Christmas Traditions

Kelly is hosting a show us your Christmas traditions this weekend, and I thought I'd share my favorites with y'all!

1. I'll start with Christmas Eve: we always go to Children's Mass at church.
2. After children's mass, we have Chinese for dinner - in Colorado, it's P.F. Chang's.
3. After Chinese food, we drive around looking at Christmas lights and listening to Christmas music.
4. Then we head home, and open up one gift - a new pair of pajamas; for pictures the next morning!
5. We read Twas the Night Before Christmas and sometimes will either watch a Christmas movie, or play a game depending on what time it is - my Mama always shoos us to bed by 10:oo at the latest!
6. Once we're in bed, Mama hides a pickle ornament somewhere on the tree.
7. Christmas morning, the parents have to be down by the Christmas tree before we're allowed, so they can snap pictures of us in our groggy state - I've started waking up 10 minutes early to go "freshen up" in the bathroom - you know, fix the hair and make-up so I look somewhat normal!
8. We explore our presents from Santa - they're unwrapped, so we see them first, our stockings are off the mantle and with our pile.
9. The hunt is on for the pickle - winner gets a fun surprise. Some years it pickle chips that immediately are handed to Mama who loves them. Sometimes its a new CD or DVD we all enjoy. Sometimes its a "green goodie bag" with green m&ms, a green i-tunes card, green mechanical pencil, green gum, green mints, etc.
10. We open our wrapped gifts from family.
11. We eat my Mama's special Christmas morning casserole.
12. We watch someone's new movie, because without fail, we'll all get at least one CD, one DVD and one book! :)
13. If there's snow, we go sledding up on the Academy.
14. Christmas dinner (late afternoon) of ham, corn pudding, yams, green bean casserole, etc.
15. Watch White Christmas.
16. Play games and lounge around until bed.

We put our tree up and decorate the house right after Thanksgiving normally, but sometimes we wait until we're al home to do so, which is why it wasn't included.