Christmas Traditions.

If all goes as planned (keeping fingers crossed), I will have pictures up tomorrow of the Christmas decorations around our house.  I know, they've been way overdue.  In the meantime, I thought it would be fun to talk about Christmas traditions. 

We always go to Christmas Eve service.  One of my favorite parts is the Christmas music.  I like all Christmas music, but there is just something wonderful about the Christmas carols/hymns sung in church.  After we get home, we eat heavy hors d'oeuvres, drink champagne, and open presents.  Yep, we open all of our presents on Christmas Eve. 

My family has always had the tradition were only one person opens a present at a time.  And it really is one of those things I don't foresee changing.  It takes a lot longer, but I love the anticipation and watching the excitement on people's faces when they open their gifts, and feel like you miss some of that when you're busy opening your presents all at the same time.  My side of the family also does "race-gifts."  It's where two or more people get the same gift, wrapped the same way, and you have a contest to see who can open it up first.  It usually ends up being a full-contact sport to see who can rip it open the fastest, while trying to prevent the others from opening theirs!

(photo: house and home)

Thankfully, Justin's family and my family spend both Christmas Eve and Christmas day together.  It is so nice having both families under one roof and not having the hassle of driving from one side of town to the other.  And they have graciously adopted some of our "crazy" Christmas shenanigans.  (It was hard the first year to convince my brother-in-law (and maybe Justin too) that we like to open presents one at a time.  But they have come around.  Or at least are doing a good job pretending!) 

When I was younger and living at home, Santa would come Christmas morning and fill my stocking and leave more gifts, which were never wrapped.  It was always fun walking into the living room after coming down the stairs and being able to tell right away what Santa had left.  Now, my in-laws bring over our Christmas stockings on Christmas day for us to enjoy.  Even when Justin and I were dating, they were sweet enough to always have a stocking for me. 

Now that I am "grown up" (I am using that term loosely), I like not having to worry about opening presents (especially since it takes us hours!) and cleaning up the wrapping paper mess on Christmas morning.  Instead, I can have a more leisurely morning and focus on getting Christmas dinner ready since we typically host everyone at our house.  But I am sure once we have kids, Santa will visit our home Christmas morning!  

Do you have any holiday traditions that are different?