Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories - December 10 - Christmas Traditions

Christmas Eve is the time our family opens gifts. It's worked out through the years, spending Christmas Eve with my family and visiting my husband's family on Christmas Day. Now that my children are all married with families of their own, it continues to work out. It's such a blessing to have everyone together on Christmas Eve.

Most of my parents' grandchildren in 2013.

One of the traditions is to have all the grandchildren (my parents grandchildren, that is) pose in front of the tree for a picture. It seems amazing to me how the picture changes. In no time at all, we were adding great-grandchildren to the picture. It simply takes my breath away some years.


My sisters and I have a tradition that is year-round. Whenever we get together, and there are 5 of us spread across the country, we capture pictures of the event. It seems we are able to all be together every year or two and I feel so fortunate when that happens. My older sister lives in Boston, then comes me, the next sister lives in Birmingham, the next in Dallas and the youngest is only about 45 minutes from here. It's one of my favorite traditions, but when it happens at Christmas, it's extra special, even if we are wearing "ugly" Christmas attire.


Presents are opened after dinner and cleanup. We start with the youngest and opening just one gift. Then the next youngest opens a gift, and so on. After several rounds, only the youngest children still have gifts and then we just let them open them all at once. It's really fun to see each gift opened and given special attention.

Sometimes we tell the children that the order is changed and we're going to start with Grandpa, the oldest. Oh, my goodness, the groans of agony! Of course, we relent and start with the youngest. But it is all in fun.

Bags of stockings filled with tissues wrapped gifts.

Santa always wraps the gifts for the stocking in white tissue paper. On Christmas morning, when the kids were little and ripping away at the wrapping, it looked a bit like a snowstorm. One year, instead of the traditional gifts, everyone got a brand new velvet stocking, emblazoned with their initial, full of tissued-wrapped gifts. They were told the gifts were clues to a bigger "Santa" gift waiting in the wings. Imagine 10 people tearing the tissue wrapping, shouting to each other and trying to assemble 15 clues together. It was hysterical to watch!

I'm really happy that some of our traditions have stayed the same over the years. But there have also been some subtle changes. And I love that my children are developing their own traditions, as well. It warms my heart to see know their own children will cherish them as they begin their own families.



"The Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories (ACM) allows you to share your family’s holiday history twenty-four different ways during December! Learn more at http://adventcalendar.geneabloggers.com.”