I thought since T.R started an early thread about wishing everyone a Merry Christmas ... I would start a fun thread about what you do to celebrate the Christmas Holiday at your house. When do you start decorating the tree ... is it a real one or fake? Do you go overboard with the lights outside like Chevy Chase in Christmas Vacation? Do you start shopping for gifts throughout the year or Black Friday it officially begins? What are your favorite homemade candy, cookies, cakes, pies, main meal and drinks? Does anybody love homemade Fruitcake? Or am I the only crazy one? What are your favorite Christmas movies? And Christmas songs? Do you open up presents on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day? Don’t be shy ... please share your favorite moments of the holiday season ... I have always loved celebrating the traditions of Christmas. We always have a live tree. Sometimes we go and cut one down ourselves. I occasionally enjoy a "flocked" tree, my wife prefers green. Usually after Thanksgiving my thoughts are filled with Christmas cheer, and then we search for a tree. I don't go overboard, can't afford that. But do enjoy announcing that my house believes in Christmas! I enjoy the twinkling lights, manger scenes and all the decorations associated with the Christmas season. Many movies and songs to choose from. I enjoy White Christmas. But my all time favorite movie is the Ten Commandments. It really speaks to me. I truly enjoyed the "Left Behind" series. I have allowed my children when younger to open one present on Christmas Eve. The rest on Christmas Day. Gotta have my eggnog and apple cider with cinnamon as well as plenty of Christmas treats! Though I may celebrate Christmas like a heathen, But I am filled with gratitude and hope! TR On Christmas day one of my six kids brings her entire family over for breakfast. Two other of my kids' small families live her at the original homestead where they were raised. Now that the kids are a bit older, probably not until around 10:30. The other families stay home that morning with their own kids. The breakfast menu is lots of bacon and sausage, mounds of scrambled eggs, at least two coffee cakes, a variety of coffees, hot cider in a crock with cinnamon sticks, a pile of deeply buttered toast with various jellies, and for a select few who like it, egg nog. We just sit around and relax. Sometimes other families come later to visit for a while to snack on nuts, M&Ms, cider, more coffee, and others never leave their own family traditions like refusing to get out of their warm pajamas and slippers. Gotta' go. More later probably. I try for a live tree, love the smell. Always decorate inside and outside the first weekend in December. I have these crazy dancing stuffed animals that I put the batteries in and turn them all on at once ( when the grandkids come over, we all dance goofy to the animals - drives everyone nuts, but great memories). I always tell my hubby, let’s really enjoy this Christmas, because it’ll be our last one, the next one will be in heaven. Always praying it’s so.... :prayer-hands: Indeed Tammie, my thoughts exactly! I have felt for the last three years that each Christmas was our last. So too for this year. TR
When the kids were little, they opened 1 gift on Christmas Eve, we always watch “it’s a wonderful life” and “the Christmas story - Ralphy will shoot his eye out”.
Now that the kids are older with families of their own, every other Christmas is dinner at Nanas house with a big spread to certainly over eat and then go for a Christmas walk.
One every other opposite year we went to The Great Wolf Lodge to have Christmas. This year we are heading to visit the creation museum and the Ark, staying in an Air-n-B in Cincinnati for a different adventure.
