Christmas Traditions

I know I am late posting for Jill's Christmas Traditions party but I guess it's never to late to post about Christmas Traditions. I have been thinking on this for a while and at first I thought Oh my gosh my family doesn't have any. What I grew up with no longer exits and I think what we had as a family died when my father passed away in 1985. Kinda sad I know, and seems very strange to know I have friends that i have known longer than my Dad or that I have now lived more of my life without him than I did with him. Silly how writing that is making me tear up and I am not know for being a cryer. It was really hard for my family to get into Christmas traditions after he passed away. But slowly we have developed some of our own as single adults. You see I have 3 siblings and only one of use is married, my oldest brother Glen and he is also the only one with children so for many years we had to find a way to make Christmas special without much family around to spend it with. I am not sure when we stopped going to Louisiana for Christmas but somewhere along the way as my cousins all got married and started having families of their own we stopped going or we told my mom we didn't want to go anymore.

So for many years it has been just the 4 of us on Christmas day with a friend or two joining us on occasion. The one tradition my second oldest brother, sister and I started was playing Monopoly on Christmas mostly in the evening after dinner. I hated playing it as a kid it just took so dang long for it to ever end but some how I know we will all sit down and play a game and to top it off someone always gets a new version of the game every year for us to play on this day. Now that I think about it I must have started this because I think I bought the first new game for my brother many years ago and he made us all play it together and then the next year he wanted another version and thus the tradition began. I know it has been over 9 years just not sure how much longer it has been. One year I got the Wizard of Oz Monopoly game, yes they had one and I still have it and we only have played it once. We have between the 4 of us Star Wars, NFL, Dallas Cowboys, Coke, Disney, Aggieopoly, the Golden addition, 2 electronics versions, and another Star Wars and I am sure there are some I am missing. Funny thing one year my Niece got the Disney Princess Jr version and we all played and she won fair and square. I remember one year getting a call on Christmas evening from my brother and sister telling me I had to drive back over because we had not played yet. I am hoping we can play early this year since I now live a good 30 minute drive from them, but in the end I know we will play we just may have a few more players this year.

Stockings. yes we still do stocking at our house. In fact they went away for a year but after much grumbling we brought them back. Some feelings were hurt one year but after much discussion and realizing we all could fill each others stockings and not just my Mom they are back to stay. We do them with just the 4 of us now, but this year we will include my brother Damon's girlfriend and her son. I just told my mom we were doing them and that as it. We have all started buying for them. It can never be anything big. Damon is always the hardest to buy a stocking stuffer for so I usually get him candy now that he is living on his own again I have a few more ideas. Our stockings for years were just the old fashion and red and white ones that we had as a kid. One was large and the other three were small and when we decided it was time to do a stocking for my Mom she bought some velvet ones like in the picture and we had our names embroidered on them. She also thought ahead and bought some blank extra ones for those friends that we me invite through the years. I do not have a big mantel like my mom does but we do them at my house this year. This year we will just have to fill them up on Christmas Eve. We will have a believer in the house this year.

With that I am hoping to start a new tradition this year. Every since I heard that my Aunt and Uncle and their family did this I have been wanting to do this to. Every year they all go to a family members home and spend Christmas Eve night all together. They change houses each year so they do not always have to do Christmas at my Aunt and Uncle's home. There are many of them and they just sleep all over where ever they can, so this year my Mom, sister, my brother Damon, his girlfriend Michelle and her son Nathan along with the sister dogs Star and Pooky will all be spending the night at my home this year on Christmas Eve. My home is only 1750 sq without a basement so we will be sleeping everywhere. I wish my oldest brother and his family would join in on the fun but since they have never invited us over to spend the night ever, we will go over to their home for dinner and to exchange gifts with them. I love the idea of all waking up together on Christmas morning so what if we all live in the same area we can all still wake up together.