family traditions

i hope CHRISTmas day has been fun for everyone. i have personally really enjoyed tapestry’s  involvement in advent conspiracy. part of this is because i love new ideas for celebrating and experiencing things. it really effected pam and my’s gifts for each other. i also love traditions that have happened for year after year. therefore, i thought i would share a couple of the terrell family traditions.

• CHRISTmas eve we do the following:

• read the CHRISTmas story from the second chapter of the gospel of luke
• typically we go to our church’s CHRISTmas eve service, though since tapestry is so new we didn’t have a CHRISTmas eve service this year. this means we bounced around trying to find one in point that fit our schedule for the evening.
• we eat a supper that is composed of appetizers – each family member picks the one that they want to contribute to the family meal.
• the kids open two gifts. it’s the same gifts each year – a new pair of pj’s and a new CHRISTmas ornament. this year’s pj’s were monty phyton based and the ornaments were simpsons based.
• we watch the movie elf before the boys go to bed.

• we have homemade pastalaya for lunch. it’s simple and everyone likes it.
• naptime – it’s not manditory but it happens. pam and the cats do a particularly good job of following this tradition.
• we go to the theater to watch a movie – this year CHRISTmas eve and CHRISTmas day have been spent with noah vomiting so we just watched fred claus at home. this was not quite the same thing as going to the theater but it was a decent substituted being as the boy felt like death warmed over.
• i place a box of chocolate covered cherries in pam’s stocking – this has been happening since our first year of marriage and i’m actually pretty sure that i gave her some each CHRISTmas that we dated beforehand (which is 5 CHRISTmases).

so i’m wondering what traditions you all have?