Christmas Week

First..

I want to take this time to help anyone reading this, and myself, prepare to be in the holiday spirit before Christmas and New Years are officially upon all of us. This will include traditions my family has, as well as, things that we always eat and do during the celebrations.

Now

I have 3 different christmas celebrations most years. Growing up I spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Morning with my mother and her side of the family, then went to my dad’s place to prepare for heading down to the state his parents live in so that we could celebrate down there. My mother’s side always had us go to church on christmas eve, eat a big dinner and a lot of food the day of. We talked about being thankful at the dinner table; we spent two rounds of time on gifts throughout the day and one gift on Eve.

Throughout all of that time on gifts and food, my grandmother made homemade cookies of many types throughout the years whenever she could. We all pick our favorite type now for her that she’ll make, with help, and we’ll all get the ability to take some home with us.

With my dad, he would get me presents that I asked for which usually involved video games or animals, but he also made sure to put some experiences in there. When we would get to my grandparent’s place that was out of state, we would go to the zoo and go out on the boat as part of our celebrations. Those memories are the best things I carry from those years.