Christmas Traditions

I have the fondest memories of Christmas from when I was a kid. For the whole month of December we would listen to the Beach Boys Christmas tape over and over. On Christmas Eve we would get one present--new pajamas. We went to a candlelight service at church and had rootbeer floats and snackies before we were rushed up to bed. We piled all of our blankets and pillows to make one giant bed in my brothers' room where all six of us slept. Of course we were extremely wound up with all of the excitement and anticipation so my parents had call up and tell us to calm down and go to sleep several times. My dad gave us chocolate candies which he said were sleeping pills, and somehow they seemed to work. On Christmas morning we would wake up at the crack of dawn (or before) and stomp on the floor to wake my parents. We had to wait in the stairway for what seemed like an eternity before we could come out. First, we got our stockings (my dad's hunting socks) which always had an orange in the bottom. It seemed like there were a zillion presents and it was chaos as six kids tore into the wrapping paper. My mom made cinnamon rolls and we spent the day in our pajamas playing with our new toys and games.

Christmas has changed a lot over the years. On Christmas Eve we spent the afternoon with Mike's family and went to church that night. We went to my parent's house for rootbeer floats and snackies. I make cinnamon rolls on Christmas morning, but it's not near the chaos that it was growing up. After we opened our gifts from each other, Mike spent several hours playing with his new toys and then we headed over to my parents house to hang out and play games.

PS. 3 years ago Christmas morning Mike asked me to marry him (and I said yes). :-)