Pressing into the Season's Traditions

By: Bonnie Christine

Story Adapted From Pattern Magazine – Volume 6

Pattern Magazine is Bonnie Christine's quarterly print and digital publication for surface pattern designers, artists, and creative entrepreneurs who believe that how you live shapes what you make. This story first appeared in Volume 6, Marking the Moment, the autumn 2026 issue.

Traditions are the anchors of memories, nostalgia in the making.

The morning after Thanksgiving, when the dishes are washed and the leftovers tucked away, our family piles into the car and drives the winding road to a small choose-and-cut Christmas tree farm in the hills near our home.

We walk the rows of fir and pine together, hot cider in hand, debating which tree is our tree.

Bear and Ollie break into a round of hide-and-seek among the trees while we wait for the crew to come to fell our pick. We tuck the tree in the back of the truck, wave to the family who runs the farm, and drive home with the smell of pine on our hands.

This event is one of the small rituals that marks the autumn season.

I’ve been thinking about traditions, the patterns our lives fall into year after year. Traditions are the anchors of memories, nostalgia in the making. They are the feeling of home, repeated.

My biggest wish, the one that shapes so many of my decisions this time of year, is that, one day, Bear and Ollie will look back and think, “That was cozy.”

Hurrying is the enemy of this kind of presence. As a creative and a business owner, I find my calendar fills up in autumn. There’s always more to ship, launch, and finish before the year’s end. But traditions ask for the opposite.

Traditions ask me to stop, to press into the moment, and to let the day matter more than the to-do list. So I hold fast to each one.

Here are a handful of the traditions our family keeps every year. And I hope they encourage you to make even more of your own.

The Christmas Tree Farm

Going to the same family-owned farm on the Friday after Thanksgiving has become one of the most tender traditions in our home. The kids know exactly where the hot cider stand is and which hill has the best hiding places. And they know I’ll be taking photos for our album, agreeing to stop and smile without complaint.

There is something deeply rooted about supporting a small family farm year after year, watching our children grow up against the same backdrop of pines. The tree we bring home will live with us through the end of the year, but the day itself, the laughter, the cold cheeks, the smell of the lot, is a memory that gets layered onto every Christmas to come.

Our Handmade Advent Calendar

Each year, I sit down with twenty-five small envelopes and bags to prepare our Advent calendar by hand. I love this tradition for what it holds inside each envelope: a Bible verse that, read in order from December first to the twenty-fifth, tells the Christmas story from beginning to end, and a small coupon for the day's recipient. (Bear and Ollie alternate openings, so the surprises are evenly split.)

Some of the coupons are simple: Front seat all day. Hot chocolate bar. Others are a bit bigger: Movie night, your pick. Build a fort. Buy a new ornament for the tree. But each coupon adds a bit of magic to the month.

I make the calendar by hand each year because I want the season’s countdown to feel personal. I want the kids to know that the days leading up to Christmas are special too and that the story of Christmas, the why behind it all, is part of every one of those twenty-five mornings.

Wanting More?

Read the full story in Volume 6 of Pattern Magazine.

The complete traditions feature (with our Annual Favorite Things Exchange, our slow Christmas morning, and the recipe for Bonnie’s Christmas Potatoes) is in the latest issue.