My Family's Holiday Traditions

 Christmas is my favorite time of year! The singing, baking, movies, and decorations are the best! Every family has different traditions for the holidays, so I am going to share my family's traditions with you.

 First, we always decorate the Christmas tree together. It may seem simple, or like everyone does it. But, without a fail, we all decorate the Christmas tree together and listen to Christmas music while we do it. We take that time to put up the rest of the Christmas decorations as well.

 Next, my family watches about every Christmas movie ever made. This is especially a good pass time when there are multiple feet of snow on the ground. Our favorite is Elf, which we watch about three times a week in the month of December. 

 Another thing, we bake a ton during the holiday season. our house filled to the brim with cookies, cupcakes, pie, more cookies, brownies, and cookies. In fact, you probably could not walk into my house this time of year without consuming carbs you don't really need. The cookies we make the most are the classic, chocolate chip.

 After these things have been done, it is about mid-December and almost Christmas. This is when we start going to holiday concerts like the ones we have at school.  My siblings start bringing home crafts they made at school (They always get put on either the refrigerator or the Christmas tree), and my parents take them to the store to buy presents for people. 

 The weekend before Christmas is when we go into Lancaster to the family gift exchange to see my mom's family. I have always enjoyed going. The adults play a game where they bring a gift, and go around passing gifts or stealing gifts by the roll of a die. The kids do a secret Santa based on whose name you pulled last year.

 As excitement fills our stomachs, it is Christmas eve. My Grandfather comes over to our house around mid-day and stays with us for Christmas. In the past, we have had snack food for dinner like chips & salsa, pretzels, and meat & cheese. After dinner, we watch another Christmas movie and talk to each other about what we have been doing recently, and what we want for Christmas. Then, we read the night before Christmas and go to bed.

 Finally, it's Christmas.  As the rules go, none of the children in my house are allowed to wake anyone up until the tree's lights turn on. This lets us sleep past 6:45 in the morning when they wake up. As soon as everyone is awake, we open our presents together while my mom takes hundreds of pictures. That part alone is a tradition. For breakfast, we eat the same pastry every year, and then Christmas dinner's cooking starts. We always have ham on Christmas, and never any other main course. Our neighbors come over and we eat later and the day, appreciating the time we get to spend together.