Christmas:
We put up the Christmas tree the day before Thanksgiving, and it stays up until New Years.
On Christmas Eve, we all go to my aunt's house (especially hard last year, due to a freak blizzard).
We eat first, and then open presents youngest to oldest.
And then comes the stocking game, which is the best part of Christmas!
Stocking Game:
Beforehand, my aunt makes a stocking for everyone, each stocking has the same number of small individually wrapped gifts (lots of bath stuff, candy, sometimes jewelry, etc.) but we have to play the game to open the stuff!
We use the questions from the Who Wants To Be A Millionaire board game. The game itself is weird and stupid, and we've never bothered to try to play it the right way. We just use the question cards instead.
We go around the room, in no particular order, just circular from where everyone's sitting. When it's your turn, she asks you a question and gives you the four choices.
If you answer correctly, you get to open one thing from your stocking. If you get it wrong, then too bad =P
We continue like that until someone has gotten everything in their stocking unwrapped. It's usually fun because my grandmother always tries to help everyone answer their questions, even when we tell her not to XD
Whoever gets everything opened first, gets taken to my aunt's bedroom, to choose a grand prize. (there's one for everyone, but some are cooler than others). I won one year, and my prize was a gift basket she made containing a 6-pack of Sprite, and a bunch of snacks and candy.
The game continues, and the second person to open everything gets to choose their prize, and so on and so forth.
It's funnnnn!
Also, all of the big kids and adults get ALL of their presents on Christmas Eve, but the little kids get gifts from Santa in the morning too =P
**thinks**
It's hard to have family traditions now, because everyone's grown up and moved away, so we really only all get together at the Holidays.
When I was little, we had Sunday traditions, it was awesome.
Sundays:
Mum would wake all four of us up, and we'd have cinnamon rolls, and then she'd send us off to church. While we were at church, she'd go out to breakfast with my grandmother and my aunt.
Then when us kids would get home, she'd have spaghetti or lasagna made. And we'd all eat.
In the afternoon, dad's buddies would come over, and they'd all go up to the attic and play pool. We always hoped his friend Robert would come, because when he did, he'd bring his daughter Connie, and she was cool.
So then in the evening, we'd all hang out and play games and run wild. When the weather was nice, we'd usually end up running wild through the neighbourhood. It was awesome.
And it usually ended with hide and seek (in the dark!). And then we'd all collapse in front of the TV and at least a couple of us would fall asleep.
Good times.
**mourns for childhood**
Love is blindness. -- Set by my Secret Santa =D
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