Traditions

Our family traditions have been around since I was a kid and continue with a couple of new suggestions this year.

Usually we split Thanksgiving and Christmas with our Uncle and Aunts family. One holiday is at our house, the other is at their house. Yet with all of us "kids" growing up it has slightly changed to one holiday is now at my sisters and the other is at mine/my parents/my uncle and aunts. This year was Thanksgiving at my Uncle and Aunts and Christmas at my sisters.

During Christmas season there are 4 jobs at our house: 1. pick out the Christmas tree. 2. Decorate the tree. 3. Hang the lights outside. 4. Be Santa and pass out the presents Christmas morning. Each year we would change jobs, but for some reason my dad never did job #4. Although he told us that he had done job #4 "several" times, this year was his first opportunity.

Christmas Eve is usually spent going to church, eating Chinese food, and then touring the city looking at Christmas lights. This year we did the church thing, the Chinese food, but no tour. We were all tired and couldn't think of any place to see lights we hadn't seen before.

Christmas Eve also finds us opening 1 present, yet with my dad taking his first opportunity at being Santa, decided we could all open 2 presents. It felt weird, but was exciting.

Christmas morning begins with stockings, next opening presents, and then breakfast of monkey balls. Plus you get to stay in your pjs, except this little one got dressed, because she had so many cute Christmas outfits she had to wear all of them throughout the day. These traditions all held strong.

When opening presents: each person gets one and we all watch them open it. If it is clothes, you have to "style show" them right away, so everyone can see what you look like. You are also not supposed to look at the size, because size doesn't matter, what matters is if it fits or not.
Christmas day is spent exploring all our new treasures, eating, and playing games. No one can go anywhere, especially the kids. Yet this year we all loaded up into the touring voyageur and headed down to the bowling alley for a few games. We had a good time, but for me it wasn't a tradition maker.