Traditions!

I love the holidays!! It is so fun to drag out all the Christmas decorations and "oooo" & ahh over favorite Christmas pieces. My all time favorite is the nativity given to me by my mom on our first Christmas married!! She purchased it in Italy when she lived there as a teenager. I have fond memories of sitting under our family tree and arranging and rearranging the figures.



Another reason I love the holidays is because they are full of traditions...

• baking cookies What types do you bake?? My favorite is Ginger Snaps! Nothing says Christmas more to me than a ginger snap. Now my mom ALWAYS made a TON of cookies, sandies, spritzes, ginger snaps, chocolate chip, haystacks {not a cookie but still you get the idea!!


• stockings and I use that word loosely because we use burlap sacks, yes SACKS!!! Our tradition has been to put all the stockings in one room on Christmas day and ALL the family takes turns going in a filling each others stockings. It is fun to see what everyone comes up with. We have had to laugh at the many times we have gotten HOTEL soaps and shampoos from Papa.


• Christmas Eve: growing up I was always allowed to open 1 present on Christmas Eve. Some were off limits but it was fun getting a "taste" of what the next day had in store. Instead of opening one gift from under the tree, we first have family and friends over for soup {potato, taco, chili, red beans and rice just to name a few} then we ALL kids included play Sneaky Santa/Dirty Santa. It is fun just to see how vicious some people can get! A few Christmases ago, we were in the middle and my friends son said something about "the elderly lady". Well he was talking about my mom and she is FAR from elderly. My sweet friend still cringes over that one! We just laugh because it was sooooooooooooo funny!!

Now I was blog hopping and read this post at 320 * Sycamore and KNEW i had to add this one to the list of traditions. So i went in search of our Christmas books {gonna have to do a little shopping and I am going to only do 12 since I am getting a late start}. I am going to Target to get the cutest wrapping paper for them! I cannot wait!!

What traditions do you have? Please Share!