12 Days of Christmas

Aly and Molly are having a really fun blog challenge called the 12 days of Christmas. I love Christmas sooo much that I just had to join. If you would like to join in this fun challenge click on the picture below! I hope you do and enjoy it as much as I think I am going to enjoy it :)

Day 1 : Traditions

Used to when my brother and sister still lived here and weren't married and the kids (my niece and nephew) lived here we would alway put the tree up the weekend after Thansgiving, but now we have little kiddos running around the weekend after Thanksgiving and a house full of people that we, my mom and I, put up the tree the weekend before Christmas. This is aso so we can enjoy it longer and the kids look for it the week of Christmas when they all start coming in.

Also, we used to only put one tree up in the living room with the front door, but the past couple of years we have put one tree in the living room, with all the decorative memories. We have carebears, rugrats, elmos, unicorns, my little ponies, dora, and horses and teddy bears and santas. This tree is memories throughout all of our life times. It has our baby pictures. It has Ornaments that we have made over the years and ornaments people have gave to all of us over the years. This tree means a lot. This tree is the kids tree. Santa comes to this room and sets it up all nice and pretty. However, we also put other presents from their parents, Grandma and Grandaddy, me, and their aunts and uncles and cousins upunder this tree.

The other tree is put into the dining room in the back corner and looks absolutely adorable. It is more of the antique tree. It has lots of balls and ornaments from my parents past. It has lots of gold, silver, red, blue, and green on it. It has coca cola ornaments and ornaments with a more antiquey feel that just have to go on that tree. It is beautiful. This is the tree for the adults: Parents, brother and sister and their husband and wifes, and little ol' lonely me. I kinda wont be lonely this year because Stephen will also be here, even though he isn't mine..lol

My mom and I and sometimes my sister used to get up early early on Black Friday to go shopping, but I just can't stand the crowds and would rather shop online on Black Friday. We do however take my Grandma shopping in Tallahassee two weekends after Thanksgiving and shop til we drop and then go to Olive Garden and if we still need to, we shop until we drop somemore. I love this girl time and my Mom and Grandma do to.

The week of Christmas my mom and I start making our candies. We make peanut butter balls, candied pecans, chocolate and white chocolate covered pretzels, and many other things.

Used to when my granny was still alivewe had Christmas with my Dad's side of the family the night before Christmas eve. When she passed away this tradition stopped.

Now I make my cakes, pies, candies, and goodies for Christmas Eve at my Grandma's the night before Christmas Eve. The day before Christmas eve is the day my brother and sister and their families come into town also.

Christmas Eve is spent seperating presents out to go and cooking last minute goodies. We then all load up in vehicles and head an hour away to my Grandparents house where we have a big meal followed by opening presents. We swap names way back in August and buy for that person. The kids usually get pajamas then so that they can all change and be ready for sleep on the ride back to Mom's house that night. We load up the cars with all of our goodies, say our love you's, thank you's and goodbyes and sing Christmas songs and look for Santa in the sky all the way home. Of course we don't all fit in ove vehicle and all the kiddos choose to ride with Grandma and Grandaddy :) I usually takes 3 vehicles to go with our big family to be able to go and bring stuff back.

Everybody gets in bed and sometime within the night Santa comes. The first person who gets up Christmas morning wakes up the rest. We then all open presents in our pajamas and get our huge stockings full of goodies. We usually all wait for the kids to open theirs first. Then head to the other room to open our presents. After that we all take off to our rooms to find that one perfect new outfit to wear. My mom fixxes a yummy meal of dressing, turkey, etc. and my Grandparents come to our house to spend time with the kids they don't get to see all year.

I love our traditions even though they may not be much :)

What are yours?