starting our new holiday
traditions together. For the past two years we have taken Mia the week before
Thanksgiving to get her picture with Santa (this year it didn't go so well) We
always spend our Thanksgiving with family or friends and then as soon as we
return from the Thanksgiving holiday weekend we reserve the next night as a
very special family night. We find our local Christmas Tree lot that evening,
go out and pick the perfect tree as a family. This year Mia had a blast. Last
year she was a tiny infant sleeping, this year she was the rambunctious toddler
playing hide and seek behind all the trees. We pick up Chinese food
on the ride home with the tree on the top of our Tahoe and take it all home to
start our evening. We start the night with christmas music while Ian
does the work of putting up the tree and we spend the night decorating the tree
together while cookies are baking in the oven. We decorate our kitchen table
with our silver family Menorah and a small silver Tree that represents both of
our families.
As Hanukkah comes around I will cook Ian the same meal
his mother made during the first night of Hanukkah using her hand
written recipes. I will spend the day preparing the Brisket and noodle
koogle. In the evening we will play dreidel games with Mia after she
opens her present and light our Menorah while Ian says the blessings. Ian
enjoys reading her children's books about Hanukkah and talking to her
about her grandparents that are no longer with us before putting her to bed
each night. Because it is really hard to top spending Christmas on a Christmas Tree
Farm in the mountains, Ian and I love to take Mia back to my parents home for
the Christmas holiday. We usually get there on Christmas eve, open our Pj's
while "Papa" now reads his "night before christmas" to the
grandchildren and we put everyone to bed. Mia will get to spend Christmas
morning with the smell of her "Nuna's" sticky cinnamon buns filling
the air and the magic of all the lights and Christmas Trees surrounding the
house. She will get to dance the day away to Christmas Music and enjoy a sleigh
ride with her uncles and eat way to much food. Most importantly we hope that
she will get to remember how she always spent the whole month of
December surrounded by lots of important food, an ever growing family and
lots of love.
Sarah Jane Morris-Brower
photo courtesy of SJM
We
have started the tradition in my family of getting a tree on December 1 and
decorating it together (although I'm usually alone putting the last of the
ornaments up!). We also adopt a family in need to give gifts to at
Christmastime. It is hard to teach a toddler about sharing and giving,
especially when it is a toy, but I'm hoping as time goes on and we give to
others each year he will see how important it is to help those in need and
learn to be a giver in life.
Kimberly & James Van Der Beek
For the holidays we surround ourselves with
family, friends and food. Homemade hot chocolate, comfy pajamas and
Christmas movies are our must haves!
Jenna Von Oy
Christmas has always been a magical holiday for
me. Now that I have my own family, I’m excited to carry on the traditions I was
raised with. This includes, but certainly isn’t limited to, decorating the tree
while simultaneously listening to our favorite Christmas compilation and
dancing crazily around the living room. It’s a sight to see! In my childhood,
this calamity often occurred into the wee hours of the morning and tended to
frighten any visiting friends. Sometimes we added hot cocoa to the mix, as we
discovered the sugar rush greatly improved our stamina. Good times. My poor
husband has endured that madness on several occasions, though he protested any
participation and declared his dance card full. I don’t blame him. Sadly, my
siblings can no longer join me as easily, as we are too spread out across the
country to really do our dance number justice. Somehow, leaping across the
kitchen to the Nutcracker Suite via Skype, just doesn’t have the same effect. I
thoroughly miss causing a ruckus with my sister and brothers, and I can’t wait
until my daughter is old enough to join in the fun. I only hope the Christmas
spirit runs through her veins like it does mine!
Our family traditions do not end there… one of
our fondest is to attend midnight mass together on Christmas Eve. From a
spiritual standpoint, this has always been essential for us. My Dad sings in
the choir at midnight mass, which gives us that much deeper of a connection.
This year we can’t be back on the East Coast to appreciate his beautiful voice
in person, but we will be singing along in spirit as we attend our own church
here in Nashville.
When I was little, my mom began the yearly custom
of gifting us each with an ornament. They have served as keepsakes to remind us
of the wonderful memories we shared each year. Brad and I have happily
continued this tradition, and we were excited to buy Gray her first ornament
this Christmas. Now that we have our own little family, we’ve also decided to
add a brand new tradition, and took Gray to pick out a small pine tree to boast
that new ornament she’s getting. Once Christmas is over, we will be choosing a
spot in our yard, so we can plant the tree together as a family. It will be a
wonderful way to appreciate all of the blessings the New Year brings.
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Thank you to all our Celebrity Moms & Dads for spending the holidays with us! We love hearing how they wrap up the year and build on family and traditions!
For more on your favorite Celeb's celebrating the holidays, check out our 2010 Holiday Feature HERE
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