Traditions

We now have only two days before Christmas. For a little fun I thought that you would like to hear what we do for Christmas in my family, with my mother and sister...

For Christmas dinner we almost always have my favorite food, steamed lobster with green beans and mashed potatoes. We even eat at the dining room table, a rare occurrence. After we eat, we proceed to the next item on the schedule.

 Make hot coco. Then we all hop into the car and drive around and look at the lights all around the town. There is this one neighborhood by my old Junior High that is always lit up. It's amazing. There are icicle lights hung across the streets and green rope lighting lining the streets and all the garden beds. Last year the most amazing house had a flashing sign in font of the house that instructed viewers to tune to a radio frequency. Then the lights flashed and twinkled perfectly in time whatever Christmas tune came onto the radio. It was probably one of the coolest things I've ever seen.

After we get home from our venture we turn on the first Harry Potter movie, The Sorcerer's Stone. We like it because of the Christmas scene where Harry is so shocked by the fact that he has presents and of course those classic lines, "Happy Christmas Harry." "Happy Christmas Ron."

Pretty much after that somehow we are all exhausted so we all head off to bed and sleep until about 7:30 when we all wake up and do presents.

However before presents Claire and I have a game of find the pickle. The premise of the game is that we have a pickle ornament and when Santa drops off presents he hides the pickle ornament on the tree. Before opening presents you try to find the pickle hidden on the tree first. Whoever wins and finds it first wins "The Pickle Prize" which is just a small extra present, usually a DVD or CD. 

Presents are next, followed by a phone call to my grandparents. Then breakfast, some form of pancakes. After that, Claire and I load up the car and drive over to our dad's house, less than 15 minutes away. We then quickly open presents at his house and then go to the airport. 

After a 3 hour flight into Phoenix we head dash to my other Grandparents' house and open presents with cousins and family. 

That's my family, what do you do?

How many times do you have to do something for it to be a tradition?

Keep it classy,

~E