Hi, I wanna talk about Christmas, a few of my family traditions in particular that I enjoy.

My close family isn't religious so Christmas has never been a religious holiday (well, it was for the first ten years were when my mom was around, but after she left there was no forced religious aspect, so YAY FREEDOM! If you're religious and have had a great experience, that's good for you, but, obviously, my mom forced that on us, so yes it was very free-ing after she left and Christmas became actually joyful rather than obligatory.) Christmas is purely for fun and an excuse to eat a fancy meal, spend time together, and exchange gifts that are either gag gifts or something we wouldn't think to buy for ourselves. 

I know I'm very lucky to have my dad and brother to spend my Christmas with because we're actually close so it's fun. Unfortunately, most holidays are tainted by annoying family members, which is why I am a firm believer of celebrating holidays with your chosen family; as in family you legitimately like, friends and/or partners. Family is what you make it and if you want to spend your Christmas with your best friends, do it!

Anyway, one tradition we have that I really like is our Christmas tree! We don't have expensive ornaments or anything that matches. Every ornament is hand made, some are, like, 35 years old. Why? Because my parents kept every Christmas ornament we made since we were kids. My oldest brother turned 40 this year and he literally has ornaments on the tree that are just scribbles on paper tied with a ribbon that he made in kindergarten. We have ornaments made by my great grandma, like this beaded blue and white star, and others to commemorate our births or special events.

Although my family isn't always complete when we put up the tree anymore, we do try to have as many of us around as possible, and it's great when we do. We open these boxes filled with memories from early childhood that we didn't even think about or remember until now. When we put them up, we get to tell these stories, essentially keeping parts of our childhood alive forever. It's fun and I don't think I'll ever buy matching ornaments for my tree because I like that ours tells a story.

We also make peanut butter balls. If you don't know what those are, pretty self explanatory, they're balls of peanut butter, but they're dipped in chocolate! Mmmmm! My great grandma made them for us when we were little. When she passed away, we didn't have any for a while. I guess none of us wanted to make them because it felt empty without her. Then my brother had kids and we realized we wanted to pass this tradition on so we've returned to making them...excessively *cough* we made over 100 this year *cough*

This is a newer tradition now that my brother has kids. I like that he decided to explain Santa a bit differently to them. He tells them that Santa brings one special gift per kid (they write a letter telling Santa about a few presents they REALLY want and he'll choose one to bring) while the rest of the presents are from us. If they're "bad" then that special gift turns into clothes since they're young so they don't want clothes for Christmas lol He said he wanted to make sure that they understand that all these gifts are from people that love them and took the time to get them these presents, but also not suck the imagination out of Christmas. I liked that since Christmas and tales of Santa helped my creativity A LOT when I was little, and it seems to work. The kids always thank us and try to make us cards or something in return.

We don't have the same Christmas meal every year. This is kind of a random one, but I often hear people talking about how they have the same thing every year for Christmas, kind of like they do on Thanksgiving. We don't really do that. We usually have some of the same items, like mashed potatoes and gravy, but our main dish changes from turkey to ham to chicken. This year we're having swiss steak, actually lol And we usually take turns every year of who chooses the big Christmas meal.

Wasn't sure why I felt like talking about this, but I did. Guess because it's Christmas? lol So, if you celebrate Christmas, what are some traditions you like to do? If you don't celebrate Christmas, what is your favorite holiday and the traditions your family has? :)