Christmas Traditions

I thought it would be a good thing to share some of the family traditions from back home. I miss it a lot right about now, and those traditions are really what makes Christmas to me. When you’re away from home you realize how much more family traditions mean for whatever season. So here are a few Christmas traditions from home. But to start it off this is a picture my mom sent me on Christmas and it made my day.

• The photo starts off one tradition, every year I watch Rudolph with my mom.
• Also, every year I watch the original “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” with my dad.
• Attend the Christmas eve candlelight service at church.
• Christmas ever we have a roast beef dinner.
• Christmas day we have roast beef sandwiches from the leftovers.
• Santa always leaves an orange at the bottom of my brother’s and my stockings.
• We do cutout cookies together as a family (but I prefer cutting them rather than frosting them), the cool part is that we always do four of these really big gingerbread men, one for each of us.
• The person who opens the last present picks the next present for somebody else.
• A day or two after Christmas we would drive to Lansing and Battle Creek for rounds two and three of Christmas with our extended family.
• Adam and I get a new Christmas ornament from mom and dad each year, always one for our interests, I’ve had lots of hockey and snowboarding ornaments, and in recent years lots of MSU ornaments.

And of course there are several other things I miss. The snow, the dozens of cookie varieties, the laziness with school vacation, snowboarding, hockey, going to an MTU hockey game with my dad, and just the whole spirit of being at home.