Holiday traditionFollow

When I lived with my parents we would get pajamas on Christmas Eve. We still get them and now so does my girlfriend. Its just something my mom has done forever and probably never stop doing (fine by me .)

Again when living at home, we never put the tree up until Christmas Eve. We'd put it in the stand, let the branches settle and hit up a Holiday Party or two; come home and decorate.

I am having trouble thinking of out of the ordinary ones, heh. *Ponder*....in the past few years, a tradition has been to open presents, and then go to Waffle House for lunch; it's the only place open, and my dad is usually up to his neck in Christmas Dinner cooking, so he doesn't want to cook brunch.

When I was a kid, Santa didn't wrap the presents, he left them nicely arranged like a store window. Then "santa" would put wrapping paper completely across the doorway so no one could see into the livingroom. My brother and I would argue about who got to run through and tear the wrapping paper.

We always left cookies for Santa, and a carrot for the reindeer. I have no clue if other people do that one or not.

We always get a piece of fruit from "Santa" in our stockings, usually an orange for good luck. Even now, as an adult, I still get the fruit, heh.

We had this ugly-*** felt snowman to go on top of the tree. He was shaped like a cone, and was quite beaten up. No one liked the thing, except my dad, who thought he was just great. One Christmas not too long ago, he disappeared into thin air - my dad is convinced my mom threw him away. He was always picky about the tree, it had to be colored lights, no white lights allowed. And that darn snowman...

Probably more, but I am done pondering for now. Obviously those traditions are all kid-related. I have been married almost three years now, but I have only spent one christmas with my husband due to deployment. Not enough time to build our own traditions, and we don't have kids yet.

My mom had these purplish-blue glass grapes that she loved and my sister and I thought were an affront to Jesus. They always made it on anyway. Also, my sister and I had ornaments with our names engraved so the weeks preceeding Christmas were always spent trying to covertly lower your sibling's ornament and place yours higher.

Well, we usually are the ones that end up traveling to our families during the holidays, but this year we are staying put in Castle Smoggy to have our first Christmas in our own home.

Due to our youngest cat, Ashe, being a problematic thief/pack rat, we're having a heck of a time finding non-breakable and non-edible Christmas ornaments for our gloriously pre-lit fake tree.

I'm sure anyone who has/had cats can relate.

Thanksgiving in my family typically involves a very heated game of Pictionary.

At my in-laws, we always eat a nice big dinner, we all watch Christmas Vacation with Chevy Chase. We've all seen it hundreds of times, but it's so funny watching my father in-law who starts laughing about 5 mins before the punchline.

I usually fall asleep about the point when Elaine punches Todd.

We always watch "A Christmas Story"...I love that movie and TBS plays it for 24 hours on repeat starting at 8pm Christmas Eve.

Nexa

But the commercials are for snacks, smoke-breaks, potty breaks, and to make out!

Nexa

Thanksgiving in my family typically involves a very heated game of Pictionary.

Are we related? My family does that almost every Thanksgiving also.

As for Christmas one thing I thought was odd, both mine and my husband's family always celebrated on Christmas Eve instead of Christmas day. Also we always had soup and sandwiches before we opened presents.

When I got together with Mr. DSD we decided to have the moms pick one holiday that we would travel to their place and that was it. My mom is known for guilt tripping if she doesnt see us every holiday under the sun and it drives us crazy. So this nipped it in the bud as much as possible.

Now we have my mother come to our house on Xmas Eve, which works for everyone. We do the PJ thing too, have dinner, etc. I find the NASA website that has Santa on radar, so you can see where he is. It's great for making little kids hurry off to bed when they see how close Santa is.

Christmas morning, we do stockings and then make breakfast. After, we hit the presents. And we stay in our PJs all day. It's awesome

Christ, you're old!

In Peru Christmas Eve is the bigger celebration. You gather the whole family and hve a roast suckling pig, holiday punch (kind of like eggnogg, but not quite) and lots and lots of dancing. The older girls make the punch and since the egg whites have to be beaten by hand, there is a nice gossip and laugh session between the older girls passing off the bowl all night until the 5 BILLION whites are frothy and the fork can stand in them. The adults and whomever can sneak away are off dancing to Christmas salsas called trullas and getting drunk on whiskey.

We open presents at midnight. The youngest child puts the Christ child in the manger, and then all the adults gather and let the children open their gifts. We make sure to oooh and aaah, and then the adults open theirs while the kids play. We go to bed at about 2am, then sleep late and spend the next day lazing around in our pyjamas, playing with our new toys, and eating leftovers.

I do love Christmas.