Christmas Traditions

Holidays bring all sorts of traditions with them.  With Christmas comes Santa, with Easter the Easter Bunny, with St. Patrick's Day the leprechaun.  That doesn't even include the traditions that are passed through families and the ones that you make up as you go along.

Amazingly so, we don't have a lot of traditions in our family.  We all, for the most part, fly by the seat of our pants.  Christmas Eve is spent with my grandparents and parents.  Christmas Day I usually stay at home and veg, often my in-laws will join us for lunch or dinner, as Christmas isn't celebrated with them until the brother and family that lives out of town can join us.

Since my husband and I have lived near and far, we have tried to set up our own traditions, but it hasn't worked as well as we had hoped.  Life often interfered and one of us had to work.  I remember one year we had planned on staying home and watching movies.  It was 85* here, my husband, being in the ice business was slammed and ended up going to work, while I stayed home alone. 

Last year we had about 8 inches of snow and ice on the ground, and we were stuck at home.  We missed getting to spend the time with our family, but at the same time we enjoyed the time that we had together.

Some families do Christmas stockings on Christmas Eve, others wait until Christmas morning.  As a kid, we made cookies on Christmas Eve, it gave me something to do instead of waiting for Santa to come and us to be able to open presents.

What traditions does your own families have and do you like them, or would you rather introduce something different?  Chime in and let us know.