Day 1 - TRADITIONS!

Day 1: Christmas/Holiday traditions

We have a lot of things we do...not sure if that is considered "traditions" or not but here it goes!

Celebrating Jesus

We do one of two things on alternate years to celebrate the birth of Jesus.

-One year we will do Advent. Starting 4 Sundays from Christmas as a family we get together each Sunday night/afternoon to light a candle and read Scripture that corresponds with the day of Advent we are on.

-The following year we will do Jesse Tree. Beginning usually at the start of December each of us girls are assigned an account in scripture to portray artistically some how. Starting from Creation and going all the way to Jesus' birth.When we were younger we would meet together each night to show the ornament we had made and get our assignments for the next day. Now that we have gotten older and schedules don't lend themselves to nightly meetings we meet usually on the weekends to go through the Bible account.

Decorating

Usually the weekend following Thanksgiving begins our Christmas celebration. This is typically when we put up the tree and decorate the house. Our dad ALWAYS hangs the lights. ALWAYS! There are no other options! =) Then mom passes out all the ornaments and we hang them on the tree. Every year mom has bought or made us an ornament. She does this so we will have some ornaments to take with us when we get married and have a tree of our own. So as she is passing them out she hands our ornaments to us and let's us hang them.

Gift Giving

With 5 girls it was far too easy to go cheap on Christmas gifts. Not that the gifts are what it is about but when mom is trying to help us pay for the gifts it can get pretty expensive even just to do 1 small cheapo for each other. So, when we were younger we decided to draw names. At the beginning of the fall we put all our names in a pot and draw one. We each buy for the sister on the paper. This allows for a much more meaningful gift. We are able to think about it and plan it. Not just buy something.

Christmas Morning

When we were younger it was a lot more crucial that we begin this morning at like 5:30...now that we are getting older we realize the importance of waiting...maybe! Still having a 10 year old living in the house makes for a reality check that Christmas morning is still very much of an exciting day and it calls for a prior to the sunrise wake up call! We open our stockings first and then gifts. For years...and I mean years mom has made the same Christmas breakfast. Egg casserole. I would not have it any other way! =) After gifts we chow down on some Christmas breakfast and then we usually chill. It is typically not planned out. We don't have to go anywhere. We don't have an agenda.

I am sure I will think of some traditions but for now I will leave you with, Kala Christouyenna!