Christmas Traditions

We are less than a week away from Christmas.  Are you ready?!  I'm afraid I'm still scrambling to get things together. {eeek!}  I'm pretty sure that I will be better prepared next year....ahem.  Pretty sure of it.

So lately I've been thinking of holiday/Christmas traditions and have been wondering how to incorporate them with my own family since we'll be on our own this year.  I love my familys' traditions and I look forward to them as the season progress.  One fond holiday tradition that we have goes as follows:

Growing up, all of my mom's family would get together under one roof to celebrate the season.  We would eat a big Christmas Eve dinner with all the trimmings of a Thanksgiving feast, then settle into our pajamas as my grandpa told us the Christmas story out of the Bible and we would then "act" it out.  My uncle Randy usually was the donkey.  My older cousin Brandon as Joseph, and I as Mary with my Lemon Meringue doll {or as pictured, Cabbage Patch baby} as the baby Jesus.

Picture perfect Mary and Joseph, no?

Oh what great times!  Then of course all of us cousins would try {really hard} to sleep whilst the grown ups did all their "Grown Up" stuff.  At the crack of dawn, one by one the cousins would wake each other up and proceed to wake up all the grumbling and tired adults.  As was the rule, everyone must each eat a piece of toast and drink a cup of chocolate milk before we all got lined up, youngest to oldest to head downstairs where all our glorious gifts were patiently waiting.


Usually one of my aunts or uncles was in charge of distributing the presents; with each present making a fair rotation so each family got a turn to open a gift. {But of course by the end all the kids would scour the family room for their remaining presents and shred the wrapping paper as fast as they could get to the next gift.}

By the end we would have several trash bags full of torn remains of wrapping paper-which me, my mom, grandma and a couple of aunts and uncles would end up going through because I would ALWAYS lose my Christmas money. {I'm pretty sure I've lost it every year as a kid and STILL to this day have to put it in a "special" place so I don't lose it}

 Then everyone would migrate upstairs and make the most bountiful breakfast.  Chalk full of bacon, sausage, pancakes, eggs, hashbrowns, orange juice-everything under the sun.  And for the rest of the day lounge about and take naps, watch cartoons,  and play with our glorious new trinkets.

Ahh... those were the good old days.  Nowadays, everyone is pretty much grown up and beginning to have family's of their own.

As a new-ish family (new-ish as in a family with a little one) I've been wanting to incorporate some of my old traditions, but also want to bring on some new traditions.

I know families that get a new ornament every year to put on their tree.  Some open up new jammies the night before Christmas. Others bag up all their toys (and I mean all of them) and give them away and receive new ones on Christmas day.

What are your favorite holiday traditions?  And what news ones would you like to have this year?

{And I suppose we'll spill the beans tomorrow-say?}

We'll see ;)