There are lots of things I remember from childhood about what made Christmas great. First off was all the time spent with family. We would spend Christmas Eve at my Grandma and Papa's house, and then Christmas morning at our own home before heading over to my Gigi (Granny) and Papa's house for presents and Christmas Day lunch.
At my Grandma's house, we always read the Christmas story straight out of the Bible. Once the grandkids were old enough to read, we each read a portion of it. I can't wait until my nieces and nephews are old enough to read so we can implement that tradition again (We no longer live close enough to go to my grandparents houses, so we have had to start new Christmas traditions within my side of the family as well). Then we'd open all of our presents and see what everyone got. Many times, we'd all pile into cars and go look at Christmas lights together. Then it would be back to Grandma's house to play board games and/or watch movies until our parents felt it was time for us to get to bed so Santa could come.
On Christmas morning, we always woke up bright and early (well, usually I was dragged out of bed by my older sister telling me what I got from Santa) and headed into the living room to see what Santa left by our pair of shoes that had been set out the night before. I love going back and looking at pictures of those Christmas mornings. Santa never wrapped our gifts. I remember one year, my sister got a Barbie House. It was all set up with the furniture inside of it... We played with that house A LOT. My brother got this awesome GI Joe tank looking headquarters thingy... we played with that too! (Yes, girls can play with GI Joe!)- Oh, and there was the year that I got a whole stack of Nancy Drew books- I was in bookworm heaven! We would get in trouble if we woke our parents up too early, so we would look and play and talk in excited whispers until they came in the living room. I'm sure they were tired from the night before... cause, you know, they had to stay up to make sure us kids didn't try to catch Santa in the act of leaving our presents... :)
At Gigi and Papa's house, we opened presents pretty early, and then played or whatever until lunch was ready. And we always ran down the street to my Aunt Kay's house to see what my cousins Dani and Rachel got from Santa. They usually had gotten a really fun new board game to play, and we would take it back down to Gigi's house to play it. If it wasn't too cold, sometimes a trip to the park nearby was in order.
One year, as we got older, we started the tradition of going to a movie on Christmas Day. It was pretty much the only thing that was open... I wanna say the first one we went to was Little Women, but that was a while ago, so I could be wrong. We sometimes keep up that tradition, but it is harder now that I have a husband who works shiftwork, and isn't always off for Christmas (and of course, we all have kiddos, not all of whom are ready to go sit in a theater for the length of a movie). That tradition might have to wait a few years.
Anywho, all this to say, I want to start creating traditions with and for my kiddo and future kiddos (whenever that may be)... I just gotta decide which ones are important I guess. What are some of the traditions you do with your family? Leave me a comment with some of your favorite (past or present) traditions!
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| Landon is not a fan of Santa just yet. :) |
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| Last year he didn't mind so much though... |
