Christmas Traditions.

My family has so many Christmas Traditions all of which i love, as a child i didn't love all of them but now i long for them and since this is my first Christmas back home in 4 years i am excited for them.

1st tradition- Santa Claus pictures, it didn't matter how old you were, you were getting on santas lap for a picture..I think once i hit about 10 i DESPISED THIS, i would always try to find a way out of sitting on some creepy dude at the malls lap all for a picture my mom could put up for everyone to laugh at when they walked in.. but there was no escaping it as i got older i said screw it and gave in.. Then when i moved to cali and had Emmie my sister came to visit and it happend to be right before Christmas and we were joking about how it was the first year we both lived away and mom couldn't force us into sitting on santas lap...so you know what we did.. We drove to the mall in Oceanside and willingly sat on santas lap for a picture...we got back to my apt and instantly scanned the picture and emailed it to our parents... My mom was so happy she cried and it made me realize i actually kind of loved that tradition..Now i do it with Emmie and every year at Christmas my mom puts up huge collages of our santa pictures from over the years, Emery was getting a huge kick out of seeing me as a baby and toddler.. and i get a kick out of it too..

2nd Tradition (this one is gone sadly) - Picking out our live tree, Driving to the lot in our winter coats and snow boots was always so fun then we would pick out the perfect tree, i remember us kids would run to one we thought was perfect but Dad always got the final say..One year he was so excited about a tree and it was about  8 inches to tall and we had to cut the top off when we got it home, and then it looked like a Christmas Shrub. We would get the tree home and it would feel the whole house with the most delicious smell and we would blast Christmas music and decorate the tree. We had this angel treetopper "the ugly angel" it was this hideous angel my parents found in the attic of our house when they first moved in back in 1985 for a long time the angel wasn't hideous but over the years it didn't age well and us kids decided to give it a makeover and cut its hair making it only uglier..For years my mom tried to throw it out and we rallied around our ugly angel and put her up...One year my mom hid the ugly angel and brought home a new pretty porcelain one.. My brother sister and I took it upon ourselves to take it hostage until ugly angel was brought back....When we woke up one morning to find ugly angel back on the tree we smashed in pretty new porcelain angels face and delivered it back to my mom... okay not very nice but histerical.. Ugly angel was finally booted from the tree about 5 years ago and wrapped up and given for Christmas to my brother and his wife who still Proudly display ugly angel. The live tree disappeared when all of us had finally moved out, my dad had finally gotten sick of vaccumming up pine needles well into the summer months and they broke down and bought an artificial one..although its beautiful and i love it, its not the same.

Tradition 3-Christmas eve pajamas, Everyone got to open one gift on Christmas eve and it is always pajamas, the whole family gathers, all my siblings there spouses all the kids into my parents living room and we ALL get pj's... I loved it and i still do and all of us have continued it with our own children. Our pj's are always themed around who we are as individuals but they all sort of match..one year all the girls young and old got footie pajamas, another year we all got gorgeous chenille bath robes .. This year all the guys are getting sports related pj's  (spoiler alert) lol.. We all hang out in our pj's and talk , drink egg nog and listen to christmas carols until everyones ready for bed.

Tradition 4- Themed wrapping paper.. My parents were always great about keeping the wrapping paper that was from Santa hidden and on Christmas we would all wake up to a stack of gifts in our own wrapping paper with our stockings placed neatly on the stack ...I always loved seeing what them my wrapping paper was going to be..One year it was pretty silver stars, another care bears... This year Emerys is hello kitty since her stocking is also.

Tradition 5- Stockings filled with fruit..Ah yes, our stocking always has 1 apple 1 orange and a banana in it...luckily my parents were smart and set a large bowl on the table for us to dump our unwanted fruit into haha. But our stockings always have other stuff, chocolate, candy, for the girls make up , panties and hair stuff and sometimes jewlry.

Tradition 6- Heading to grandmas..after opening all our gifts and playing for a while we all loaded up and went to grandparents house to start cooking. My grandparents have this gorgeous house with an amazing back yard with acres of land and a HUGEEEEEEEEE POND. In the family room is this amazing open bay window that looks over the back yard and pond and in the winter the snow magically transforms it into this almost perfect winter scene.. With the Christmas tree off to the side of the window it looks like something out of a movie...it still amazes me. All of us would bring our favorite new gift and gloat about it to our cousins, we would all hang out watch Charlie browns christmas and talk until dinner was ready after that we would open our presents from our grandparents and aunts and uncles.

Traditions have slightly changed as our family has grown but it's still just as amazing, i almost feel like a kid again being back home..our christmas eve pajamas are already in gift bags under my parents tree and i want to peek to know what mine our going to look like and everytime i walk into my parents room i want to peak into their closet and see what they have gotten for stocking stuffers and for the kids ...I think Christmas is the one time we really feel like kids again. I am really excited since i am also "Santa" . This is the first time Emery is really understanding the whole Christmas and Santa thing..okay well she doesn't understand the true meaning behind Christmas, ive tried to explain but she hears one thing.. Presents, but shes only 3 , she has a lot of time to learn and i will do my best to help her  understand. I really can't wait for her to rip into her presents and see what "Santa" has brought, although part of me is sad that she won't know its from me...Is that wrong.. i dont know but either way i am excited for her and excited for Christmas.