My mom and I put up the Christmas decorations. We put on Christmas music and we dance! (Not very well, but that doesn't stop us!) We make treats. We hand out gifts to our neighbors. We watch Christmas movies. We make a ginger bread house. Most importantly, we remember Jesus Christ and all that he had done for us.
Below is a picture of our families ginger bread house last year. This basically sums up my family right there. :) #AWESOME
Christmas Eve however holds my heart for my favorite day of the year. I wake up nice and early (about 5 A.M.) in time to watch the Curious George Christmas special and then I get ready for the day.
I go to work with my dad at 7 A.M. At his work, they do a half day. They clean and just finish up some projects they need to get done for the year. I love going there and playing with all the little toys around the office and talking with his co-workers. It is so fun to spend some time with just my dad and helping him out. It truly starts a good day of Christmas Cheer! Serving others is so fulfilling. Around noon they order lunch for the office and we eat together. Then we drive home. By the time we get home it is about 2 P.M.
My two older brothers are so awesome, and are just waking up.
My mom has the house cleaned and is ready to start cooking.
Normally we forgot something, so Mom and I run out to the store. Dad usually has a quick nap. Finally we are ready. We start cooking all of our favorite foods! My brothers marinate a lot of meat. My mom and I make treats. We all cook our favorite foods. It is so amazing to spend time together as a family preparing our feast of favorites.
Finally all the food is done! :) Okay now the best traditions start! We start off with a prayer. Then we open up our crackers. Crackers are little tubs and they contain a crown, a joke and a prize. So we see what everyone's prizes are, we read our jokes and we all put on the paper crowns. Then we start feasting! We have all types of cheese and crackers. We have sparkling cider. We do fondue of all sorts. We have smoked oysters. We just feast, laugh and enjoy one another. The spirit is always so strong. The love you feel, is absolutely indescribable.
After we are all stuffed, we play a game. It can be any type of game. Last year we played Battle of The Sex's. That was a blast!
We get to open our Christmas Pajamas! We all change into them and go downstairs to where our big tree is. It is all lit up. We then watch The Muppet Christmas Carrol. And we all have it memorized now. We sing and just have a ball quoting it.
Below is a picture of my mom and I in our Christmas pajamas last year!
After the movie is over, we get our special pillowcases. We put the pillow cases at the bottom of our beds and while we are asleep Santa puts a few gifts into them, that we can open as soon as we wake up!
My parents go to bed. Us kids usually stay up and eat some more, play some video games or something. Usually Pokemon on our game boys.
Now we are all older, we don't wake up at 5 in the morning anymore, we all sleep in. Back in the day, my brothers and I would all wake up super early and open our pillowcase presents and play with what we got. My parents had an alarm clock in the hallway and we weren't allowed to go to their room until the alarm went off, but we could play with each other! We would usually play a card game that we got in one of our pillow cases. I have some of the best memories from Christmas morning with my brothers, before mom and dad woke up. Well like I said, that was in the past, now us kids sleep in until our parents wake us up, usually around 11 or so. We wake up and open our gifts.
We get ready for the day and go to my dad's sisters home. She always have Christmas breakfast for us. So we get to eat a little and we always play a game there. Then we head over to my mom's side of the family. We all play with our cousins and spend time with each other. Then we go home and have a family dinner.
Christmas is one of my favorite holidays. Not because of the gifts, but because of the Christmas spirit. The spirit of Christ.
One thing I love about the Gospel of Jesus Christ is how focused it is on families. Our family traditions are something that we can always count on and bring us closer. As we do these little traditions, you can feel the spirit of Christ filling our hearts. That is the true meaning of Christmas.
No comments:
Post a Comment