Our Christmas Bucket Tradition
Christmas Traditions
2022 Update: Grandkids….gotta love em!
(Repost from 2021)
Our Christmas bucket tradition started several years ago. In 2004, our oldest grandchild, AJ, was four years old and Maggie was one.
I had been shopping one day and ran across these cardboard Christmas buckets, two large and two small. So I bought them and added name tags for the kids and for Carrie and David (daughter and son-in-law).
I put the date on the bottom of the bucket and filled them with small gifts.
Thus our Christmas bucket tradition started. Each year since that first Christmas, I gather the buckets up after they are emptied and store them for safekeeping. We use them year after year.
This tradition worked pretty well until the third grandchild came along! No more matching buckets. But one day I ran across the same identical buckets in a discount store – this was four years later! I grabbed the buckets and was so pleased with my find. Now they all had matching buckets.
Filling the Buckets
The smaller buckets for the kids won’t hold a lot, so the goodies must be small. Cash works wonderfully well! Especially now that they are older. Or car keys! No, we haven’t gifted car keys….but wouldn’t that be a great gift))) Typically, the buckets will be the last thing they open.
The buckets usually contain a Christmas ornament that represents something from the year. It could be an achievement, something funny that happened, favorite food or activity. Maggie loves guacamole, so hers this year was a guacamole ornament, some hand warmers, and a cash envelope.
AJ’s bucket this year also had similar items. They are all going to the Sugar Bowl next week, so hand-warmers will come in handy.
I haven’t run across an old pic of Matt with his bucket from the early years, but you never know. I have thousands and thousands of images in my files.
It’s Never too Late!
If you don’t have something special like a Christmas bucket tradition, start one this year! And don’t do like me, and have to scramble for old images to document the years. Start something new, take and pics and keep it going. It could be games that you play, food that you eat…..I saw on social media the other day that some brothers had been re-gifting a box of hard candy back and forth for over 30 years!
Do you have a special family tradition? Please share with us, we would love to hear about it!
Merry Christmas! Now it’s time for me to gather up the buckets and put them in a safe place until next year)))
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