I'm excited for Christmas too! My family is Christian, so here's our tradition:

My brother and I wake up early in the morning, and then we wake up our parents. After that we get dressed and ready for the day, and then we all pile in the car and go hiking. At the end of the hike, we read some Bible verses about Jesus's birth. When we walk back, we usually sing Christmas carols. Then we drive home and open stockings. After opening stockings, we have a break to eat my mom's famous cinnamon buns and drink some milk. Then we start opening presents that are under the tree.

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I know I know I know! I'm so excited!!!!!! Christmas is great! I love it! We have the best church srvice at our church, nd then we have fun, and it's great. 

On CHristmas Eve, we go to our grandparent's house around three and play games and open present from that side of the family. Then, at seven, we go to a special service at my church. We open pajamas before we go to bed, and then we wake up and open stocking presents (gum, etc.) and then we open under the tree presents. 

I'm excited too! I love Christmas!

My older sister Eliza is coming home on break from college later tonight (we ALWAYS celebrate as a family, even if she does live all the way in MA!) and I can't wait to see her! I finally finished wrapping the presents I'm giving to my family: a Mickey Mouse mug and a packet of limited edition Ghiradelli peppermint flavored hot cocoa for Eliza, a super top secret gift for Tessa (like you, Butterfly, my sister might see this, so I can't give it away!), and I've written a song for my parents, which I plan to sing to them on Christmas morning. :}

A few days before Christmas, my sisters and I take some games into my older sister's room, and then on Christmas Eve night, my older sister 'sneaks' us over to our 'secret' sleepover (my parents know about the whole thing, they have for like eight years now, but we still enjoy being sneaky.) Then we stay up until lateish and play games and stuff. It's really fun!

On Christmas morning, we open the stockings, have cinnimon rolls for breakfast, and open the presents under the tree. Then we get dressed and go to my grandparents' house and open presents there.

Every year we go to my grandparents' house the week before Christmas. The whole family comes down to my grandparents' as well, and we visit and talk a lot. We gernerally have dinner at my aunt's house at some point with the family. Then on Christmas Eve-day we head back home for the night and go to our church for the Christmas Eve gathering, then we go home to bed. And THEN I stay awake for hours in complete darkness before I get up the next morning and rip open presents from the big red man with my parents. Then we give our presents for each other before driving back to my grandparents' to spend the day with the family.

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I'm a Christian, and Christmas is one of my favorite holidays! It's both a joyful and humbling time. I love the story of Christ's birth, how He came to earth to save us, and yet had such a modest beginning, born in a barn, laid in a manger. I love how warming and comforting that image is.

My family has a LOT of traditions which we carry out from pretty much all of November into January. We start listening to holiday music the first week of November, and have this mixture of fall/Thanksgiving and winter/Christmas decorations we start putting out. We start watching all sorts of Thanksgiving and Christmas specials, and start our Christmas shopping because it takes us FOREVER to decide waht to get each other. And of course we're terrible at wrapping so we start that early too. The day after Thanksgiving, we put up the Christmas tree, and break out into full Christmas mode with constant Christmas music, tv specials, and decorations. We do a lot of baking, one of my favorites are cookies called Thumbprint Preserves. They're cookies that you press your thumb into to make an indent, and place any kind of preserves you want. My favorites are blackberry and strawberry. I also believe in Santa, so usually on Christmas Eve, I'm up in bed way earlier than usual, and generally read myself to sleep. I wake up much earlier than usual too, and as soon as I hear my parents are up, I race down the stairs. We then proceed to start a batch of cinnoman rolls, start our day with a prayer,and begin opening presents. We usually do one at a time, making sure each person has a gift, then open them together. We open stockings last. We then talk about the story of Christ's birth, enjoy each other's company for the rest of the day, and make a large Christmas meal. We usually make turkey, but this year we're making ham.

I'm totally excited for Christmas! I'm excited for this time to really stop, focus, and thank Jesus for coming and saving us. Nothing makes me feel more comforted than this time of year. 

@anon: I'm sure Will meant nothing by that phrase, and really, Santa has been referred by that for years. He didn't say it out of context, and really it's not in any way meant to be racist. As long as you don't try to take it out of context, there's nothing racist about it.

Thanks  BHR, that's what I meant.

Merry Christmas! Let's see, what have I done this year for Christmas?

Usually my brother's too small to make gifts, so we've started a tradition of everyone getting $5 to spend on each other person (me, my mom, my dad, and my brother) and we all go to a discount store to get cool Asian knicknack sometimes-gag gifts!

This year we got the Christmas tree the weekend after Thanksgiving so we could have it up for a nice long time. We have ornaments from everywhere we go and crafts my siblings and I have made (not just plain store-bought ornaments) so it's always super fun to decorate! Of course, I always try to put my more embarrassing preschool ornaments at the back of the tree. 

And of course, what Christmas would be complete without family? One side of my family is atheist/Buddhist so we usually visit them either before actual Christmas or during New Year's. We still give gifts to all six of the cousins and some of the aunts and uncles, and they're super fun since they're all around my age (my siblings and I are the middle cousins). The other side is Catholic like me so we just went to Mass on Christmas Eve and open presents. No kids, but I love baking with my aunts and exploring the houses that get redecorated every year!

Hope all of you (and Admins!) are having a very merry Christmas with family, friends, and maybe some presents! 

Thanks, Air. Happy Holidays to you and everybuggy else!

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