My Favorite Time of Year...

So Christmas is my favorite holiday for sure. It's also my favorite time of year. I love the cold weather (unless you live in Memphis and it's 66 degrees on Christmas Eve) and snow (unless you live in Memphis, then it's rain) and how everyone is caring and jolly and ready for the season (unless you're at the mall). :)

In my family we have a lot of traditions, and we are very traditional in the way of Christmas things. The day after Thanksgiving the Christmas lights go up on the house. This year we switched from multi-colored to red and green, but it still looks cool. Chelsea and i get advent calendars from our grandparents in England, which are calendars with doors that you open up and have chocolate in them for each day. About a week and a half to two weeks (depending on when Christmas falls) we go get our tree because we always get a live one... none of this fake crap! usually on a Sunday after church, and then we come home and decorate it and the rest of the house. This year unfortunately i couldn't make it home to pick out the tree, so my parents and sister had to do it without me. They also put the lights up, but left the ornaments for when I got home that week.

Every year, we get a new ornament as well. Each person in my family does. We go out someplace together and we each pick one out. Then we come home and hang them. This year we went to Macy's to get them. Chelsea and I both got mini snow globes with our names on them (they actually had a Kirsten, that does not happen often) and I got a ornament that said 2008, chelsea got a crown, dad got a red bird, and i don't remember what mom got (sorry). We also do a lot of baking. Mom makes fudge and dad usually makes some sort of chocolate (this year he made choclate chip cookies as well). We also make sugar cookies cut in the shape of trees, stockings, bells, stars, santas, reindeer, and snowmen. We make frosting from scratch and then decorate said sugar cookies. It's a good time all around.

Then on Christmas Eve we go to church. Mom and dad usually go to the 8 service because it's early enough where they can come home and watch A Christmas Carol, like they do every year, and also because it's a traditional service and dad likes those better. Chelsea and I like to go to the midnight service (or 11 pm rather) and do communion and candle light. When we lived in Tulsa there were a couple years where we spent all Christmas Eve at Church because Chelsea would sing at the 5 pm service, then me at the 6:30 service, mom and I at the 8 pm service, and then I would stay and sing at the 11 pm service with a few people from the chiors. :) It was always so much fun though.

Christmas day is always fun. It used to be me who woke Chelsea up in the morning, but now she's usually the one who wakes me up (we agree on a time the night before, unfortunately this year, somehow we settled on 7, probably because my parents didn't protest when Chelsea said we would wake them up at 7). So Chelsea and I go through our stockings, which have been left at the foot of our beds or outside our doors, with each other. Then we go downstairs and wake up the parents and they go through their stockings.

Then we wait while they get dressed and set up the video camera and stuff. Next Chels and I come out to the kitchen and get our big presents... in the past those have been a Game Cube, Donkey Konga, a TV (for me), and when we were younger, a mini roller coaster and a American Girl Kirsten Doll. :) Then we usually tear through the rest of our presents, taking about a half hour at the most. Then mom makes breakfast (I think we're having orange rolls tomorrow... mmm). After that we start cooking Christmas dinner, now that we're older Chelsea and I usually help or do the whole thing ourselves, with help from mom of course.

Dinner is usually ready around 2ish and we all sit down in our formal dining room with the Christmas china. Also, since we're half English, we do Christmas more English style complete with Christmas Crackers. For anyone who deosn't know what those are, they look like big colorful tootsie rolls that two people pull apart and on the inside is a paper crown, a joke or trivia fact, and some little toy. After we're done stuffing our faces we get out the the English cookies!!! The best part ever! And we eat those. :)

Of course the next day is a repeat of the dinner, except, actually at dinner time. Then, on New Year's Day, the Christmas season officially ends. We spend the day snacking on left over sweets, chips and other salty things, crackers, and veggies and fruit. We also take down all the christmas lights outside, the decorations inside, and take everything off the tree. Everything goes back to normal.

This year, I leave to go back to school on the 2nd. Classes start on the 7th, but I'm going up early to work that weekend up there. I'm looking forward to the rest of our traditions though. I'm not sure how many I'll be around for next year, so I'm documenting this whole break with pictures of everything. I've posted them all on my Facebook for people to see. It's a good time. :)

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!