HM18: Christmas Day

Our Christmas Day traditions are somewhat less regimented than our Christmas Eve ones.

We are awoken early in the morning to the voices of our children trying to wake us up and asking if they can go see what they got from Santa. We try to get them to head back to bed but, of course, that doesn't happen. As soon as we're coherent enough we hop out of bed and head for the front room with the kids.

Santa always leaves them one big gift and a stocking filled with goodies. They ooohhhh and aaaahhhh over their big gift and then dive into their stockings. After about 20 minutes they are ready to move on to opening the gifts under the tree.

I usually sneak off into the kitchen to bake some cinnamon rolls for our Christmas Day breakfast. YUM!

Sometime during Christmas day we have people over. We have a "we stay home" rule for Christmas day, so if someone wants to see us they have to come over here. We usually have at least 2 sets of Grandparents, and sometimes all 3, visit on Christmas day. So after opening our gifts their are always gifts from the Grandparents to open too.

My favorite thing for Christmas Day is watching the Disney Christmas Parade on TV. I'm such a Disney freak and this one is always filled with great music, great characters and that unforgetable Disney magic!

We have a Christmas dinner in the afternoon, usually with a ham (though I'm cooking both turkey and ham this year). Then things begin to wind down. The kids open the boxes and play with all of their gifts. Brian and I try to clean up from the piles and piles of Christmas wrapping paper, empty boxes and packing materials.

By the time evening rolls around we are all tired and ready to hit the hay. Another Christmas Day is done but we look forward to the ones still left to come.