What are your most precious holiday traditions?

As a child, my favourite part of Christmas was the lead up.

Every year my mom would wrap the same children's books in differently patterned Christmas paper so we couldn't tell which book was which.

Then, each night before bed we got to pick one to unwrap and read together as a family until one book was left to mark Christmas Eve.

I didn't care if the books had tattered edges and had been read a hundred times. It was a tradition we came to cherish as kids.

Traditions are meant to be passed down from generation to generation. So when my 91 year-old Polish grandmother announced to me over the phone last week that she didn't have the energy to make perogies this year, I organized a perogy bee.

It took ten pounds of potatoes, two pounds of cheese, 12 cups of flour, and two friends to help with the pinching, but the Grebinski clan will get perogies at their 2015 Christmas dinner.

New traditions can spring up spontaneously. Last year, a neighbour set up a Christmas tree in our courtyard for all of us to enjoy. This year, we gathered together on a Sunday afternoon with cookies, hot chocolate (and Bailey's) to decorate as a community. It's now a gathering we plan to organize year after year.

It's traditions like these that make the holidays so wonderful.

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