What is your favorite Christmas tradition?

I love our community sing-a-long where all the churches get together and sing for the evening. It usually lasts over 4 hours, but it is just spectacular!!

I love the evening when my family comes to my home. I cook a big dinner, then we exchange gifts, talk and enjoy the evening. This year we are having a gift exchange, which is the first time we have done this. But everyone giving gifts to everyone else gets pretty overwhelming. We all have too much already. I think this will work out much better.

-- Melissa (me@home.net), December 01, 2001

Answers

My husband's favorite tradition is Christmas breakfast. I make Blueberry Sausage Cake with Blueberry Syrup. Sounded gross at first, but it is pretty tasty.

-- Jo (mamamia2kids@msn.com), December 01, 2001.

Ours starts on Christmas eve. We go to my Dad's moms first-Mimi.Spend the evening eating, laughing ,talking and opening presents. Then we come home where my sister and her family join us to open our presents to each other, along with hot chocolate and oatmeal cookies. The kids fix Santa a plate and choc.milk then off to bed ,usually about midnight. Then christmas morning we get up early,open presents from Santa and go to my other grandmas for breakfast(biscits and gravy). Open yet more presents(the whole family is there(@30 people). Then we start in on Christmas dinner, getting it ready. We eat at noon and spend the rest of the day passed out on the floor or watching football while the kids play with new toys on the screened in back poarch.I love the time with all the family. I could however do without all the toys and gifts. We have enough and have no more room.God Bless

-- Micheale from SE Kansas (mbfrye@totelcsi.net), December 01, 2001.

We lay out a traditional Swedish Smorgasbord on Christmas Eve. We have coffee cake and tea ring baked ahead of time, for Christams breakfast. Christmas Dinner is very easy-usually, just a roast of some kind and potatos and carrots cooked together, some green vegtable and rolls-Whoever cooks DOES NOT do the dishes! Another favorite is Santa Stockings-this came from my husbands family and we continued. At our house Santa Claus fills the stocking and brings ONE present-anything else is from a family/friend. That way the kids arn't overwhelmed with so much stuff. They look forward to their stocking more than the other presents. Adults get stockings as well as do the dog and cat-and its so much fun to shop for them. We combine silly and practical, stuff like fancy toothbrushes, gel pens were big last year, I found a pencil sharpener that looked like a brain for my husband.

-- Kelly (ksaderholm@yahoo.com), December 01, 2001.

When I was growing up my family went over to my Uncle Ronny's and Aunt Shirley's We would have hors deaurv's and candy. Loved Aunt Shirley's cheesecake. My mom would always give my Uncle dollar bills in different ways such as stuffing each dollar in straws or making him guess music lyrics. Then we would all get to open one present on Christmas Eve and tear into the rest on Christmas morning. I still do the one present thing, with my kids. And we have hickory farms cheeseball, summer sausage, egg nog, and lots of fun. After Christmas my mom takes the kids for a week.

-- melinda (speciallady104@hotmail.com), December 03, 2001.