The traditions in my house growing up were very different from Kris' house growing up. My family always, always, always started the celebration of Christmas with late afternoon mass on Christmas Eve. After we were reminded of why we celebrate Christmas in the first place, we came home and ripped into presents from each other, ate a nice dinner, then celebrated with extended family at our house. On Christmas Day, we discovered our Santa gifts first thing in the morning and then, instead of getting dressed and heading off to church and then to Grandma's house for a turkey dinner, like so many other kids I knew, we stayed in our pjs all day, ate leftover hors d'oeuvres, stocking candy and my great-aunt's cookies and visited on the phone with relatives in other states.
To me, it was great. When I told Kris about it, he thought we were the weirdest family he'd ever met! I think, though, that I'm slowly converting him.
Now that we have our own family, we've decided that we will only travel after Christmas Day. This year was the first year that we were really able to stick to it and start to establish our own traditions, which pretty closely mimic my traditions growing up with some influence from my husband's side, as well. Our Christmas Eve began with mass, then dinner, but instead of a quick, easy meal because we were trying to get dinner out of the way before all the extended family was to arrive like when I was growing up, we are now states away from everyone and not hustling around getting ready to entertain. Instead, we made a more involved dinner and, once everything was in the oven, we exchanged our gifts between the four of us. Then, we played with the kids' new things read stories and put out cookies and milk for Santa.
Grace upon realizing that she had torn through her presentslike a mad woman and now had nothing left to open, while her brother
still had a pile in front of him as he carefully opened and inspected each gift.
Sam with his new Play-Doh Fun Factory...couldn't wait to open it!
Sam taking a look at his Pirate's Night Before Christmas book.It's too good to save for only Christmas...
we're still reading it on a regular basis...aaargh!
Putting cookies out for Santa...Grace felt the need to shineher cow flashlight on them (her gift from Sam)
while they made sure they were leaving the perfect cookies
for the big guy. :)
On Christmas morning, Sam was the first one up. He came into our room and woke me up to ask if we could go see what happened to Santa's plate...so cute...not even thinking about the toys. We proceeded to follow my family's Christmas Day traditions...Santa presents...pjs all day...playing with toys...holiday phone wishes...etc. But, Kris and I decided to add one more to the list...Chinese food! That is the advantage over living where I did growing up...no Chinese food accessible on Christmas Day there! Here, they welcome your order and deliver right to your pj-clad self to your very own house. We had a really wonderful couple of family days, celebrating the holiday together.
Running over to see what Santa brought...this is also the ONLYholiday photo on my camera that I appear in...Kris, step it up!
There should really be some nice photos of me in this stage of my life...
if not, the kids will end up posting some awful, deer-in-the-headlights
shots of me on my funeral board when I die! (That one's for you, mom!) :)
The coveted tent she'd been asking for for weeks...the tent she shouted
to Santa about from across the room when he came to her school
because she was too scared of him to sit on his lap...the tent she is now
zipping herself in to more often than sacking out in her real
bed for nap and bedtime. Santa hit a homerun with this one...
Stickers! His favorite medium...after Play-Doh, that is!
An accessory to the awesome jungle Santa brought.(Does anyone else think that he looks 8 years old in this picture?
It's pretty much completely and totally freaking my out.)
The jungle was another home run from Santa...
and he had his work cut out with this kid, because,
he asked for something different every day
for a month leading up to Christmas.
Once received, he spent the majority of his day parked
in front of it...and is still spending the majority
of his playtime parked in front of it.
Christmas Day family art time...
Sam was kind enough to share his Play-Doh and stickers.
And if you're wondering why the kids are no longer in their pjs in the sticker pic,
that's because I had to wash them to take to MI with us the next day...
yes, I did laundry on Christmas Day and sadly, yes,
it may become part of our traditions as long as we are two states
away from our family and traveling the next day.
1 comment:
Aww, it looks like you had a great Christmas :) Isn't it wonderful starting your OWN traditions?
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