gramajo

lol Please explain how that tradition began. :D

Minnisewta

We get together on Christmas Eve with my brothers family. To cut down on buying gifts we came up with a plan. Each year we exchange names with everyone so we have just 1 gift to buy. We have a different theme every year and the gift has to fit into this theme. Here are some of themes we have had. The object must start with the first letter of your name, it must have something to do with the outdoors or each person was assigned a color. This year it is recycle, reuse,repurpose. But you also have to be creative with the wrapping also. It wrapping also has to fit into the theme. An example was the year my niece has her Dads name which starts with the letter "B". My niece gave her Dad a Bottle of British Beer wrapped in a Brown Bag from Bloomingdales. Sometimes the wrapping is more fun then the gifts. We have had 3 kids get married in the last 16 months so it's going to start getting harder to have everyone there but we are going to try and keep doing it. We have found that we end up getting nicer, more usable gifts since doing this. I have a friend that had the theme of who could spend the least for a gift. For a year every time her mother-in -law came to visit she asked if she could bring a can of beer home with her. On Christmas she gave her gift of 12 cans of beer none of which she paid for. I guess she was the winner. It's the high light of my year to buy my gift for Christmas Eve.

Tudey

We had a two story house in Pennsylvania, with he living room just at the bottom of the stairs to the left. That was where the Christmas tree was set up. Having no fireplace, we hung our stockings with care along the stairwell, oldest sister's highest up, baby brother's lowest. (there were 5 of us kids)We were allowed to get our stockings at 5 am, but no tree time till 6, so to keep us from peeking in the living room, Dad put a sheet across the doorway. We always knew if there were batteries in our stocking, there was something under the tree for us that needed them! At 6 am when the parents got up and came to the living room, we followed and I can still hear my dad saying "Read the tags!"

denise d

We start ours on Christmas Eve. We do the Feast of the & Fishes, dinner starts around 1400 and we eat until we make it through all the courses.

We read Christmas stories and listen to Christmas music and the boys get to open one gift.

Before bed, the boys place Baby Jesus in the manger... and we talk about how Christmas is the celebration of the birth of Jesus.

Christmas Day, we get up and have breakfast and then spend the rest of the day opening gifts. This year may be different, because the kids are getting older, but in previous years, they were opening gifts into the New Year because they kept playing with the new stuff. LOL

AngieS

That is soooo sweet!

Rann

We read Luke 2 and other Bible passages and have prayer before we dig in.

mhansen6

Christmas Eve Candlelight service. It is an absolute must. It wouldn't be Christmas without it.

Peckish

I do, too! What happens next? Does he break open the glue and read it on Christmas morning? Do you keep the shells, so you have several years worth to decorate the tree with? I might have to adopt this tradition!

betlinsmom

AAAHHHH, Christmas!! As a child we perused the Sears catalog and window shopped all over town. my Momma would have us make a list of what we wanted and prioritized, too. Kids too young to write enlisted older siblings for lists making. Momma and Daddy would buy us one big thing and smaller fill in gifts. I always had my heart set on a new doll and we got doll clothes etc to match. My brothers got boy stuff; GIJoe and artillery pcs. One year when my youngest brother was 5 my Daddy had to work late and so called to ask for my brother next older than me would put together a Might Moe cannon. Rob and his friend Ronnie both 15 years old put the cannon together and got carried away...they woke us all up firing that cannon into the tree and knocking off ornaments!! We spend part of each Christmas retelling this and other wonderful memories. My kids are grown and have moved away so I am almost afraid to think of Christmas this year. I hope they come home. I will cook and bake for days and days and I have been shopping and sewing since August. if I have to ship gifts to my granddaugters I better hurry but my husband nd I will go to church and play C mas music and watch movies and be reminded with a full heart how very blessed we are!!!

Farm Quilter

What is a Yankee swap? Sounds interesting!

Thank you all for sharing all your wonderful memories of Christmas - I have thoroughly enjoyed reading every post!