Yay for this thread! I'm a bit of a holiday crazy person!!!
One of the traditions that our family does is on Christmas Eve, when we all open our gifts to each other (aka anything NOT from Santa), while drinking my late aunt's warm spiced cranberry tea and listening to Christmas songs and of course, eating all of those yummy Christmas cookies! Sounds very "Hallmark" I know, but I can't help it, I love those times with my family. Last year it was difficult to get into the holiday spirit as it was our first Christmas after my mom died but this year I'm feeling a little better about it. We like to watch a local news channel here that has the "Santa Spotter" so it's always fun to see where Santa is and how close he is to coming! I love watching my sister's kids get so excited about that. After watching Rudolph and Charlie Brown's Christmas specials I have the dvd's for, "A Christmas Story" gets turned on TBS and left on until the marathon ends! It's kind of our background "music." We'll all pile into a car and go and drive around and look at the Christmas lights too while listening to Christmas music. I can't wait until Christmas Eve!!!! After the kids go to bed, us adults stay up and have a few glasses of wine and just enjoy being with each other until we fall asleep.