Christmas Traditions

Mondays about Me

Everyone has family Holiday traditions, and growing up we were no exception.

My hubby decorating our cute little Christmas Tree

When I was young, my family had this tradition on Christmas Eve where the entire family (all the kids anyway, no matter how old) would sleep down stairs, either sharing rooms or in the basement family room. Then, in the morning Mom and Dad would bring down breakfast and we had to eat and be fully dressed before we could go get our presents. Mom always made homemade granola and dad made eggnog.

Then we would line up on the stairs in order of age, youngest to oldest, and go into the upstairs living room where the tree and all the presents were. Dad would then sit by the tree and hand out the presents one by one. We all had to wait and see what each person got before the next present was handed out. I think this was to make it seem like there was more by stretching out the time. Or to make us appreciate each thing more, cause we didn't get a whole lot.

There were a lot of us kids (my parents have 14 children) and we didn't always have a lot of money to spend on Christmas. But every year, no matter what, we always each got a coloring book and a box of crayons. These were my favorite! I loved them! We also got stuff like shampoo and body wash wrapped up, and then we'd get a few family games and movies too. In our stockings we always got an orange and an apple in foot of the stocking, and then lots of peanuts and only a few candies filled up the rest. We usually always got a toothbrush, chapstick and a small pack of gum in our stockings.

And that was Christmas for us. We'd have a huge feast with everyone, and Grandma and Grandpa would come over at some point in time, either for the gift part of the feast, each year.

I made this wreath last year for Christmas and was very pleased with the results :)

My Hubby and I still haven't yet set up our own family traditions. We spent our first Christmas with his family and extended family, and our second Christmas at Disneyland. Our 3rd Christmas we were living with friends to help them out while she was bed ridden with twins and trying to handle a 3 year old. And our 4th Christmas we were on our own and we opened all our gifts at about 5 AM when he got home from work. Then we went to bed and slept till noon. And we did get matching pajama pants! It was lovely, but I'm excited to set up family traditions with our kids one day. This is our 4th Christmas together and I'm excited to see what happens this year, cause we've never really made plans, it just kind of happens (even Disneyland, we didn't plan it, we just decided on Christmas Eve to go, and since we lived only an hour away, we up and went the next day :) ) So here's to finding out what Christmas traditions stick for us!

Our matching "Avengers" Pajama pants

Happy Monday and Merry Christmas!!
What are some of your family Christmas traditions?