This holiday season means many things: family, friends, food, presents and parties. Most families have traditions as to who has what holiday. Well, why not spruce up those party traditions for this Christmas?

For Christmas Eve, every year my family comes over and we have a party. A few days ahead of time, we bake gingerbread and sugar cookies so everyone at the party can decorate one. After everyone decorates the cookies, we have the younger children judge who has the best cookie. You can also do this with gingerbread houses. You can split into teams and give everyone 30 minutes to decorate their house and have a panel of judges (younger kids, grandparents, etc.) to judge the houses.

This may sound a little crazy, but have you ever thought about having a “Just Dance” dance competition? Everyone in your family will have blast, I know mine does. All you need is one of the games “Just Dance,” “Just Dance 2,” or “Just Dance 3,” a Wii, and as many remotes as you have. Up to four people can play at once so you can set up brackets for who will verse who. You could even create a prize for the winner such as a box of homemade cookies or a $10 gift card to Farm House Coffee.

Also, since the reindeer will be visiting your house on Christmas Eve with Santa Claus, why not give them a treat for all the hard work they do? To make reindeer food, you need ¼ cup oatmeal, ¼ sugar, and as much red or green sugar crystals as you feel necessary. You can set up stations with one part of the recipe at each station. Then, the kids can go around and the adults can help them make their own little bag of reindeer food. In doing this, the kids have something to look forward to when they go home.

Themed parties are also a great way to shake up tradition. At one of your parties, make everyone wear an ugly Christmas sweater. You can drape a white sheet against a wall and take pictures of everyone when they walk in throughout the party on one camera. From there, you can download those photos on your computer and print them out. You can also make a slideshow of all of the photos and put some music to and gift it to someone or play it during Christmas dinner.