I'm the kind of person who does all her Christmas shopping at bookstores. :) I think I've pretty much decided which books I'm going to get for everyone, but I don't want to say what they are out here on the open internet. Probably overly paranoid, but better safe than sorry! 

Well, I'm not a very good wrapper either so I like to use bags, but we don't have a lot of tissue paper so I still have to wrap and I just put up with it 9-:

Anyway, traditions...umm...oh!  On Christmas morning, after the presents are opened, we always go and have our special breakfast.  It's an eggs, toast, cheese and ham casserole thing that we never have any other time of the year.  For a while, my sister and I tried to get up thirty minutes earlier than the previous year every year becuase we wanted to beat Mom and Dad up, but this year, I don't really want to get up at four, so I'm not going to worry about it. 

Our schedule for this year is pretty much the normal one:

Get up anywhere from four to seven.

If we're up before Mom and Dad, we can't open anything but our stockings.

While waiting for Gramma and Gramps to arrive, we feed the dogs and give them thier gifts.

Gramma and Grampa get to our house around eight and we open up presents.

We have breakfast.

We go to G and G's house.

We open gifts there (last year there was a wii, I'm hoping for a netbook this year!)

We have dinner with family, goof off with our new stuff, e-mail everyone about our awesome new stuff etc.

Go home at nine or something.

Good grief Spammy, obam?  You don't mean Obama do you?

Well, Um, most of the presents I make for my parents are homemade, so yeah......My mom owns a bookstore, so if we know you and are giving you a gift, it's going to be a book or notebook or something book-ish. Not that I don't like books. I adore them. It is a rarity if you find me without a book in my hand. 

Back to Xmas...well my dad is from Lousiana, and so every other  Xmas, we go down to see his side of the family. This year is the year that we go down there. But every year we have an Xmas celebration with my mom's side of the family...we never celebrate with my mom's family ON Xmas day because I guess it's too complicated.  If anybody understood that, good job. I'm in the family, and I still get confused.  So yeah. I am probably having 3(4?) Xmas celebrations this year. Those 2 I was talking about, and then after Xmas we have one with just me, my mom, my dad, my aunt, and my uncle.  And sometimes we have one with just me, my mum, and dad.  

Now I'm confused. Anyone else?

~Claire E.~

=D

At my school this year they're trying out this Holiday Boutique type of thing, so I just got my presents there. But there was NOTHIING for my bro, so I have to make him a handmade gift, and apparantly, handmade gifts just won't do for a high schooler anymore [grumble grumble]. ANYWAYS, I love the holidays. A week before Xmas we always go to my cousins' house somewhere up north, but still in CA, and our whole family goes up there. We open our family presents there to save people the shipping costs. And we usually go to the snow and have snowball fights. But during Christmas we have to follow this schedule thing: Never wake up the parents before 8 (my family likes to sleep in 'cause we always have early mornings and late nights). The parents NEED their coffee before we can open gifts :(, so they drink it nice and slow. Then we turn on some holiday music and dump out the stuff in our stocking. Then I sort the gifts to who gets them. Then we always go by youngest to oldest (my fave part, I'm youngest :). Last but definitely not least, we play and open up boxes. My parents always give us one big thing a year, last year it was a laptop :)

Ah, Christmas................

I'm the only one who has put gifts under the tree so far, which isn't surprising since my mom hasn't been having much luck finding gifts (which I personally think is just a cover up) my dad does gifts with my mom, and my sisters are still at college. Hopefully they will joined soon..................... Our Christmas tree is up, and so are our outside lights. It looks really pretty, especially with the snow!

All right, this is going to be a long one, so get ready to read. 

On Christmas Eve, we go over to my grandparents' on my Mom's side of the family.  We order takeout from a local restaurant, open gifts, then watch a parade.

On Christmas morning, we wake up, and my dad goes downstairs first to see if Santa came.  We come downstairs and open gifts and stockings, then get into our Special Christmas Outfits.  Then we go over to my grandparents' on the other side of the family to open gifts, eat Christmas dinner, and do other Christmassy stuff.  Then we go over to my great- grandmother's house to see pretty much everyone on my Mom's side of the family.   There we open gifts + more stockings.  Also, we have dessert and play w/ our cousins here. 

The End.  Now my fingers are all crampy from typing.  *looks post over*  That wasn't as long as I thought.

@ANALESIA@

Hey R~D~! :) I haven't been on for a few days-how was your trip? Did you have fun? How is your aunt?

*Clears throat* OK then, back to the thread topic.I can't believe that Christmas is now only 9 days away! This year is flying by really, really quickly...anyway, I don't really have any wrapping tips, (I don't think I'm gifted at gift wrapping either ;)) but I agree that big bows always help the situation! :) Oooh, Robyn, you're making your brother a photo collage? That is so awesome! I made one for my dad on his birthday! They're such great gifts because they are really personal and not to mention cool looking. :)

This is a tad off topic, but oh well. :] My siblings and I rang bells for Salvation Army last week! Well, actually, our mom rang the bell because we were playing the guitar and singing Christmas music. It was lots of fun! Has anybuggy else ever rang Salvation Army bells before? You Admins can answer this too! 

Merry Christmas Everybuggy! *gives out candy canes*