Celebrating Christmas

[DianaB]

With all of that food I'm thinking that I'm going to change my nationality to Italian!!! It all sounds so good!!!

We always go to my husband's aunt's house for Christmas Eve. We have ham and all kinds of goodies to go with it. Someone always makes a big crockpot full of bacon-wrapped hotdogs. Yummmmm! Of course, we have lots of pies, fudge, cookies, and desserts. The adults sit around and visit, the bigger kids get out a game and play it, while the little kids jump on the beds. It's quite a bit of activity for a small house.

On Christmas day our daughters that are still at home (ages 24 and in college, and 14) get their stockings and bring them into our bedroom and open them up. Then we get dressed and open our gifts, one at a time. After we get done then we clean up and get busy fixing dinner.

I have 2 children who are married and have families and as soon as they're finished opening presents at home they come over to our house. We usually have turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes and gravy, sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, corn, cranberry salad, a green salad, and homemade crescent rolls. For dessert we have pumpkin pie, cherry pie, and apple pie, and of course, homemade fudge!!! It's a lot to eat for my little family (13 in all), but we have left-overs for supper and the next day. Then we open gifts with the married kids and their families and again, we open them one at a time. Then we spend the rest of the day playing with the kids' toys or going to the basement and playing pool or ping-pong. Sometimes we get out cards and play a game or put a puzzle together. Later in the afternoon my son and his family leave to go and visit his wife's family. It's always a great day.

We have a couple of other Christmas's. One with my Mom and step-dad and another with my husband's family where we play the Stealing Santa game. We actually celebrate Christmas for about a week. It's nice to have it spread out instead of trying to do it all in one day.