Christmas Traditions

Leah, Julie, Olivia, Clay, and Sam

Christmas Eve

Each year on Christmas Eve, we give the children one gift to open. It is always new, matching pajamas. They look forward to this each year, and they all try to guess what they will look like.

We visit our extended families and exchange gifts with them before Christmas Day. (I forgot my camera when we celebrated Christmas with Jimmy's family!! Hopefully Russ and Megan will make me a disc of the pictures they took so I can scrapbook and blog!) Visit Megan's blog to see pictures of us at Granmomma's and Pop's.

On Christmas Day we spend the entire day at home in our pajamas! Jimmy and I do not get new pajamas each year, but we do have Christmas themed pjs that we wear for the occasion. The children awaken fairly early (this year we said, "Do not call us before 6:30 a.m.!"), and come down the stairs all together to see what Santa Claus brought them. At our house, Santa leaves one item for each child plus a stocking full of candy and small items......nail clippers, key chains, stickers, lotion, etc. The children, Jimmy, and I spend the next few hours opening presents (the gifts that we give each other) at a leisurely pace. I prepare the same breakfast each year: egg and sausage casserole and monkey bread. I fix the casserole on Christmas Eve, but usually have to prepare the monkey bread on Christmas morning. This year, however, my grandmother gave us homemade monkey bread for our Christmas gift. It was delicious, and all I had to do was reheat it in the oven. Yum! Our traditional Christmas lunch was grilled steak for many years. Last year I decided to do something different--soups. I also served two different soups this year (chicken gumbo and cheesy chicken stew), but Jimmy and the children very politely informed me that they really preferred the steak dinner instead! We rarely eat steak and often eat soup, so I agreed to reinstate the previous years' Christmas dinner. The rest of the day is spent enjoying our new gifts---playing lots of legos and games.

Now that this wonderful holiday season is over, I will be moving to my next project that I usually tackle this time of year: CLEANING OUT AND ORGANIZING. I will be offering regular tips about this subject.