share your Christmas memories or traditions you continue today with your family.
My favorite memories are the smell of those Christmas cookies baking in the oven, Christmas carols playing in the background and the magic dancing in the air...well, what do you think of???

Baking cookies for Santa, school pagents, waiting for the mail to see if there were Christmas cards, going to Church and singing carols. :)

One memory and so funny....My dad and brother were putting lights on the tree. My brother had an end of lights in hand and my dad said "go ahead, walk around the tree".....That is exactly what he did....without stringing the lights on.....I never laughed so hard in my entire life!

going to my grandma's and baking cookies. also I helped her clean the house for the big dinner

also in 1972 my aunt and cousin was killed in a bad auto accident and my uncle was injured bad and was in a VA hospital December of 1972, we drove 4 hours to see him, in the bad snow storm so he wouldn't spend Christmas by himself

I grew up in Puerto Rico, where it is warm all year round. In December, specially at night, it can get a little "chilly", and by that I mean 70-75 degrees. I always remember going to mass at 5:00AM for 8 mornings before Christmas. The church would ring the bells and play Christmas music in Spanish on the loud speakers until mass started and no one complained. We would then go home for breakfast and wait until it was time to go to school. I remember feeling so cold and looking for a sweater, which we didn't have. No one owned a sweater back then. As a grown up I was helping once clean the church and I found the record they played on the speakers but it was so old and had being so abused year after year that it was impossible to fix. I always wish my kids were able to listen to that beautiful music.

Going to midnight mass and arriving early to hear the choir sing. Such a lovely way to start out Christmas morning!

Christmas morning we have monkey bread, fresh fruit and dip. Two years ago I added a breakfast casserole also as the family keeps getting bigger. (We blended two families 5 years ago) This will be my first Christmas my youngest son won't be here for Christmas morning. He and his wife live in China. Last year they were home and brought a Chinese couple with them. It was fun showing them our traditions. After breakfast my husband read the Christmas story and used nativity pieces and then we presented the nativity to them to take home.

My extended family used to do a unique secret santa. You picked the name out of the hat and bought them a present. When it was your turn to reveal who you have, each person had to do a skit or something to imitate the person they have. It started simply just by making good-hearted fun of everyone's idiosyncrasies, but got more elaborate over the years. People started making props, writing songs, etc. The presets really were of very little importance, but we still talk about many of the funny skits people have done over the years.

We have always opened one gift on Christmas Eve, and that gift has always been new, warm pj's. Now the grandkids, all teenage and older, shake their boxes and say "hey, I wonder what this could be". We were going to stop when they got older but they insisted it wouldn't be Christmas Eve without their new pj's to sleep in.

My favorite memory growing up was my mother used to play christmas music with outside speakers all during the Christmas Holidays. I remember going to sleep every night listening to the music. Even the neighbors used to say they never had any problems putting their kids to bed that month because we all did the same thing.
My other memory was that stupid silver Christmas tree with the color wheel underneath. Always hated that thing. Every year we used to try to smash the branches putting it away so my mom would have to get rid of it. LOL finally worked and we got real trees.

My DD still talks about knowing that there were underwear, socks and jammies under the tree. She does the same thing with her kids now.....

She also decorated the tree from the age of 4-5 after I strung the lights. I think that is one reason I don't put up a big tree any more. Along with the idea I am to lazy....

Frosted homemade brownies topped with peppermint stick ice cream and homemade hot fudge sauce for Christmas dinner dessert!

Jan in VA

I wanna come to your house for dessert!! :)

Way back in the depression my Grandpa would walk to town for something (don't remember any boughten presents) and bring back stuff in a big burlap bag that hung low on his back. In it he had the most marvelous tasting fruit, oranges, which we did not have as a rule. And candy that had pictures of flowers all the way through them. They had the most marvelous taste I'd ever felt in my mouth!!!
And I was mad for years because at age 10 my boy cousin got a 22 and I got a stupid doll, even though I was a far better shot than he was.

Going to my Grandma's and helping her with dinner, setting the table and being able to sit on the "special stool" that we'd all fight over. :)

Living on the farm and going out in the woods with my parents to find and chop down our Christmas tree. My mother always made Christmas so special without having much money to spend.

We would go to my grandpa's. My mom would make and decorate 2 birthday cakes to take along one for my grandpa and one for my brother - both Christmas day birthdays. It had to suck not ever having their own special day but everybody was always there to celebrate.

Every Christmas Eve for the past 27 years (that's how long my DH and I have been married), we've had pizza for dinner. The first Christmas we were married, we were leaving early on Christmas morning to spend a few days with my folks. My DH and I decided to celebrate our Christmas on Christmas Eve, but didn't want to have a big dinner with lots of leftovers that would just sit in the fridge and then get thrown away. So, we got a pizza and took the leftovers for lunch along the way to my folks on Christmas Day. It's rather quirky, but it's our special tradition!