Throwbacks of Christmas Past |

“It’s the most wonderful time of the year…” People all around the world are celebrating this most beautiful time. Christmas has always been one of my favorite holidays. Although, in my mind, I never consider it a holiday, it’s more like one of the most important days out of the year. The time when we celebrate the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ. More than anything we gather together and share memories, laugh and talk about what we’re thankful for. So today I want to share past memories, traditions, and moments that are special to me during Christmas.

You could say Quimi was a Christmas Cookie making pro, haha she loved them cookies.

The aftermath of cookie making. Little Quimi doesn’t mess around, lol!

Taking a walk in the past…

One of my most treasured memories of Christmas is at the beginning of December when we get our Christmas tree and all our Christmas décor out. I remember every year my parents and sister and I would spend an evening trimming the tree and getting the house all festive while drinking Abuelita Hot Chocolate and listening to Amy Grant Christmas. It’s the most beautiful memory and the memory I will always hold dear to my heart because that’s when I knew Christmas was here.

For a few years, back to back, my mom and aunt would create this week plan of events! The week before Christmas, we would have a full 7 days of fun where all the cousins would get together and each day we would do something different. Things like: Christmas cookie decorating, tamale making, ice skating in San Francisco, watching movies and eating s’mores, and a cousin sleepover! It was so much fun getting to spend time with family and do so many different Christmas things before Christmas.

Some of the important traditions that happen every year before Christmas are when we make tamales and empanadas for our Christmas Gathering. Something that has happened for decades in our family still goes on today and these tamales are a 10/10! Of course, maybe I am a little biased… but seriously the best tamales! Our tamales come in a few different flavors, pork, vegetable, and cheese! So delicious. Empanadas are also a tradition in our family however the empanadas we like to make are sweet dessert ones. The flavors are peach, apricot, pumpkin, strawberry, pineapple. They are super yummy. This year we will not be making empanadas but the tamale tradition goes on!

Christmas Eve is when our families get together, and since we have two sides of the family to visit and they both meet at the same time, we would have to plan out the day and make sure we spent time with both sides of the family. For years and years, we would do a Christmas gift exchange. On both sides of the family we would pick someone’s name at the end of Thanksgiving, that way there is plenty of time to go a get your gift for Christmas. Slowly but surely, this tradition changed and we hardly do gift exchanges anymore. But it was always so fun and interesting seeing what someone would get you.

If you are new to our blog, you don’t know this but we have a big, big, extended family. Both my parents have 7-9 siblings which mean we have a lot of primos (cousins)! As we grew up, the holidays were always my favorite times to spend with family. When you have huge families and everyone is so close, the gatherings are the best and we find ways to keep things interesting. Our gatherings would include, games on games and lots of competition within that. Sometimes it gets a little out of hand because we’re all so competitive (lol), but it’s so fun!

Most of all, Christmas with my family has created some of the sweetest and cherished memories for me. I love looking back at all of these pictures and remembering each moment. I wish I could relive them all over again, but we continue to make more memories as time goes on. I am thankful for close family, for bonds that will last a lifetime, for traditions that I will carry on to my own children and for the simplicity of laughing and enjoying one another, because after all, the Holidays are about family and those you love.