The Storyteller | Mary Vee

Photo Courtesy The fun part about living in America is seeing a conglomeration of holiday traditions.  Haven't you visited someone's home and found a bit of different take on the celebration? Sure. The fun part is seeing a great idea at a Christmas party, in a magazine, Pinterest, or other social media, tweaking it, then finding a way to add it to your own.  Photo Courtesy Everything we use or do doesn't have to be from the same country, heritage, or culture. After all, we put up a German tree in our living rooms, sing songs in various languages-- some originally written in Latin, and combine all these great ideas into our own celebration of Jesus' birth. Today, I've asked my chefy daughter--the one who is in culinary arts school and will be going to Germany to continue her studies next May, to help me with today's post. We are presenting some Eastern European table settings ideas. Feel free to ooooo, ahhhhh, and add to your celebratio...

Photo Courtesy Hubby and I did what many of you probably have done. We merged Christmas traditions our parents use to celebrate. When hubby and I first married we had to dicker through treasured traditions our families had. His parents set up the Christmas tree the night before Christmas. Oh, no. Uh huh. As resident female and leader in setting the mood for the season I insisted we get the tree by no later than December 5. "Fine," he said, "but the tree had to be a blue spruce."   My parents always had a scotch pine. The long needles made hanging ornaments easier. BUT this was not a deal breaker for me. He got the blue spruce, and I got December 5th. On to the next compromise. As newlyweds, we attended Sunday School Christmas parties. It was there that we found some great traditions to include in our own celebration. One was an advent log, and the other was treating Christmas like Jesus's birthday party. Once we had children, the advent...