Christmas Morning Traditions
We have a tradition on Christmas morning that ensures a little extra time for the parents before craziness begins. We use stockings as a tactical obstacle to delay the attack. The kids know they can open their stockings as soon as we give the green-light for them to go downstairs. We take a few pictures, and then have a little while to make a cup of coffee and start making breakfast. The reason we know we have plenty of time is simple – their stockings have a lot of little items, all individually wrapped. It may be a peppermint in that paper, or a little toy, but you have to open every one of them to find out! A little time invested in wrapping the week before Christmas translates into a lot of time to maneuver into position on Christmas morning.
After stockings we have breakfast, and then open presents. I’ve discovered that isn’t as straight-forward as you’d think. Some families have everything unwrapped and under the tree from Santa. If everything is wrapped, some people have a free-for-all and it’s nothing but paper, bows, and elbows as they are opened. Some people pass out presents as each person opens one present all at once in unison. We tend to pass out a present to everyone and then go in turn as we each open that present until that round is complete, and reload to do it again. Honestly, there are so many variations on how to do this, it’s traumatizing as you try to adapt after getting married and try to look intelligent at each house you travel to. Maybe you got lucky – I got to expand my horizons and learn lots of new methods.
Presents go a LONG time in our house. We have lots of kids, and usually have visitors, and the opening routine tends to slow down the process. We usually are still going at it through lunch, so we have a “working lunch” tradition of appetizers. Tanya makes stuffed mushrooms, pigs in a blanket, meatballs, sausage balls, spinach and artichoke dip, cheese balls,… she goes crazy – it’s awesome. This tides us all over until our traditional Christmas prime rib dinner we usually get from Tanya’s Step-Dad, but that Tanya makes in his absence to carry on the tradition.
The rest of the time is spent jockeying for position on the video game system or TV to play any games we may have received. While we wait, we usually try out our new board games, together. Santa brings board games and books in our house, usually stacked in front of everything and unwrapped on Christmas morning. Generally speaking, everyone gets a new board game on Christmas morning. It’s a great way to build a game collection.
As this will be my last post about Christmas traditions this year, I hope you’ve seen some ideas that you can incorporate into your own families’ traditions. These are all important to us, and really define the holiday’s activities. We think having predictable traditions gives everyone an idea of what to expect and be excited about. They connect us through shared anticipation and memories. I’d love to hear any you have that I may not have talked about – there’s always room to begin new traditions.
I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas, however you celebrate it! 
