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Sarah Michelle Gellar Gives Her Recipe for a Merry Christmas With Her Kids

Sarah Michelle Gellar with Rocky and Charlotte
Sarah Michelle Gellar with Rocky and Charlotte.

The Gellar-Prinze Tannenbaum hearkens to Christmases past. Every year, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Freddie Prinze Jr., and their two children hang memories on their fir, plucked from an eco-friendly farm. “Each family member and dog gets an ornament engraved with the year and picks a special picture to put in it,” Gellar says in the new issue of Us Weekly. “I have to be honest, though — I pick the dogs’!”

Related: PHOTOS: Sarah Michelle Gellar and Freddie Prinze Jr.’s Sweetest Moments Through the Years

The actress and Foodstirs co-founder hopes her brood will continue the trimming tradition, which includes copious amounts of hot chocolate and carols. “Once they’re older, we will all have trees with beautiful photographs of our family.”

Spreading Good Cheer

Gellar’s kids don’t write to Santa — they play him. “I don’t want them to focus on presents. That isn’t what Christmas is about,” says the Crazy Ones alum, who picks up letters from underprivileged families at her post office and helps the children fulfill requests. “It’s heartbreaking because so often they ask for diapers and formula, things my kids are fortunate enough to think are always accessible.”

Sitting on Santa’s Knee

Like Mom and Dad before them, Charlotte, 6, and Rocky, 3, visit the big guy. “We always go to the same place,” says Gellar, who scrapbooks all four family members’ childhood photos. “The kids get excited.”

Related: PHOTOS: Celebrities and Their Look-Alike Kids

Stuffing Stockings Silly

“Everybody buys funny socks for each other. We use them year-round. My daughter just had crazy sock day at school!”

Rigging Up the Lights

Gellar and Prinze’s block drapes their houses in “tasteful” displays, she says. “We design it differently every year.”

Ringing in the New Year Early

The NYC native watches the ball drop on the East Coast “so the kids can stay awake,” she says. Everyone gets dressed up, and the “kids have cider in champagne glasses!”

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