My granny has gotten me an ornament for every year i've been alive. And now she buys one for .Oni. It's a great granny ornament!

I plan on buying her one, from mommy and daddy and adding them on the tree each year.

I'm gonna so the toys for tots as well!! I think that's an important moral to instill into little kids.

Sarah

I like the toys for tots idea. I'm already doing the ornament! I got one from things remembered in the mall! I want chu to know what the real reason for christmas is so every christmas eve i'm going to read him the story of baby jesus. And every year we watch a christmas story all day on christmas so that's a tradition that I want to carry over. We also open one present on christmas eve so we may do that as well...

.I really like the toys for tots idea ladies! I think .I'm gonna have to steal that one. I want her to be just as happy to give something as she is to recieve something. Hmm.... Any other traditions? Like what you do on .Christmas .Eve/day? We go to my .Grandma's .Christmas eve afternoon for a late lunch, early dinner, then we all clean up, then we play some $1 game. Everyone brings a gift that only costs a buck, and then we draw cards and that person picks the first gift, then the next one goes, and so on and so forth...But when it comes your turn to pick a gift, you can choose from the pile, or you can steal one from someone else. It was a blast. But anywho, after that all the kids open their gifts...Then whoever goes off and plays cards. Well, my hubby and .I split and go to his brothers house to be with his family. And there we all act kinda childish, play with the kids and eat again with them, then we open gifts from there....There are at least 20 family members for this, and the gifts are like...Endless! It's crazy, but it's sooooo fun. This year .I think we're going to do a pinata! Woooo!! So what do the rest of you do?

Yay .Christmas traditions!

My mom has gotten me &my sisters' an ornament every year we've been alive, too. I still love getting them. They're always so pretty &unique. I think we'll definitely do that for .Gabe.. I like the .Toys .For .Tots idea, too. We have lots of charity things like that around here besides .Toys .For .Tots. We also have a festival called .The .Festival of .Trees.. It's really really gorgeous. They have hundreds of differently &uniquely decorated .Christmas trees on display, &you can bid on them, &the proceeds go to charity.. &.They have art displays, &entertainment like choirs, dance groups, orchestras.. There's also a huge part of the building for kids. Like crafts, &.Santa is there, &there's a huge tree made out of stuffed animals that people donate &the stuffed animals are given to less fortunate kids.. It's really awesome. I already go every year, so .I think we'll definitely make that a tradition, too.

Also, when .I was little, my parents used to pack us kids up in the car, get us dinner to eat in the car, &then we'd drive around the whole city &look at all the .Christmas lights on people's houses. It was one of my favorite things to do every year. It was always so cool. I want to do that with .Gabe, too!

Welll I have onetradiotion from my family but I cant do it this year cause reese is too young, but every year we got a mandern(sp?) and a candy cane in our stockings..

Something that was a tradion with me and one of my brothers also was to wait till we heard our parents go put the presents under the tree, wait about an hour or so to when they were in bed and then go down the hallway and take our stockings and see who had the most presents, my parents caught on and started setting up traps so they would hear us on the way to the living room.. Damn... There went our fun

My husband's family is awesome. They open all of their presents on .Christmas .Eve! So we spend .Christmas .Eve over there, and .Christmas .Day in .Beaumont (about an hour away) with his grandparents and other relatives for a meal and gift exchange!

Each person brings a gift for their gender. If you're a girl, you bring a girly gift, and so on. And each person draws a number and picks a gift from the "girl" or "boy" pile! It's a lot of fun.

We trade off every year on who gets .Christmas .Eve at their house. It's either at my aunt's house or my parent's house. This year .Christmas .Eve is at my house! Yesss! I lovelovelove when it's here. There's just something so calming &peaceful about being in your own home on .Christmas .Eve.. &.My .Christmas .Day dinner is at my .Aunt's house! We used to do .Christmas .Day at my grandma &grandpa's house, but once my .Grandma died, we started trading that one off, too.

We always order pizza for .Christmas .Day dinner, &on .Christmas .Eve, we make real food. This year everyone is making orderves (sp?!)... Which .I'm not too happy about, but whatever. I'd much rather have a steaming bowl of baked potato soup &sit in front of the fire on .Christmas .Eve!!

But .I'm excited. I love when our family gets together for .Christmas. We have so much fun.

Christmas .Eve, we all open our gifts from eachother after we eat, &then everyone goes home. Christmas morning, my family gets up around 9am, my mom makes cinnamon rolls &hot chocolate, &we open our ".Santa" presents, &presents from my parents, &the presents us sisters got eachother. Then around dinner time, the whole famly gets together again &order pizza &just relax &be near to eachother. It's really nice.

I'm not really involved with .Chris's family stuff for .Christmas. They don't really do anything, &even though they tell him .I can come, .I wouldn't be comfortable going, because they've said publically that they don't like me. So. Yeah. Haha.

We couldn't do anything for .Christmas on .Christmas eve because that was my .Sisters birthday but we did drive around either .Christmas night or two days before .Christmas, my .Sister kind of felt cheated because her birthday was so close to .Christmas and I can understand that. I do miss cutting our own tree down and decorating our own tree and making the popcorn balls and decorating cookies and goodies we hung on our tree, we never used those christmas tree balls.

We're going to do the ornament each year thing too. Nick's mom already gave us an ornament that has "finnegan" on it and "2006" so I don't know if i'll get him another for this year. I guess if I see one I love i'll get it.

I'm also starting the tradition of reading the grinch on christmas eve. We already bought finn his copy!

We already have a couple things we do every year already. On christmas eve my family meets up at our favorite chinese restaurant for a feast. My younger brother and I started this tradition about 12 years ago and then a few years later our older brother and his girlfriend (now his wife) started joining us and a few years after that our parents started coming. Now we all look forward to it. Oh, except my older brother and his wife didn't come last year because her sister was having a party and unfortunately her family always comes first and he won't stand up for himself. But that's a whole other thread. (p.S. My family doesn't much care for her.)

the other thing we do is go to my parents on christmas day, my brothers and evil sister-in-law go too. We exchange presents and usually watch a holiday movie while my parents make a huge thanksgiving-esque meal.

I'm sure we'll make more traditions as finn gets a little older. Maybe we'll do something centered around picking out our tree or decorating it.

Christmas is so fun, I think more so now that I have a family of my own. I wish finn was a little older though so he'd be more aware of what's going on.

He will, don't worry! Do you have a tree with lights this year, just think next year you will have a rough time keeping him away from it!

I think every year as long as hubby lets me I wanna get them ornaments, I had one from my sons first xmas last year but I left it back in the states when I moved, so I bought hima new one, and I got his soon to be here sister one too, I also got one for my husband for our first xmas together because this is our first xmas in our own house as a family, I wanna have traditions but I cant think of anything special we will see hwo this xmas goes

what, like bear traps? Bit harsh!

my brother and I never had stockings, we had a supermarket carrier bag each and we'd spend ages on .Christmas .Eve deciding where to put them. I can still remember the year that my brother didn't want to do that anymore - he's 4 years older than me - and I was alone upstairs, in the cold rooms, trying to decide where to put my bag. Makes my bro feel really bad when I tell him that story...Hee hee hee...

We did the coke thing growing up and now I am going to pass them on to my daughter so instead of having doubles she will just continue the years. Until I have another baby then I don't know how I am going to do it.

I am going to get her an ornament as well every year.....


Have already done a toys for tots (took a picture with her toy for the tots) and we have done a show box for a solder over there. (got her picture next to the box as well.) we (i) wrote letters to the solder and sent them a bible as well. We did 4 boxes. 2 for me and amelia and 2 for chad and brandon.

**edited to add**

i forgot that growing up we went the nursing home every christmas and so I will be taking amelia too.

Hey .Gen, did you buy your coke bottle this year?

The reason I ask is, .Aaron bought a 6 pack of them last night, and they have a picture of .Santa on them, but they just say "75th anniversary" instead of "2006". It also says ".Sundblom .Santa" on it? Weird. Does yours look like that too?

no I haven't even had time yet. I haven't been anywhere but b.J.S for a few weeks. Lol I need to go get her one. But I guess i'll always know that was her first year one.

I'll go today and look for one.

Let me know if yours looks like this:

http://www.Cokebottles4sale.Com/

i was a bit disappointed because I wanted "2006" to be on there

*edited because my link didn't work. It's four or five bottles down, the holiday version*

Sweet! Now I want one!

For 2005 they didnt' even have the santas on the bottles but at least they had the year. I really want my daughter to have the santas. The 2006 from england has the santa and the year and the 75th. The england one has the first santa that they had on the bottles. Itsnt' that neat. I need some one in ingland to send me one bottle. Please help me out getting a coke bottle from england that would be great.