Christmas Traditions..

A couple of days ago, I woke up and make the kids a typical breakfast of pancakes and sausage, and then made the decision, that we were going to decorate the tree.

I streamed in some Christmas Music off the computer, a great station that plays all kinds of Christmas songs, old and new, and then intermixes stories in there.

And I watched...

I watched each child take out their ornament from previous years and react in utter excitement to see it again. They talked about it, why the liked it or what it means to them.
I listed to them share stories with eachother about the ornaments.

I watched Matt intently put the candy garland around the tree, and I watched Anna try to eat it.

The tree is heavily ornamented in certain areas, that would be at Jake and Emma height. And well the bottom of the tree has nothing due to Anna and Mr. Darcy being able to get it.

We are only doing one tree this year, so it has two trees worth of ornaments on it. Yet it still looks beautiful.

A few ornaments were broken during the process, but it was easily cleaned up.

That night I watched 4 little bodies stick their heads under the tree and look up from the bottom, at the reflections of light off the ornaments. It was almost serile~for about 30 seconds! :)

One of our traditions is that each year, each child gets an ornament from mom and dad, that will go with them someday when they leave home, so they will have thier ornaments for thier first christmas tree as a new family.

Another tradition is that one night we will load up in the surburban and drive around neighborhoods looking at the light displays that other families have done. Usually we do a impromtu trip to Mickey D's or Wendy for an icy treat.

Of course Christmas Eve dinner with the family is always a blast.

Wayne and I save all our wrapping for Christmas Eve, we are usually up till 2-3am wrapping gifts. :)

Last year we went to Washingtons Crossing and watched the presentation they do. We will be doing that again this year, except we will be having an outdoor lunch in the park.

Oh yeah, and lets not forget the matching jammies on Christmas eve.

What are some of your traditions??