It usually begins with going to find a Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving. As a child we always went out onto a relatives farm land and searched for hours for the perfect cedar tree. The house smelled so wonderful! More recently this has meant going to the tree farm to pick out a tree. Still fun just different.
Yes, I am a fan of live trees. Doesn't feel like Christmas to me without it.
Then we wait with anticipation for Christmas to arrive. When our whole family is together. I am the oldest of 9 children if you don't already know that. So 9 children, 4 spouses, 4 grand kids, 2 great-grandparents, and of course Mom and Dad.
We spend the week before preparing food. We don't do a big Christmas meal but instead have a huge table of snacks that we eat on throughout the day. There are a few things that appear every year like Dad's homemade summer sausage, the best cheese ball you will ever have, ham roll ups, Grandma's cinnamon rolls, jalapeno cheese balls, and punch still served in Mom's wedding punch bowl. There are many other things like cookies, crackers, scones, stuffed mushrooms, you never know what might show up. :)
We always do our family Christmas on the 26th since Dad works on Christmas day. My Dad still wakes us all up with jingle bells. We make coffee, of course, and wait for the Grandparents to get there before opening gifts. We usually read some of the Christmas story to remember why we celebrate this day and then we begin gift opening. We draw names since there are so many of us and we take our time going on person at a time so everyone can see what they received. Then we go straight to the snacks. The day continues this way, playing games, eating, watching a movie like White Christmas, Elf, or It's a wonderful life, eating, napping, playing more games, etc.
I love my family so much. They are the real reason I love Christmas so much and the reason it's fun to make traditions.
I want my kids to have as many good memories as I do about family and holidays. We've started one tradition of giving each other a new ornament each year and I look forward to creating more traditions with my kids as the years come.
I hope you have a family you love spending time with over the holidays, whether biological or not. Family as God intended it is beautiful and life giving.
If you have any great holiday traditions please share them. I would love to hear some new ideas!
Rejoice with your family in the beautiful land of life! ~Albert Einstein
So happy :-D Love this, Jana and that quote by Einstein is perfect! I love you!
ReplyDeleteOh, hello there!
ReplyDeleteBeing the good, strong Germans that we (my family) are, we have the long-standing tradition of reusing boxes and never putting the object in the correct box (shoe boxes will have gift cards and rocks from the yard, a box a toaster came in will have a pair of slippers). There is always the initial faux-excitement of getting the practical toaster gift for Christmas, then being more excited about getting slippers and disappointed it wasn't a toaster.
It wasn't until last year when I wasn't home on Christmas, that I realized not every family has such a sense of humor in gift packaging and wrapping.