What are your holiday traditions?

I love this time of year and all the decorations and traditions! My mom and I love to make the big meal, a ton of cookies and decorate the house!! The more to cook for, the merrier! What are some of your special traditions this time of year?

We like to drive up to the mountains and cut down our own tree the weekend after Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving we spend with Paul's family, and my job is to make cookies - preferably enough for people to take some home afterwards. I have to call and see who will be attanding to gauge how many to make.

Hubby cooks dinner, and I stay out of his way! :D My parents come up to dinner. Hubby and my dad tease my son over his Lions getting masacred once again (Son is a MAJOR Detroit Lions fan). Dad sits amazed watching the cats... he always thought cats were evil creatures and each Thanksgiving he comes one step closer to actually thinking they are neat creatures. Mom does her best to convince Nicki to sit next to her, and Nicki does her best to cling to hubby :D

Growing up, it was much the same. Grandmom made dinner while I stayed out of her way.

Usually the day after Thanksgiving, mom and I would go shopping. I miss that, but we are just too far away now. So we have re-created the tradition to being the weekend before Thanksgiving. Mom and I are hitting the store Sunday.

Cool thread. Interesting to see how others celebrate with traditions. Christmas Eve is when my whole family gets together. We're Polish so we celebrate with a Polish meal. We have a tradition where everyone gets a piece of Opwatke (spelling!!). It basically tastes like the Host you get during Communion (for all you Catholics out there). We go around and break off pieces of everybody's Opwatke and wish them a Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, etc.

For other traditions, my Sister, Neice & I get together and go shopping downtown and we get together to make the family something (like cookies or hot chocolate spoons, etc.).

That's it.

:)

Thanksgiving we split between families. During the early part of the day, we are with my parents. After dinner, we go over to wherever his family is and have dessert and hang out for awhile.

For Christmas, whatever tradition we had basically either is null and void already OR this will be the last year for. It totally depends on when Nug decides to make his grand appearance. If he comes at least a week early, we will probably try and stick with our tradition one last time. If he comes right at Christmas (between the 22nd-26th), our @$$es are staying home. If he comes late, we'll probably try and stick with the tradition one last time. Next year begins people coming to US if they want to see us. I refuse to disrupt the baby's schedule and take him away from his toys to trek all over the place.

So if he's early or late, we'll be spending Christmas Eve with Josh's family, most of Christmas Day with mine and then stopping by his family's to exchange gifts on our way home from my parent's house. That's what we've been doing the last few years and God willing, will do this year one last time.

I had to add some more that hubby's family passed on to us:

We start a puzzle on Thanksgiving day and the goal is to finish it by Christmas. Last year we finished it on Thanksgiving Day!

On Christmas Day, we eat an early meal (11 or 12) and then watch old Christmas movies the rest of the day- it is very relaxing!