When the holiday season comes around we often find ourselves thinking about certain traditions. Some we dread but many of them we look forward to! This year our Green Light Real Estate realtors and staff decided to share some of our favorite holiday traditions as well as places we love to do holiday shopping at.
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A tradition my family has held since buying our house in MIddlesex has been to cut a tree from our own property for Christmas. On the Sunday after Thanksgiving, the whole family gets dressed in all their winter gear and heads out into the back acreage of our forested property to find the "perfect tree". We trudge through the snow (as there is usually something on the ground by this time) and discuss (debate) what is the best tree. Sometimes we end up cutting down more than one, as once a tree is cut to fit inside the house, it can lose some of its "perfection". Once we have found the right one, we cut it down and drag it back to the house, where we trim it, put it up and while Christmas songs play in the background we hang our lights and ornaments.
Favorite Place For Holiday Shopping
Well, I always go to Splash Naturals to make my wish list!!!!
https://www.splashnaturals.com/
One of the holiday traditions I treasure most is the time spent with my mother making Peanut Butter Balls. It's a ritual that brings us together, mixing ingredients, rolling the perfect spheres, and coating them in chocolate. The kitchen becomes a hub of laughter, stories, and the sweet aroma of peanut butter. These moments hold a special place in my heart, a tradition that's not just about the delicious treats but also about the shared joy and connection with my family during the festive season.
Favorite Place For Holiday Shopping
Shopping at Kiss the Cook on Church Street in Burlington.
Every Christmas Eve, we order dinner from our favorite Chinese Restaurant. Christmas morning before we exchange gifts we have a traditional breakfast of Scrambled Eggs, Bacon & Cinnamon Rolls. We then go to the Family Room and open our stockings, then one of my children plays Santa and hands out gifts. This year will be extra exciting because of our first Christmas with my new Daughter (in-law)!
Favorite Place For Holiday Shopping
Next Chapter Bookstore
https://nextchapterbooksvt.indielite.org/
Ray
Each year, the Elf on the Shelf (the kids have always called him "Marco") makes his magical appearance on December 1.
He moves around the house every night (although there's a strong suspicion that he moves around in the mornings sometimes), and he leaves notes. His handwriting never seems to improve, and, like his punctuation, grammar, and tendency to mix up his b's and d's, he appears to be at a solid first grade literacy level.
Over the years, his commentary has morphed from asking and answering questions from awestruck young children to the sarcastic and occasionally pseudo-profane. They grow up so fast...
If this year is like the rest, he'll make his departure on Christmas Eve, often leaving tiny footprints in the snow on his way out.
Favorite Place For Holiday Shopping
One of my favorite places to shop for the holidays in Montpelier is Bear Pond Books. They make it easy with their table of best sellers and staff picks right at the front of the store. I can always find books that I've heard about on Vermont Public, as well as others that are new to me, but I know they'll be well-received.
Bear Pond, like nearly every business in downtown Montpelier, got whacked by July's flooding. They've rebuilt, restocked, and it's just a wonderful atmosphere. As an aside...I absolutely LOVE the Puzzle Swap that they've done the past couple winters! Keep your eyes open for those announcements, and don't miss it!
Being perfectly honest, I love giving books as gifts (and receiving them!) It's a great way for me to continually think of the person who gave the gift. If both parties have read the same book, then there's that common bond as well.
When my wife and I first started dating, she gave me a book, saying it was one of her favorites. I still have it, and it's far more than just a book.
https://www.bearpondbooks.com/
Krista
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I love to cook! Especially for my children, friends, and family.
One of my family’s favorite holiday traditions is to bake apple pies from scratch. That starts in autumn when we visit our local apple orchard, Peck Farm in East Montpelier. Every year, we get together when the apples begin to ripen, grab a wagon, fill our cups with some hot cider and pick up a sack of warm cider donuts, then work our way through the rows of trees to fill our bags with delicious, beautiful (sometimes perfectly ugly) apples.
This year, to kick off the holidays on Thanksgiving, I baked an apple pie using my stored Peck Farm apples mixed with some apples from a very special tree on property that I helped clients purchase recently. We were still awaiting the results of the appraisal and approaching the financing deadline, so incorporating those pretty yellow apples into the pie felt like a little prayer for a successful end to the transaction. Just as I was sending my clients a few photos of the pie, the appraisal came in and it was slightly over the contract price! We were good to go from then on.
Making pies from scratch with apples I picked with my family using all the best ingredients from local and organic sources wherever possible is one of my favorite holiday traditions. I love the process from start to finish. It brings me so much joy getting to watch everyone’s faces when they take their first bite. Especially with the fresh whip cream my daughter likes to make to go with it.
My favorite store in Montpelier to shop at for ingredients for our apple pies is definitely Hunger Mountain Co-op! When there, we get King Arthur flour, Cabot Creamery butter, preferably Vermont Compost Company eggs (if you can find them), the bulk section has our organic vanilla extract, cinnamon and raw sugar, and add a splash of fresh orange and lemon juices from the produce section…only the best! All that thought and intention is what scratch cooking is all about and that is why I enjoy the creative process so much. To think of all the farmers, the land, and the sunlight involved in one pie makes it seem like a work of art on so many levels.
Let me know if you want my recipe or if you want me to bake you a pie!
Every holiday season my daughter and I always schedule a day for ice skating, followed by hot chocolate at home while watching Home Alone. This was my favorite holiday growing up and it is so fun to share the experience with my daughter each year. We both laugh uncontrollably every time the robbers get caught up in Kevin's booby traps!
Favorite Local Place For Holiday Shopping
Bear Pond Books - Montpelier
Outdoor Gear Exchange - Burlington.
The 35 days or so after Thanksgiving is probably my favorite time of the year. I love the lights, decoration, the feels, the hot chocolate and most of all the music and movies. Watching Christmas movies has been an integral part of the holidays since I was a child. You could find me tuning in for ABC’s 25 Days Of Christmas all December long and in my adulthood my love of Christmas movies has only grown.
Old ones, new ones, Hallmark ones. Yes I said it. Hallmark Christmas movies are my jam! They’re like the comfort junk food of Christmas movies and I can’t get enough of them. This year to make watching them even more fun my husband and I created Christmas Movie Bingo cards! (I got the idea from Pinterest.) The bingo cards consist of different scenes, scenarios and characters that are most common in Christmas movies. It has been an absolute blast playing our Christmas Movie Bingo and it’s a tradition I hope to keep up throughout the years!
You can download a copy of my Christmas Movie Bingo cards here.