My favorite thing about Christmas is the time spent with family. My oldest sister Wendy moved to New York when I was when I was about 5 years old. I remember spending December counting the days until she would come. As my other siblings grew older, they were added to the list of people coming home for Christmas. Now that I am married, it is me who counts down the days until we see family. This year the song, "I'll Be Home for Christmas" by Josh Groban really made me think about how much I love spending Christmas with family.
One of my favorite traditions growing up was the "candle." Each night, we would burn an advent candle for one day. While it burned, we would sing Christmas songs, listen to a story, and talk about Christmas. I looked forward to this time with family every night. Even in High School, when I was performing every night, I would try to make it back for the candle. I loved the candle and all of the fun memories because it made Christmas more than just one day - but the whole season long. So, that is why I love Christmas...the love that surrounds the whole season!
What is your favorite Holiday memory???
Christmas is HUGE in my family, so to narrow it down to one memory would be a little difficult. My favorite thing about Christmas are all of the traditions that my family has. For those avid readers of my blog, my family has a tradition for EVERYTHING. I love it because it is so memorable. So, here are a few of my favorite traditions and memories associated with them:
*The Candle - maybe this is where my love for books really began. My mom has a huge collection of Christmas books that we could choose from each night. To this day, I still love to sit around and listen to her read a book to us. There is something very comforting about listening to your mom read.
*Chocolate Advent Calendars...who doesn't love getting a piece of chocolate every day until Christmas? I remember when I was in Kindergarten, I went around to all of my siblings rooms and ate a piece of chocolate from each one. I must have thought that they would never notice...
*Secret Pals - At the beginning of December, my mom always read the story, "The Last Straw." We would then pick our own secret pals like the family in the story. Each week we would switch secret pals and do good deeds for them. I laugh as I think of what we left including hot chocolate (which was often cold by the time they got it), treats, made their beds, treated them nice, etc. We loved putting a straw in the manger for each good dead that we did!
*Dipping Chocolates - My dad always froze fruit and then we dipped them in choclates. We gave these away as neighbor gifts for a few years.
*Delivering neighbor gifts - I loved delivering our neighbor gifts. I also got excited every time the door rang because that usually meant there was another surprise for all of us from one of our neighbors. When I was in High School, my neighborhood changed and started pooling money for a family in need instead of giving gifts. This really helped bring the spirit of Christmas.
*Picking out the "perfect" Christmas tree - This was always on what seemed to be the coldest night of the year. We would all pile into the family suburban and go to the tree lots. What I remember most was eating peanuts out of the barrel and warming my hands by the fire.
*Decorating the Christmas tree - Each year we got a new ornament. It was then our task to put all of our own ornaments on the Christmas tree.
*Lifesaver Cookie ornaments - My dad always helped us melt lifesavers into sugar cookies to make a stained glass look. Heidi and I tried to recreate this tradition this year, but we didn't get quite the same results. I guess we need to leave it up to Dad!
*The Nativity: We always dressed up and acted out the nativity. With so many people in my family, there was always an abundance of characters...so much that people even had the role of the star, the donkey, the sheep, etc. We have now passed this tradition onto the grandkids who play the parts.
*The Christmas letter: My dad always writes a Christmas letter that he reads on Christmas Eve. It tells about the past year and bears his testimony. This was always a nice family together time.
*Christmas Eve: On Christmas Eve, we have the traditional dinner of Chicken Cordon Bleu, Ribbon Jello, Rice, Orange rolls, & veggies. We act out the pageant, read the Christmas letter, open a present, hang up stockings, & leave a treat for Santa. Such a fun day!
*Watching "A Very Brady Christmas" - we have only done this a few times, but we love this because the craziness reminds us of our family.
*Watching Christmas Movies: On Christmas morning, we weren't allowed to go downstairs until 7:00. What kid can really sleep on Christmas eve though? We would all pile into one room when we woke up and watch Christmas movies until the eventful hour. Sometimes this meant I watched 3 movies by the time it was 7:00!
*The Christmas morning ritual: We always woke my parents up by singing to them over the intercom. When permission was granted, we went and ate breakfast in their bedroom...that is if you can call it eating. We were all too excited! It seemed like my dad loved watching us agonize over the wait. He would take a shower and be slow getting ready! We then were allowed to go in one at a time to see the presents.
*Christmas Day: We spent the morning at home opening presents. Then, we would go visit my grandparents in the early afternoon. It was usually evening before we finally got to our stockings :)
*Sleeping with our presents: On Christmas night, we always slept in the family room next to our presents that we had received. We would display them very nicely and then sleep by them to "protect" them or to have them close by for the morning!
*The 26th - We usually stayed in our pajamas all day and played with our toys and games that we had received for Christmas.
*New Year's Eve: There were many tradtions with New Year's Eve. We always eat Chinese food, play party games (with prizes), & pop balloons and dance at "Midnight." This means whatever time my dad deems midnight should be. He would change all of the clocks so that we felt like it was 12:00...but really it wasn't.
*New Year's Day Openhouse - Every year, my parents have an open house on New Year's Day. There is tons of food and we spend the day playing games and watching football.
There are many traditions and memories that go along with Christmas. I love all of the excitement and fun that we are able to share together.
What is your favorite Christmas book?
I love Christmas books. I have a large collection which gets bigger each year. When Rich and I got married, we started a tradition of getting Christmas books on Christmas Eve. This has definitely helped our collection. Some of my very favorite Christmas books are:
"Why Christmas Trees Aren't Perfect"
"The Tale of 3 Trees"
"The Polar Express"
"The Christmas Miracle of Jonathon Toomy"
Robert Sabuda pop-ups including "'Twas the Night Before Christmas"
"Christmas Oranges"
There are so many more that I couldn't begin to name all of them...so here are a few!
I think that personal gifts are the best to give because there is so much thought put into them. You will remember these much longer than any commercial gift. Last year for Christmas, I finally wrote my life history and give it to my Dad. I was 5 years late in doing it, but I finally got his wish done. Other fun gifts that I have given are the grandkid book for my parents and a book of Parker's first year for Rich and his parents. Memories are the best!
What is the best gift you ever received???
Again, personal gifts are my favorite. I couldn't narrow them down - but I love gifts from the heart. This year, my dad took the time to scan all of his slides into pictures and print them up for us. I had never seen many of these pictures before and it was very fun. I have always loved my mom's homemade gifts including blankets, pajamas, corn bags, cabbage patch dolls, etc. I know that a lot of time is put into these gifts and the gift of time is so precious!
Now if this isn't Christmas gifts, would add a few more including: Parker and Rich because having them as my family is the best gift of all!
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