Sunday Samplings: Christmas Tradtions

Growing up I don't think our family traditions were all that different from the average family...let's see...we opened up one gift on Christmas Eve after our retelling of the Christmas Story from the Bible. When I was super young I was "baby Jesus." We actually reenacted it! My mom usually made our gifts all a theme like everyone got pajamas or slippers one year.

Our Santa gifts never got wrapped and put under the tree...they would be in a certain spot either on the floor or the couch with our stockings stuffed with goodies and our favorite breakfast foods, such as cereal and Pop-tarts.

When I was really young we switched every other year with having the tree and the Santa gifts either upstairs in the living room or downstairs in the family room. That one didn't last too long since I only remember doing the a couple of times. I basement was pretty dark and dreary and our fireplace went out when I was pretty young...

We could never ever sleep, what child can? So we usually tried to sneak past our parents' room in order to go check early on our gifts! Those were good times. Then Christmas morning we'd get our padres out of bed and open up all our gifts. It was usually done oldest to youngest and then the next year I really would try to get youngest to oldest (that was me!).

For my own family we do pretty much the same. Still haven't come up with a theme for Xmas Eve gifts, but hopefully one day, maybe when Boog gets older. Archie's not a big pajama fan (yes, he's an underwear man!) nor can we find slippers that will actually fit his feet! So for now it's usually just open one gift and there you go! We do try and eat some Xmas Eve dinner at the tree with a blanket and read some spiritual Christmas stories and drink hot chocolate. Christmas day is usually just a lounge around the house day! We do not visit family on that day! Maybe we'll start new ones as we go along! That's what's so fun about Christmas, new traditions to be made while old one are not forgotten!