Maybe this Christmas add a little family nostalgia to the menu by fixing a special holiday dish of Grandma’s or of your heritage with perhaps a German or French themed dish. Lay out the old family album for family members to thumb through after the meal. Hang up live mistletoe to see who will go through special efforts to avoid it. Decorate your tree with old ornaments, tinsel, hand cut sugar cookies or stringed popcorn and cranberries.

Or maybe suggest a traditional outing. The Christmas Country Church Tour is a wonderful self-guided tour of thirty-two uniquely beautiful country churches in Bollinger county, northern Cape Girardeau county and Perry county. In its 13th holiday season the Christmas Country Church Tour has grown beyond the county lines of Perry County, Missouri. From little one-room white clad buildings to brick and mortar masterpieces see these century old structures each of them adorned in the spirit of Christmas. From German Lutherans, Scotch-Irish Presbyterians to German Catholic, Baptist and Methodist. Hear the choirs, listen to the music, learn the history of how these churches started generations ago with nothing more than the determination and faith of the people who immigrated here and built them. Slow down from the holiday hustle and bustle, get back to the real meaning of the season, sample one or all of the homemade cookies and enjoy the down home hospitality of those you will meet along the way as you travel from one community and country church to the other. Describe by some as a holiday treasure hunt consider making it your next tradition.

Christmas Country Church Tour December 14 & 15, 20107 2pm-9pm