Home - Stay N Alive

How to Replace Your RSS Feed Automatically With Facebook’s Like Button

Posted on February 20, 2012 by jessestay

As I seek to make this blog more and more a part of the social networks you participate in (I call this “From Fishers to Farmers” – something I speak about in my talks), I’ll be documenting my progress along the way. I just showed how I’m doing this with Facebook’s Frictionless Sharing on this blog (just click through to the blog, and click the link over on the right to start adding these posts to your timeline). There’s one more piece though which I think is dwindling. Some call this the “RSS is Dead” argument. I actually talked about the RSS Subscription problem here. What’s happening is the subscribers to RSS feeds such as the one on this site, through analytics sites such as Feedburner, are either slowing or diminishing.

This process is natural as more and more people receive their news on sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Google+, and away from sites such as Google Reader or traditional RSS Readers. Those tools simply aren’t social, and much less interesting than a typical social network. Therefore I argue content owners need to be looking towards more social ways of distributing their content. I’m doing this specifically on Facebook with an app called RSS Graffiti.

Enter RSS Graffiti and Facebook Open Graph

RSS Graffiti is a Facebook app (it also integrates with Twitter) that will apply any RSS Feed to a Facebook Page you specify (see why I say RSS isn’t dead?). The cool thing about it is on Facebook I can make any website a Facebook Page.

On this blog, if you view the source, do a search for “og:url”. This, and a series of other meta tags (og:site_name, og:description, and og:image, as well as fb:admins are all useful for this) tell Facebook that this URL is also a Facebook Page. To register it with Facebook, just make sure the “fb:admins” tag is in place and lists the id of your Facebook Profile as the value, and go to Facebook.com/Insights to register your URL.

Once you do this, your Blog is now a Facebook Page as far as Facebook is concerned. Now all you have to do is add a Like Button Social Plugin to your website as you see at the top of this site above, and people can “like” your website! Seriously – click through to this blog and go click “like” at the top!

Here’s where it gets cool though – now that I’m listed as an admin of that URL, I can send posts to the fans of that URL. Every person that clicks “like” above I can send my articles to. It’s the same as subscribing, but much more social!

How to Create Your Own Social Distribution Channel Using Facebook and Open Graph

Here’s what you need to do to make this happen:

Add the following HTML within the tags on your website or blog – fill in the “content” sections with the appropriate values for your site or blog:
Go to Facebook.com/Insights and click “Insights for Your Website” (the green button in the upper-right) – enter the domain you specified from the “og:url” meta tag above, and click on the “Get Insights” button. Your site is now registered (and you can go back here to see stats around your domain!).
Now go to apps.facebook.com/rssgraffiti/ and find your website on the left (it will be under the name you specified in “site_name” above). Go there, and add your site’s RSS Feed. Save it, and it will automatically start posting content to your Facebook Page for every post you make!
Now you just need some subscribers. You’ll do this with a Facebook Like button, just like you see at the top of this blog. Go to developers.facebook.com/plugins – click the “Like Button” link. Now, just fill out the form – be sure to add the URL you specified in the “og:url” tag above! Click the “get code” button, and now copy and paste that code where you want your like button to go!

If you perform the above steps you should have everything you need to allow your site’s visitors to subscribe to your site through a simple Facebook “like”. Now, when they click “like”, not only do they subscribe to your site, but their friends see it too!

If you want to take this further, you can add the above tags to the other pages on your site, with an og:title tag to specify the title of articles. This will allow you to customize how Facebook sees each article on your site as it shares it out to the fans of your website. If you want to get more specific, be sure to see the documentation of the OpenGraph Protocol over here.

What about Google+ or Twitter? As I mentioned, RSS Graffiti supports Twitter, so you should be taken care of there if you wanted to add a “Follow” button at the top of your website. However, there’s nothing for Google+ at the moment. I think Google would really benefit from either allowing apps to publish to at least Google+ Pages so apps like RSS Graffiti could do something similar with the +1 button. Google+ currently allows you to tie +1 buttons (through Page “Badges”) to Google+ Pages, and if they just allowed apps to publish to Pages you could theoretically do the same with Google+. Maybe if they allow that I’ll post how to do that here as well.

Stay N Alive Supports Facebook’s Open Graph

Posted on February 20, 2012 by jessestay

Just the other day I got approval from Facebook that the “read” action, available for Facebook’s Open Graph “Frictionless Sharing” was approved for StayNAlive.com. What this means is that if you click the link on the right of this blog, under “Click below to post to your Facebook Timeline when you read articles on Stay N Alive”, every post you read on this site will be automatically shared to your Facebook Timeline under the “News” section of your timeline. This means your friends will see what you read here, just like anything I were to share to Facebook. (Some day I need to design it so it’s more enticing to authorize this – hopefully soon)

You may have seen this done before with other blogs and news sites, such as the Washington Post Social Reader. When your friends see articles you read, they are more likely to click through and read them because they’re associated with someone they’re familiar with. Then, they can read and participate in the experience with you.

I just wrote about how traditional blogging is dead, and instead needs to evolve to more social models of content flow. This is one way I am trying to make that happen. Like I said, this blog isn’t dead. It’s just that it will become more and more a part of the social networks you most actively participate.

If you feel so obliged, please click through to this article and click that link over on the right. It’s one of the best ways you can spread the word about what I write, and the things I stand for. Or, just click below – I’m embedding the form right below via a Facebook Social Plugin (click through to the article to see it on the blog).

In a future article I’ll share how I did this, on a Blogger.com blog, nonetheless!

My Official (and Obligatory) "Traditional Blogging is Dead" Post

Posted on February 20, 2012 by jessestay

I fought it – I even ridiculed people like +Paul Allen for moving towards it (for that I apologize). However, I think I’m whooped. My page views are down. Comments and engagement on the blog itself are lower than ever. Looking over other blogs I manage, some with even more frequent content than my own, I’m seeing similar. As sad as I am to see it, I think blogging really is dying. It’s a really tough way to make a living, and will become even more difficult in the future, in favor of more traditional news sites and people able to share and post personal opinion on social networks such as Google+, Facebook, and Twitter.

Does that mean that personal opinion and citizen journalism is dead? Does that mean that sharing is dead? Does that mean engagement is dead? In fact, it’s even greater than ever. I always preach to use the best tool for the job. The fact is, sites like Google+, Twitter, and Facebook, as well as bookmarking and sharing sites such as Pinterest allow us to share, and engage in ways we never have before! I’m seeing greater engagement than I ever have on my blog. I’m seeing more shares than ever before. My audiences have skyrocketed on social networks! All this while, despite at least weekly posts on my blog, my audience and engagement there has diminished to almost nothing.

Does this mean I’ll kill my blog? Of course not – it just means I have to adapt its focus. I have to make it more focused around the social network. I still argue you still need a home base. It does mean I likely won’t make much money off advertising like you used to be able to on a blog. It does mean it will be used more and more as a source for SEO, and helping people find interesting and useful content on search engines (which, in and of themselves are using social networks more and more to find content). It means you’ll see more howto articles and content-focused posts than breaking news. It means my blog is now becoming an extension of the social networks, and not vice versa.

I predict in the future blogging will be back in a more social form. Right now, traditional blogging is dying, and having fought this for years now as the subject continues to be brought up, I’m finally seeing what the other bloggers out there are seeing. That means something coming from me. Am I sad? Of course. That said, there is tremendous opportunity out there as we move forward. We just need to figure out what that is – I don’t know right now.

I can’t wait to figure out a solution that can bring it back into a modern state. How do you think blogging should evolve?

(Expect a future post from me on potential solutions for this problem, and where I see blogging still working really well, and where it won’t work – stay tuned)

Xydo Pivots to a New, Targeted B2B Content Model for Your Business Newsletter

Posted on February 8, 2012 by jessestay

If you’re reading this, there’s a good chance you clicked on a link from my newsletter to get it. If you didn’t, go over to the right column of my blog and subscribe now! (or just click here) One thing I haven’t been able to divulge until now is that there’s an innovative company that I’ve been using to provide these weekly emails that provide customized news from my social news streams, and today they launched to the world. Today, a company I advise, Xydo, pivoted to a pure B2B model that provides custom, automated email news for a business’s customers based on content it is trained to provide.

Previously, Xydo was a consumer-facing product that learned from your social presence and the things you read, providing a customized news feed similar to Digg, or Reddit, for your consumption in a way that was tailored and customized to predict what each individual user would like. Today, Xydo leveraged their targeted news consumption platform, and built a way for businesses to leverage that customized news format to build simple, automated, and customized newsletters that adapt based on the interests of their subscribers and customers.

The way it works is simple – you customize your newsletter, based on social feeds you can configure based on your audience, and it then does the work for you. It determines the most relevant content for your audience, tracks clicks and reads of that content, and adapts your newsletter from week to week based on the things your audience is most interested in.

The result is a highly targeted newsletter that increases clicks by up to 5 times your normal click rate, and 300% more shares on social networks. I’ve seen this personally on my own weekly newsletter.

If you’re in need of providing a customized, targeted, newsletter for your users or customers, go check out the new Xydo.com now.

If you write about it, let me know! I’ll be including links back to all relevant articles below:

Techcrunch – “Pivot Smart: Social News Network XYDO Goes Pure B2B With New Content Marketing Platform”
Dain Binder – “XYDO Redefines Newsletter Relevancy And Engagement Performance”

Path’s Privacy Problems Aren’t Path’s – They’re Apple’s

Posted on February 8, 2012 by jessestay

The world is up in arms about how the mobile application Path, which I covered here as one of the next social networks to watch, has been sending users’ phone directory data back to the service. As someone that knows the founders and trusts what they’ll do with the data, I didn’t give it a second thought, but the concern is valid. I’d like to suggest that the problem isn’t Path’s though. In fact I warned about this before.

4 years ago, back in 2008, as Apple launched their own app platform and directory for developers to the public, the mobile app Loopt went through a similar controversy where it automatically sent an SMS to everyone in the user’s phone directory, without their permission. In this case, just like Path, the service assumed that users would be okay with sharing this data in order to make the service better. In both cases, there were many offended that this was happening.

I responded with an article of my own (again, this was in 2008!), suggesting that Apple needs privacy controls on their devices. Before any application can access phone numbers and other sensitive data from the phone, the operating system itself should be warning users that data is being retrieved, and ask the user’s permission. In fact, Android devices already do this to an extent, and services like Facebook do this before any application can access sensitive data about an individual.

It’s hard to believe that Apple has taken 4 years, and still hasn’t implemented any such controls. It’s, to me, not too much of a worry that apps like Loopt and Path are accessing this data, as both apps are good companies run by good people that have good intentions for this data. However, there are many applications out there that may not have such good intentions. In every case, it should be up to the user to decide, and know when their personal data is being transferred to a 3rd party application on their device.

So I’d like to turn the argument back around to Apple, not Path – why are you allowing 3rd party applications to access my data without my permission? It’s time well overdue to give users some control over their sensitive data.

The Solution to Offshore Manufacturing is Technology, Not Politics

Posted on January 25, 2012 by jessestay

In The Biography of Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson, it talked about a meeting Steve Jobs had with President Obama. Jobs was quoted saying, ‘“You’re headed for a one-term presidency,” Jobs told Obama at the outset. To prevent that, he said, the administration needed to be a lot more business-friendly. He described how easy it was to build a factory in China, and said that it was almost impossible to do so these days in America, largely because of regulations and unnecessary costs.’

It was clear in tonight’s State of the Union address that this particular conversation weighed on President Obama’s mind, as he addressed it directly. In the Address, President Obama talked about solutions to fix our current American manufacturing processes. He mentioned possibilities such as reducing taxes for companies willing to manufacture in America, and making it more expensive for companies that chose to manufacture overseas. I argue that this is not enough though, perhaps not even necessary, as in an era of technology and brilliant minds technology itself will replace the need for offshore manufacturing.

Silicon Angle has a great post about “The Era of the Physible”, a take on a new category of the file sharing website, Pirate Bay, that shares 3D designs for printers that can print objects in 3D. In it they discuss the future of 3D printing, and how we are getting near the real possibility of Star Trek-like “replicators”, which can manufacture just about anything you can imagine.

I believe the future of manufacturing is in these devices. I think we are just years away from replacing entire factory lines with simple, polymer ink-based printers not much bigger than the printer that prints on paper in your own house. Here’s the best part: each of these “factory-in-a-box” devices will be in every home in America. (They’re already on their way in simple forms – see Cubify for example)

I predict, in the not too distant future, not only will you be able to shop, buy, and order phones, devices, and gadgets online (most likely through a mobile device if current trends have their way), but you’ll also be able to print those devices out, right in your home, just like you do a piece of paper right now. That’s right – the future of manufacturing exists in the homes of every single American, and every person in the world. We won’t need those offshore factories in the future! It’s an industry that, just like the automotive industry, just like just about any mechanical, human-powered industry, is quickly being replaced by computers!

Apple’s meticulous about its manufacturing processes. Steve Jobs instilled a culture where even the factories of Apple themselves were decorated in pristine white design, beautiful, well-functioning processes that got things out quick. With Apple’s focus on end-to-end solutions and control over the entire process, Apple could very well move in this direction.

Imagine a world where Apple, like their current factories, made beautiful 3D printers that created their devices in the homes of every customer, instead of building expensive factories in China. Imagine if Apple could reduce that cost, and give complete, full control to the manufacturing process of their phones in the homes of their customers. What if they put one of these in each Apple Store for customers that couldn’t buy their own 3D printers? And guess what? Government doesn’t have to do anything to make this happen (other than making it cheaper and easier for businesses to do this). Because it’s a cheaper, more efficient process, businesses will do this for Government.

I truly believe this is the future of manufacturing, not factories and jobs of blue-collar workers. We need to be preparing for this, rather than worrying where our manufacturing is taking place. The next President’s 4 year term will start to see this major shift in manufacturing, and if they’re not prepared it’s going to hurt the American economy.

I’m concerned that we’re focusing too much on where our factories are located, and finding ways to hire more blue collar workers, when we should instead be finding more ways to get those blue collar workers interested in more white collar jobs, giving them the education they need to do them. In the future, we won’t have a need for blue collar factory jobs, period – the trends are showing that. We’ll have a need for white collar engineers, software developers, and those that can design the devices, yes, devices, that will manufacture every product created by corporate America.

In an era of the computer, internet, and mobile device, my kids aren’t even getting simple computer classes in their schools. Many children aren’t even learning how to type. I learned how to program when I was 10, in elementary school (part of this was due to lack of laws such as COPA) – I fear we’re losing this focus in America, and that’s why we’re seeing a severe shortage in high knowledge engineering talent. Kids simply aren’t seeing the importance or value of this stuff, so they don’t want to learn it.

My hope is the next President of the United States can keep this in mind as they plan their job creation strategy. Instill a love of computers and engineering in our kids. Get rid of laws like COPA that prevent kids from looking things up on their own and take the power away from parents. Bring computer and engineering education back into our school system, from elementary school age! This is a huge wick that has been lit and is heading towards a big stick of dynamite waiting to blow up. Once it does, this whole offshore factory problem won’t be an issue any more. I’m afraid none of the current USA Presidential candidates realize this.

See the above video for an example of Cubify at CES this year

Defining Social Product Strategy Within the Organization – a New Role I Think Companies Should Pursue

Posted on January 11, 2012 by jessestay

Over the last several years, as we’ve seen Social Media grow and mature within organizations, I’ve been in a bit of a struggle as I’ve tried to define my role at each organization. As a software developer and entrepreneur interested in product design and growth, I’ve been forced into this world of marketing, a world where developers typically avoid. I’ve grown to enjoy it, and I think I’ve gotten quite good at it – so much that I now see myself as a sort of bridge between marketing and technology. You’ll notice that, as the tag line of this blog often changes as I try to define what I do. It’s a gap not many cover. Yet I still can’t help wonder if my struggle is because my expertise is one that is not yet properly embraced by organizations.

My expertise – a mix of product management and design, marketing, understanding of software development and what it’s capable of, and a user experience centered around social interactions between people – is one that a typical marketer just won’t be very good at. At the same time, other roles I fill and I think I’ve gotten good at – Facebook Page and Social Media Account management, social advertising, social media campaign management, are roles the typical product manager or software developer will understand. I’ve come to think that there is a need for a new executive-level role at organizations where a focus on social within the product can be fully embraced. I’m going to call this role the Social Product Strategist, and it should be at the same level as Social Marketing Strategist (formerly called just, “Social Strategist”).

The Problem with our Current State of Enterprise Social Media

One of my favorite bloggers around the role of social media in enterprise is Jeremiah Owyang, a partner at Altimeter Group, who specializes in research in the way large corporations embrace social media. In his writings he discusses the role of Social Strategist within organizations, and the structure an organization should build around social media. They suggest a Hub and Spoke model, where a hub around social media, lead by the corporate social strategist, helps lead individual “spokes” within departments of an organization. This role of Social Media strategist is also likely to fade back into the organization, likely into a marketing department. I love their focus on this effort – I’ve embraced it in many of my efforts.

That statement around Social Media fading into a marketing department has always bugged me about the role of social media strategist though. I’ve always seen a strong importance around product and social media in the organizations I work with, and the need to integrate social deeply into the products I work with. Things like finding ways to embrace Facebook and Twitter to bring a user’s friends into the experiences that are being built. I think social media is much more than just adding “like” and “share” buttons on a site, and should have an even more important focus around determining what your existing “social network” is, and embracing that for each user using your product. This needs someone that understands social design. It needs someone who understands product design, social APIs, and what can be done with them. I don’t think this is a marketing role. It fits more in the product, or technology arm of an organization, if even that.

Defining the Role of Social Product Strategist

I think there’s now a need for a parallel focus in organizations around the focus of Social Media. Yes, there should be a social marketing strategist role as is already being implemented in many organizations, with a focus on the marketing elements surrounding Social Strategy. These are the types of roles that will fade back into the marketing arms of organizations. However, there needs to be an equivalent level, parallel role around social Product strategy. This should be a VP or Director-level role around the development and deep integration of social experiences into every product the company develops.

I see this role as figuring out where the current relationships of your customers exist, and determining how to bring out those relationships into the experiences of every product built. The role should seek to build new experiences that are social, as well as embrace existing experiences, and make it easier for your customers to stay on the site, feeling comfortable that their friends and family are there with them.

Google as the Example

Google has done this well as they’ve tried to embrace social media. Many know Google for taking a developer-centric focus around the products they build. I think they’ve embraced this philosophy well by hiring Vic Gondutra to figure out their challenge around social product design within Google’s organization. Notice that Vic doesn’t focus on Facebook ad strategy or Page management or anything else like that – Google’s Marketing and PR departments handle those types of investments.

Instead, Vic decided he needed to create a new network, Google+, to get the entire organization on board with bringing out the real relationships their users have, and he made that available to the entire organization to use within their products. He figured out the already existing “social network” that existed in Google products, and found a way to build technology around embracing that social network. It’s a pure product design strategy. Other companies should also be considering this approach in their organization, and it goes way beyond the corporate social strategist.

Proposal

I propose that more organizations start considering this role of Social Product Strategist into their organizations social media strategy. The typical “social strategist” won’t handle this as well as a product person can. Organizations should seek out product-focused managers within an organization that have strong experience building social user experiences into the products they work with. Someone who has managed Facebook apps and experiences would fit well into this position. Someone who understands the benefit of social design into products should be considered.

I think its time organizations start taking this role seriously as a new role within the organization. This is something that I think we’ll start to see develop more and more in the coming year or two as organizations look back to see how they can embrace their own existing “social networks” that exist within their products, and find ways to embrace technology to bring out the relationships that already exist between their customers and users.

There’s Plenty of Room to Grow for Enterprise Social

Posted on January 8, 2012 by jessestay

On Thursday Altimeter Group released a report, titled “A Strategy for Managing Social Media Proliferation”, on the state of social media strategy in global corporations with over 1,000 employees. The report is quite telling, suggesting that most organizations in this category simply aren’t properly aligning business values with social media strategy and lack the proper tools to manage their social presence online. As one of the Domain Experts considered in the report, I thought I’d chime in.

No surprise to me, the report suggests that from their sample of 144 Enterprise-class corporations, organizations of this caliber typically manage an average of 178 total social media accounts online. Managing such a presence, it is quite a challenge in such a large organization to gain a hold, properly inventory, set proper education, and provide all the right tools to manage so many social presences.

From my perspective, there are 2 ways to solve this problem:

Simplify your presence online and instead facilitate, and outsource to community that is passionate about your brand and can help spread further knowledge about your product or message.
Improve the tools for members of your organization, simplifying the process of Social Media Management and educate employees on the proper use of these tools.

Facilitating Community

Oddly, I don’t see many organizations, or social media tools vendors working towards this potential solution to the problem. I’m a big fan of using those already passionate about your brand, and empowering them to spread a message. Wal-mart’s “Walmart Moms” accomplishes this well, empowering Mommy bloggers to talk about, and share passion for their brand. I’d love to see tools that allow companies like this to empower community to manage Facebook Pages, Twitter Accounts, and other similar presences, as a transparent community member, to talk about passion for the brand. Other tools could provide ways for brands to leverage proven community members in moderation of comments on Facebook Pages and similar presences.

The Altimeter report doesn’t fully address the community aspect I mention above, but it does talk about simplifying, by suggesting businesses audit their current social media accounts and only keep those they are capable of supporting. They also recommend establishing business goals for social media – aligning your social media accounts to these goals will help determine which to keep and which to get rid of. This is something not enough companies are focusing at the moment. I know this will be a big focus for many in 2012. As Altimeter Group says, “the party’s over”.

Social Media Management System (SMMS) Tools

The Altimeter Group report covers this well. In the report, they suggest companies do an internal audit and determine what areas they fall short, and categorize themselves into a series of needs: Intense customer response, social broadcasting, platform campaign marketing, distributed brand presence, and tailored service and support. Identifying how your company fits into these categories can help you pick a vendor that fits your needs – the Altimeter Group report covers which Vendors fit into which categories.

As also mentioned in the report, establishing a proper workflow for your messaging is also vital. This has been one of my big frustrations – while there are solutions that fix this problem, finding one that can fully integrate with internal authorization systems is a difficult process. Individuals in the organization should only have access to your social media accounts that they need – if they only need moderation access, they should only be able to moderate. If they only need to be able to respond on behalf of the company, that should be the only thing they can do. There is big risk right now out there as companies are fragmented in their social media efforts. I fear if this continues someone could easily create a worm or virus that compromises and targets accounts of those that manage large corporate presences, and posts on their behalf. Proper permissions and access control through SMMS tools will fix this.

Yet, I’m still seeing the need for more customized integrations and better ways to integrate with internal systems.

There is Still Plenty of Opportunity

Altimeter Group suggests there are about 30 or so SMMS vendors in the field at the time. As I personally interview these I’m still seeing plenty of opportunity for better integration. For instance, as companies such as Microsoft get in the game you’ll see more integrated systems into Microsoft’s Dynamics CRM tool and other systems. Facebook itself is rumored to be improving its Pages product, as well as providing domain-specific groups for better communication within the organization. Better authentication and authorization integration and standards are still needed among the various vendors. More platform integration opportunities, and capabilities for developers to build tools on top of SMMS platforms, in a similar manner to what SalesForce has done, will need to be developed. At the same time there is a huge opportunity to simplify and make barrier to entry with these tools even easier, and education amongst the workforce an easier thing to do.

I’m embedding Altimeter Group’s report below. I suggest, whether you’re a small or large business Social Media Strategist, that you take a look at it, and evaluate where your business stands. Where do you have to improve within your own organization?

A Strategy for Managing Social Media Proliferation

View more documents from Jeremiah Owyang

Disclosure: I am currently a Social Media Strategist for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The opinions mentioned in this document do not reflect the opinions or doctrine of the organization I work for.

Top 10 Rides of Disneyland 2011 (Stay N Abroad)

Posted on January 4, 2012 by jessestay

Disneyland (and Disney California Adventure) cannot be experienced in a single day. The industry standard is at least 3 days, 3 long days. Between rides, shows, parades, and shopping, it is hard to know where to begin and what to skip when time starts running short. Choosing a top 10 list was almost impossible. After three fun-filled but long days at Disneyland and Disney California Adventures, I had each member of our family name their favorite two rides (with no repeats). Here is our list of the best of the best:

Click to read the list over on Stay N Abroad!

Christmas Traditions (Stay N Faithful)

Posted on December 25, 2011 by jessestay

This is a re-post from my more personal blog, Stay N Faithful. I thought due to the timeliness, it was worth sharing this bit of my life with you as well. Please enjoy, and Merry Christmas!

As I finish up the night, stockings all hung, presents wrapped and under the tree, I can’t help but reflect back on all the traditions my family has participated in over the years. Christmas, in my family, is about tradition, family, and loving one another as we reflect on all the years we have spent with each other.

In my childhood, we all had stockings, made from patterns from my grandmother that my Mom made. My Dad even had his own stocking, made by his grandmother that he would hang alongside ours. We didn’t have much money growing up, so we’d spend Christmas Eve usually as a family, some times going over to someone else’s Christmas party and others just enjoying time with each other. We’d always, as Christians, read Luke Chapter 2 and eventually our traditions wound up with us opening up one gift from a sibling that night. I’d then have a sleepless night pretending to sleep when I really couldn’t, wishing the night could go faster.

As I got older and even though I knew, in my heart, that Santa Claus wasn’t real, the Spirit of Santa Claus was still there, and I still secretly wanted him to be real. I’d imagine all night long, what if my parents themselves had just stopped believing in Santa but he really did come? Yet I still wasn’t quite sure how all the presents got there in the morning. I also enjoyed adding to the mystique and happiness, the story of Santa Claus brought onto my younger brothers and sisters faces and enjoyed keeping the story alive for them. Even today I enjoy playing Santa and keeping the story alive in my children’s lives, with “visions of sugar plums dancing in their heads.” I think the Ballet, “The Nutcracker” sums up that fantasy well – it’s the essence of what being a child is all about, and again goes back to traditions, and remembering our childhoods as we grow old and how innocent we were.

As a child, on Christmas day we would wake up, usually way too early waiting for the designated time our parents set to wake them up and open up presents. By that time I usually had scoped out approximately what Santa had laid out for us at night and was eager to open the new presents. Our Mom would always make us eat a full breakfast so all the candy from Santa didn’t spoil our meals, and we’d get at least something healthy that morning (even if it was sugar cereal, as we usually enjoyed). For Christmas dinner, we would usually have a ham, some times turkey. After spending time with our new toys and presents, we’d often go see a movie or go do something special together as a family. For us, Christmas really was about family.

Now that I’m older, I find similar traditions permeating my own family into the lives of my wife and kids. Every year we visit my in-laws (my parents live all the way in Boston so we don’t see them as often as we would like). We open presents from the in-laws, have dinner, and spend time with my wife’s parents and siblings.

We then spend Christmas Eve as a family. Just as a child, we read Luke Chapter 2, and this year we even watched an amazing presentation of Luke Chapter 2 set in ancient Israel produced on the iPad (very few words – really amazing! Go check it out now!) by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I think this itself will become a new tradition for our family.

We then finish the night with a piano recital by each of my kids (they are taught piano by my wife, who plays beautifully), a trumpet solo by me, and a beautiful piano solo from my wife. We end the performance with a couple songs we sing with each other and top it off with “Silent Night.” We have a family prayer and everyone rushes to bed, trying to beat NORAD’s Santa tracker on Google to when Santa is supposed to arrive.

Then begins the present wrapping and visit by Santa. As we’re wrapping presents, my wife and I enjoy watching traditional Christmas shows. Some times we watch “A Christmas Story”, with its own portrayal of tradition and youth from the view of a child. Other times we watch midnight mass, enjoying the ancient Catholic tradition that goes back to early days of Christianity and the spirit that is felt there.

Lately I find myself watching a production of my Grandpa’s, “Mr. Krueger’s Christmas”. This new tradition shows the view from an old, lonely man (played by Jimmy Stewart), and his own desire to get the most out of Christmas, despite his lonely circumstances. I like it because it makes me think about others that could be like him in the world, and those that may not have family with them to celebrate these traditions each year.

Even as I write this, I’m starting a new tradition. In the background I’m playing back-to-back episodes of The Mormon Tabernacle Choir’s “Music and the Spoken Word” Christmas specials. This has become near and dear to my heart lately as I’ve had a few opportunities to help out the choir in their social media efforts.

I think Mr. Krueger said it best when he said the purpose of Christmas was to love one another. As a Christian, our tradition is that Christ himself suggested the same. In fact, as I reflect on Christmas traditions and going back to my own childhood, I can’t help but remember Christ’s own direction, “Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” Even Christ himself, who in our tradition is the Savior of mankind, came to the world as a child, and asked us all to reflect on that.

May you all remember your own childhood traditions as you go about this Christmas. My hope is that, believer or not, we can all take the Spirit of Christmas to heart, becoming as little children just as Jesus Christ did in Luke Chapter 2, as my own family reads every year. I believe there is much to be learned from each others’ traditions, and hope me sharing mine can help instill a little tradition into each of your own lives this Christmas.

May you all have a very Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and Happy New Year this season, and may you all experience wonderful traditions in your lives. Hopefully the videos shared in this post give you more to think about this season of giving, and reflecting back on our own childhoods and traditions.