Christmas Traditions

Many families these days have their traditions. Our family is not an exception to this rule. They say that once a couple has children it is time for that family to start traditions. Most of the time that means staying at their house for Christmas first and foremost. I do think it is imperative that a couple discuss what kind of traditions that they will follow once they are married.

A major tradition that my family has is cutting down a live, fresh Christmas tree at the local Christmas tree farm. What, you might say? There are Christmas tree farms in the suburbs? Yes, there actually is one right on the outskirts of the city. We've been going there since I can remember. Nowadays, it takes way less time to pick out a tree than it did when we all were young. The latest tree we picked was much different than before as we picked a fir instead of a pine-like tree. Also, it took the whole of 15 minutes to pick it. Then, there's the traditional "Timber" when it falls. We then all decorate it together with lights and many different ornaments.

Another tradition we have is to put up lights out the wazoo. My brother, Thomas, is the one who is always in charge of putting up (and of course taking down) the lights. This year he put up approximately 5500-6500 lights on the house and around the bushes. It literally looks almost exactly like the Griswold's house in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (man, I love that movie!).

Speaking of lights, on Christmas Eve we drive all around town looking at all of the lights that are put up around town. There is one farm outside of Winston Salem that I go out to with Rodney every year now, sort of our new tradition. By the end of Christmas Eve, we are pretty much tired of riding around in a car so then we move on to our next tradition.

We always open up one gift on Christmas Eve, chosen by one of the other family members. We just don't know which to expect, but we all have usually already staked out which one we would like to open before Christmas Eve.

Rodney's family always gets together the weekend before Christmas for a gift exchange and a White Elephant fun exchange. Over the past years, it has gotten quite a bit smaller after Rodney's grandparents passed away, but it is still great fun as we always see new and interesting weird gifts (usually the ones that Kathy- Rodney's step-mom- gets). We all eat and enjoy each other's company.

When we were little, Santa would always choose a couch or chair to put our individual gifts on. Each one of us would hope that we got the couch since it always seemed bigger. Mom and Dad would take forever to get out of bed as we ached and peeked into the living room illegally. As we got older, we started to enjoy sleeping in and would just bother each other only if it got to be 10am or later.

Mom always puts out little snacks before our "thanksgiving type meal" and we always enjoy hot cider (Mom's special recipe). We hogged Grandma for about 20 years until my baby cousin was born, so now it is pretty much just the immediate family on Christmas day as she is in Atlanta. We usually also wait until after opening all the presents under the tree to open the stockings.

Well, everyone has their own traditions. These are ours. If you have any great traditions, please pass them along (leave a comment!)!