Christmas Traditions

I've been a bit sick the last few days, but I will not be stopped from having Christmas Eve at our house this year.  Since before we were married, we've done Christmas Eve at the Warden's parents' house with his siblings and their families.  In the past number of years, as their family situations have changed, the siblings have been come and go from this tradition, so we decided that maybe it was time to do things a little differently.  This year, we're on our own.  I'm excited about his prospect.

Tonight we will have a few friends over for food and fun and games.  We'll, hopefully, sing carols around the piano.  We're having the Warden's family food tradition--Chicken Tortilla Pie with layers of tortillas, chicken and cheese and a sauce of sour cream, diced chilies and cream of chicken soup.  There are a few other things in it, and I'm happy to post a recipe if anyone is interested.  This was my favorite recipe as a kid.  It was the Warden's too.  With my being sick, the Warden was the chef.  I believe he has prepared four 9"x 13" pans of the stuff.

After dinner, we'll have the kids get in costume for the reading of the Nativity.  This has also been a Hess family tradition.  Funny, but I don't remember my family being particularly social when I was a kid--no big Christmas traditions.  We got a new pair of pajamas each year; most of the time, my mom made them for us.  That was pretty much our Christmas Eve celebration--new jammies and a picture of all the kids in them then off to bed early "so Santa can come."

We draw names a couple weeks before Christmas and go buy a gift for the person we choose.  Those gifts are opened on Christmas Eve right before the kids go to bed. 

Tonight before I go to bed, I will prepare tomorrow morning's breakfast.  We're combining our two families' traditions--caramel pull-aparts from my family and breakfast casserole from the Hess family.  Our wonderful Danish neighbor sent over Kringle for our family to enjoy too.

The other tradition we started this year came from some good family friends.  Years ago, when I taught one of their daughters in Young Women, I asked her what her favorite thing was about Christmas.   She told me that she loved that each person in the family had all of his/her gifts wrapped in their own individualized wrapping paper.  This year, I found nine different patterns of wrapping paper and wrapped each of the Inmates' gifts in their own paper.  I didn't have to put tags on anything.  The best part about it is that they have no idea which gifts are theirs, so they're not sitting there shaking them and fondling them trying to figure out what's in them.

I didn't get Christmas cards out this year.  I'm going to blame that on statistics.  That was one thing my mom did EVERY year.  She hand-wrote notes to what seemed like hundreds of people.  There was always a family photo and a signed card.  In my mind, that's what should be done, but not this year.  We did get some Christmas baking done, but didn't deliver to as many people as I would have liked.  I had to bow out because of illness, or we probably would have had a lot more deliveries done.  The Warden likes things simple.

Please share the traditions your family loves.  I'd love to try something new next year.
Merry Christmas!!!