Christmas Traditions

I love Christmas traditions- specific foods or events, people or places, traditions make the holidays that much more special. Christmas Eve might be my favorite part of the holidays. Everyone (at least at our house) has finished shopping, the cookies are in the oven, and the anticipation is great! Even with no little kids to get REALLY excited, we do a pretty good job.

I love when the tree is all decorated with ornaments and presents! And a cute dog of course!

Also, on Christmas Eve we always go see a movie. This year: Harry Potter 7: Part 1. (Very good- now I am very excited for the 2nd part!) And of course we read The Night Before Christmas. Our reading is from a book that has been in our family since 1938- its old and wrinkly and beautiful. Each year we sign it and say who it was read to, where we are, etc. It is really interesting to see my grandmother's handwriting and where they were so many Christmases before. 

Then it is time to try to sleep! It is still hard to do - even at 23 : )

Christmas Day is of course fun as well. We always open our "Santa" presents and stockings first. Then we have breakfast before opening the rest of the presents. Breakfast this year was country ham biscuits and home made hash browns- yum. After eating, we sit down to open presents (this year it took over 2 hours!). In our house, there is no ripping through presents. We open one at a time. It is time consuming, but it is fun to see what everyone got, and see their reactions to the presents that you bought. 

It was a wonderful Christmas filled with family, food, cookies, presents, and fun. It was relaxing yet exciting, restful yet fun. Our traditions make it so special- does anyone have any unique traditions? 

Next up: The rest of break.