I don't know if I have one particular favorite holiday tradition, but one of my favorite moments occurs on Christmas Eve, when we walk through the silent, festively-decorated night-time streets of our neighborhood on our way to church.  I am not a hugely religious person, but it's not Christmas for me before I haven't heard the story from St. Luke's gospel, chapter 2, retold to me and sung the associated Christmas carols in church -- and I love that contemplative walk, and finally having time to duly appreciate the love and creativity that some people put into their holiday decorations.  This year, alas, my mom wasn't able to walk all the way (in fact, the way things are looking, those days may be over once and for all), so I only got to take my walk belatedly and after, alas, some of the decorations had already been removed again.  However, there was still plenty of loving care to admire and enjoy (including in the windows of some of our neighborhood's tiny shops):

(Task: Tell us: What is your favorite holiday tradition?)

I don't actually have one single favorite holiday tradition -- to me the holidays are pretty much a multi-faceted package, and each one of the components is equally important; everything from Christmas decorations (even if I haven't put up any this year -- but at least my mom did), candles, and Christmas cookies to the way we traditionally spend Christmas Eve (church, gift giving, sausages and potato salad for dinner, and nonstop favorite holiday movies after that) and taking time to relax and unwind on Christmas Day and Boxing Day.  I've come to realize over the years that being at home for Christmas really matters to me as well -- I've had some nice Christmases elsewhere, too, but none has even come close to the extra element of comfort and relaxation that doing "all the old familiar things" at home seems to provide.

The 2009 edition of the Gävle goat
(images collected when compiling the St. Lucia's Day tasks)

Ever the optimist, I'm guessing the Goat has survived / will survive this year.  IIRC, it did last year as well -- hopefully that means they've finally learned how to keep the vandals in check!

Neil Gaiman started a new Halloween tradition in 2010 that involves giving scary books as gifts. As he explains it: 

"Obviously, we support bookshops and authors, but more than that, this is about making a holiday tradition of book-giving. So feel free to give second-hand books or books from your own shelves. And feel just as free to buy a beautiful new book from a small independent bookseller, or from online or… look, there’s no wrong way to buy a book. You can even gift it to their Kindle … If you do not know what scary book to give someone, talk to a bookseller or a librarian. They like to help. Librarians will not mind even if you admit that you are not planning to take out a book, but instead you are going to buy one and give it to someone."

For more info from Gaiman himself, and to see his video, go to his site at www.allhallowsread.com.