Our Little Family's Christmas Traditions

I think that the hardest thing about living nearby all of your family is managing everyone's holiday expectations without letting it entirely ruin the holiday for you. We are so spoiled to have wonderfully understanding and flexible families who have been so accomodating as we have tried to find a way to spend quality time celebrating Christmas with all of them.

Our first Christmas together, Seth and I went dutifully to visit each family on Christmas. By each family, I mean - Seth's Mom, Dad and Siblings, Seth's Grandma Tate, my Grandma Colleen and Grandpa TM, my Mom, Dad and siblings (my parents were still married at the time), my Grandma Bell, my Grandpa Bell, Seth's Grandpa Checketts (in Ogden), and Seth's Grandma Checketts (near Ogden). By the time we stumbled back to our apartment late Christmas night, I burst into tears and told Seth that I would never spend my Christmas like that ever again! We spent 30-45 minutes at each place we went and felt rushed the whole time we were there so we didn't spend quality time with anyone. And...this was before we had kids, so I could only imagine the horror of doing all of that with kids.

Since then, we have changed our "holiday plan of attack". We pick a night the week of Christmas to spend with my Mom and family complete with dinner, gifts, and fun time together. We go snowshoeing together as a "little family" on Christmas Eve, Christmas Eve lunch and gifts with my Dad and brothers and visit Grandma Bell. Then it is back home for naps and relaxing. Christmas Eve night we spend at Seth's parents house where we eat dinner with the whole family, have our gift-exchange and usually read/reinact/watch the nativity story (though we weren't able to stick around long enough for that this year). Then it is home to our house to open a new Christmas book (we get a new one each year) and put on our new Christmas PJ's (for the kids at least) before heading off to bed so Santa doesn't skip our house.

Christmas morning is our "little family" time. We check out all the cool stuff that Santa has left for us, open our gifts from each other, put together anything that needs putting together, eat our Christmas stocking oranges and spend time enjoying one another. Then we get showered and dressed and head out to Grandma Tate's for Christmas brunch where we hopefully see Seth's family. After socializing, eating and finding our stocking there, we head off to Grandma Colleen's Christmas brinch where we see my Mom and family. Seth usually has to go in to work Christmas afternoon, so we hang out at Grandma Colleen's until the kids are ready for naps and then we go home. Christmas night all of the families are invited to our house for games, food and playing with the new toys. This way, grandparents can see what the kids got from Santa, the kids can play with all their new stuff, we can spend casual time with family, and the kids can go to bed when they are ready!

We visit Grandpa Checketts during the week following Christmas since it is such a long drive to Ogden.

I really love our Christmas traditions. I love that we spend quality time with each family. I love that opening presents spans more than just one day so the kids get really excited about every present they get because they aren't on overload. I love that Christmas day is fun and special!

There are a couple of new traditions that I want to try out next year and chances are if I blog them now, I will remember them when we get to that point.

-Christmas Eve Eve family sleepover under the tree. Watch Christmas movies, listen to Christmas music and eat yummy munchies. Leave the tree lit all night and sleep in sleeping bags.
-Christmas Morning quiche. Since we go to 2 Christmas brunches, I have never thought to make Christmas breakfast, but we never end up getting anywhere until after 11 and then we are all starving! Plus the kids don't eat well at Grandma's anyway - too much else to do.
-Leave something out for Santa. We have never been on top of it enough to leave cookies or anything for Santa, but this year we put out reindeer food Morgan got from preschool and it was really fun.

Do you have any traditions that you love? What are they?