Christmas Traditions

My husband and I are really laid back when it comes to blending traditions from our families.  When he was growing up, all of his presents were from Santa and they showed up under the tree sometime before he woke up Christmas Morning. The kids got to tear into their gifts in a frenzy.

While at my house, the gifts started showing up under the tree weeks before Christmas.  Except for the couple items that Santa would bring of course.  I loved going through and organizing the gifts by who the recipient was so everyone had their own pile under the tree.  And it was fun to handle the wrapped gifts trying to guess what was inside.  On Christmas morning, we opened our gifts one by one, going around the room taking turns.

For our girls, they know that Santa only brings one gift for each child and if they're lucky maybe a little something extra; plus, he fills the stockings.  Other than that the gifts come from Mom and Dad.  They also get gifts from one of my grandmas and my dad and his wife on Christmas morning since they send them to me early so I can wrap them and put them under the tree.  Previous years I have always waited to put the gifts under the tree until Christmas Eve when the girls were asleep. Mr. R was always adamant that was how it should be done.  But this year, he didn't seem to care and had put my gifts under the tree days ago.

So I let Big R. help me this morning to go ahead and organize the gifts under the tree.  It's still one of my favorite things to do. 

We caught Santa putting the gifts under
 the tree last Christmas Eve!

One of the traditions that I'm adamant about is opening gifts one at a time, going around the room.  It teaches the girls to be patient and wait their turn.  Plus I like to see people's responses as they open the gifts that I picked out for them.  My husband tried to get my in-laws to do this for years but I told him to give up trying.  It's not how they ever did it, which is fine.  So tonight is dinner at my in-laws and then a fast, rip the paper off, push the gift aside, onto the next one gift unwrapping session.  To me it rushes the fun of gift giving when in under 10 minutes everyone is done.  So I'll take my time and help my girls open their gifts. Hand out our gifts and try to watch everyone open what I picked out for them and then open my own gifts.