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Many of us have special traditions that we look forward to doing each holiday season. Whether it is playing board games with your family or a midnight car ride to see the lights, these traditions is what makes the season so special and full of joy. I can’t tell you how excited I am that it is almost Christmas! I love everything about this season and as a family we have many traditions.

On Christmas Eve my entire family gathers at my grandmothers house and we have our traditional chicken and rice with a side salad dinner every year. After dinner we all get in our cars and head over to evening service at our church. My favorite part about the service is when they turn off all of the lights and with a candle in our hands, we sing Silent Night. After church, my parents, sister, brother-in-law, and I will go to my neighbor’s house for their annual Christmas Eve party. This is always so much fun! At night my dad will read us The Polar Express. Now that my sister is married, I am the only one who gets to hear it! Well besides my mom of course. Christmas Eve always seemed so magical to me. So much joy, love and excitement! It is truly my favorite day of the year.

Christmas morning used to be us running down the stairs trying to be the first one to take a peek at the tree only to be blocked by my dad. Now it’s more like the walking dead going to the family room. I still try to take a peek though and I am still blocked by my dad……. The first thing we open on Christmas is our stockings–which is in a different room from our tree. While we open up our stockings, my mom will put in a Christmas CD to really get the day started. After the stockings are open, we go into our living room to see what Santa brought under the tree. After gifts we have a big breakfast filled with pancakes, eggs, and bacon. In the evening we will gather with my entire family at my parents house and have our Christmas dinner.

Through all of our traditions, my absolute favorite is our family’s gift wrapping contest. Yes, nothing says Christmas like a competition against your family members 🙂 The contest started 20 years ago and is still going strong! Each year there is a theme–which is picked by the year’s past winner, announced at Thanksgiving. Themes have ranged from favorite movie–holiday and non-holiday, favorite activity, what we are grateful for, where we would like to travel, favorite song, favorite memory, favorite sport, etc. This year the theme is favorite thing. My favorite thing is fashion/NYC and I am transforming my box (present) to a runway with a lot of fashionable models being judged by Anna Wintour and Karl Lagerfeld right in Lincoln Center. Saying this competition is intense is an understatement. It is filled with a lot of creativity. There has been poems read, songs sang, live animals, and food–I put maple syrup all over my box for Elf one year… and I won. Or you can do what my uncle does every year, make the box completely white and say it is silence.  We each present our box and then vote for our top 3 favorites. Whoever wins gets a small gift and the runner up usually gets candy. If you win,  you pick the theme for the following year. Don’t tell my mom, but I look forward to it every year. It is a lot of fun!

Well this made me EVEN MORE excited for Christmas! I would LOVE to hear some of your favorite traditions?!