Christmas Traditions

Susan posted a blog challenge at Sisterhood of Scrap. She wanted to know about our Christmas traditions. We have many :-)

One of our traditions is that we open a small gift before bed on Christmas Eve. The children usually pick a gift from one of their siblings.

Another is that I give the children a Christmas ornament each year -- this also gets opened on Christmas Eve. I get a photo of them sitting in front of the tree with their ornaments. This photo is from last year.

Christmas morning, the children bring their stocking into our room and open them together. While they play with their little gifts, I head downstairs to get the turkey put into the oven. Devin gets some music on the stereo and we light the lights. The children are called down and we start opening gifts. We take turns with opening so that we all get to see the gift and hear who it is from.

We have our turkey dinner around 2pm on Christmas day. Lots of veggies, turkey, stuffing and of course, dessert -- usually Cherry Cheesecake. Yum!

We put together at least one puzzle each Christmas holiday. Friends and family who drop by are welcome to help. Our favorite is a cork-backed puzzle of lots of santas. I think we've had this puzzle for 8 or 9 years now. We did get two newer puzzles last Christmas and managed to put together all three. We'll see what happens this year :-) School is done here now, so the puzzle will come out this evening. Here is a photo of my 88 yr old grandmother helping with our puzzle -- she LOVES doing puzzles!

Some of our traditions have changed over the past few years. When the children were younger, we would sit together each evening in the living room. Candles were lit and Christmas music played softly on the stereo. We would just sit and listen for 1/2 hour or so. It was so nice to have that bit of quiet time in such a busy season. Now that the children are older, we don't do this as often -- everyone seems to have something else that they want to be doing. I miss it though.

This year was the first time that we did not get our own Christmas tree -- we bought one instead. It's a beautiful tree and the kids have decorated it in their own way. I don't mind the little extra in expense to buy it.

So, those are some of our traditions. I'll post in a few days time with some of our New Year's traditions.