A Young Family Christmas!

Christmas Traditions are all around us! Every family seems to have their own. Whether it’s making gingerbread houses, baking Christmas cookies, going to the Pink Pig (if you live in Atlanta you know what I’m talking about), going to look at Christmas lights and this list could go on and on.

When my sister started dating my brother in law they started spending Christmas Eve with his family and Christmas Day with ours. Chad’s (my brother in law) family has always celebrated on Christmas Eve; which worked out nicely since we celebrate on Christmas Day.

So my family’s Christmas tradition is on Christmas Eve we all go to church together. My sister’s family attend the same church as my brother in laws entire family. So my parents and I always go there for Christmas Eve service that way we are all together. After church the Crawfords (my brother in laws family) go and have their Christmas together. But my parents and I split from the pack. The three of us venture out to find an open restaurant and then we leave our server a thank you note for working on a day that they might not want to and then inside the card we leave a Christmas blessing (aka: a generous tip). After our dinner my parents go back to our house where they continue to wrap gifts throughout the night (even though they swear every year they are never doing it again and will be done with wrapping early next year lol). I will have already had a bag packed and I will head back to my sister and brother in laws to spend the night with my three nieces. I help the girls get their milk, cookies and veggies ready for Santa and his reindeer! Then the girls and I head upstairs and watch a Christmas movie (usually a Muppet Christmas Carol- Alex and I always watched this on Christmas Eve growing up and I’m trying to keep the Christmas tradition going) and at some point fall asleep; excited to wake up the next morning.

Christmas morning is when my job really starts lol. I am in charge of keeping the girls upstairs until mommy and daddy are up and the grandparents get there! Everyone has to be downstairs before the girls can go down. So normally I keep them busy with another Christmas movie or the parade. Once everyone is there we come down and the girls get to open their gifts from Santa and mommy and daddy. After gifts are open we have Christmas breakfast; which is always yummy). Then it’s time to clean up (the room and ourselves) and then it just depends.

For years we went to the movies after opening gifts but when the girls were so young we stopped doing that although this year we are bringing this tradition back! I can’t wait! We already have our tickets for Mary Poppins!!! After the movies we will all head back to our house (including my grandparents and sometimes my aunts and cousin) and open up family gifts and have dinner. Now our Christmas dinner isn’t the traditional kind. Yes we do get a Honey Baked Ham and Turkey (small ones) but we make sandwiches and homemade soup! We go more low key then making a big hoopla and easy so everyone can enjoy! And that’s a Young family Christmas!

I wanna know about yours!! What’s your Christmas look like? What traditions do you have?