Jameka's answer: My family doesn't do much for Thanksgiving so we go all out for Christmas lol. Everyone flies in to my maternal grandmother's house and we spend the week staying up talking, gossiping, reminiscing, etc. Here's some of the things that we do!
- Sing happy birthday to Jesus at midnight on Christmas morning
- Go to a nursing home on Christmas morning to Christmas carol, as a way of spreading joy to others before we indulge in our gifts... giving back before getting
- Read the Christmas Story before opening our gifts... the grandkids take turns reading them
- Sing in my grandmother's Christmas concert at church
- OH and before Christmas, when we were young, my grandparents sent us "The 12 Days of Christmas". We (the grandkids) each received 12 gifts and could open 1 each day leading up to Christmas
- My grandmother also has a Christmas party before Christmas and we play games like, "Guess the Christmas Carol (using pictures)?" or Christmas Bingo and other things like that
- TRANSPARENT PIE! Okay, this isn't a tradition... but it's a special pie that no one BUT the people near my grandparents house know of lol. SO it's a rare commodity that I look forward to eating when I go to KY
- We ALMOST celebrated Kwanzaa one year... but most of us head back home when Kwanzaa starts :(
Sierra's answer: Traditions or just random silly stuff my family always does lol? But I will say that one tradition is that we have to watch allllllll of the Charlie Brown Christmas shows as well as the Rudolph ones and Frosty. And not just your typical shows... I'm talking about the old school ones where they look like puppets and they sing songs every other five minutes. It just isn't Christmas until you learned the true biography of Saint Nick!!! Another thing me, my mom, and dad like to do is to just drive around the neighborhood and look at the Christmas lights. I remember this being waaaayyyy more exhilarating when I was younger but I still enjoy the ride. I still try to "ooohhhh" and "aaahhhhh" to make my dad feel like I'm interested. Last tradition is a way me and my dad bond, or what we like to call "operation hide from mom so she won't ask us to do anything". We go outside to cook the turkey in the trashcan. Yes, the trashcan. Doesn't sound too glamorous but the turkey always comes out burnt to a crisp on the outside and yummy and juicy on the inside :)
It's always interesting to hear how people celebrate Christmas differently. What are you all's traditions?
We spend the night at my grandparents house on Christmas Eve, have brunch on Christmas morning [whenever I wake up since I like to sleep in late lol] then we open presents after/during brunch. then we watch movies or nap lol. We always have lasagna for dinner, too :)
ReplyDeleteThis year we're switching things up a little bit since Christmas is on a Saturday [Seventh Day Adventist] and we have church... can't be late! but I made sure the basics were still the same ;)
Merry Christmas Jameka & Sierra!