Tradition, Tradition, Tradition!!!!!!!!

It's kind of funny that I'm all about 'tradition' since I am NOT a rule keeper or follower. I love to break the rules, however, I also love our family traditions. I actually get a bit uptight if we have to deviate from our prized traditions. We always put our live tree up the day after Thanksgiving. It's so much fun and a great way to kick off the Christmas season after Turkey day is over. And of course, the tree get's a 'new' look each year. I like to hit Target or Joannes after the holidays and spend about 20 bucks buying new items for the tree the following year. Well this year, birds are in for us! We have birds, nests, and burlap ribbon running through the tree. The girls adored the birds as much as I did. I even picked up a few new ornaments for their own tree. Each year the girls decorate a tree in their room and put up very sentimental ornaments that have been purchased throughout the years for them. Because I have 2 older girls, they goo- goo and gaa-gaa over silly things like fairy ornaments and tinsel. So, we kept to tradition and the tree went up! It's the most beautiful tree that Paul has ever picked out. Funny thing.......he got it at Lowes with a gift card that we've been saving.
One other tradition is that we always open stockings on Christmas Eve morning. I just LOVE Christmas and it's hard to wait!! So the kids wake up on Christmas Eve morning, we eat a big breakfast, and we open the STUFFED stockings. I'm not talking about dollar tree items either. It's jammed with movies, lip gloss, new Christmas Pajamas, games, markers, coloring books, etc........then they put on the new pjs, slide in the movie, and spend the rest of the day playing with the new toys that were shoved into the stocking. Now on Christmas morning we don't have stockings but do have the gifts. Our kids get 3 gifts from us. We figured 3 gifts were good enough for Jesus and so 3 is good enough for them. Well, we know he probably got tons of gifts, but only 3 were worth mentioning. hahahaha. So now you can understand why we don't go cheap on stockings. They only open 3 packages from us on Christmas Day. Paul and I don't usually exchange gifts but we do open stockings on Christmas Eve. We'd rather spend the dough on the kids!!! We have all year to give to one another :-)

Oh, oh, oh........one more thing. We don't do Ho, Ho, Ho. I know we are so bad!! We refuse to let some imaginary fellow get credit for all the wonderful things we buy. So, they know it's us. However, each year, they leave cookies for 'Santa' and then ask daddy the next day if he ate them. And of course, we can't lie. So we tell the truth and then they become angry cause daddy ate 'Santa's' cookies. It's so funny. I guess we are messing up our kids because we don't ride the hokey 'Santa' wave like everyone else out there. It's just so hard to pay that much attention to a fake, portly fellow in an outdated red sweat suit who has nothing to do with the Birth of our Savior. Oh well, I guess we are a bit old fashioned. I bet our kids will grow up and decorate their homes to the hilt with Santa stuff and do Santa forever because we did not!!ahaha