What is your family's Christmas story? (Your traditions, your rituals, etc.)

*Mom & I have at least 1 annual holiday baking day where we plan lots of treats & goodies we want to give away and spend the entire day listening to Christmas music while we work in the kitchen. It is seriously one of my favorite traditions & I am so thankful to live close enough to her that we can do this.

*Speaking of baking, these treats are holiday staples in our house from my childhood: peanut butter kiss cookies, Christmas Tree cookie press cookies, elf biscuits, party mix (similar to Chex mix), tiger butter, and new additions in the past couple of years-cheese straws & shortbread.

*We ALWAYS eat pizza for Christmas Eve dinner. (Just like we ALWAYS eat Mexican food for Thanksgiving Eve dinner.) Store bought, carry out, homemade-doesn't matter. Just pizza.

*Enough of the food. On years that we're all together my dad always reads the Christmas story from Luke. When I was much younger, he would play Christmas hymns on the piano & we would sing along. This was when we did our advent wreath each Sunday as a family long before spouses & grandchildren entered the picture.

*Also from my childhood, my mom had a set of self-playing Christmas bells that were attached to garland that she hung from the mantle or in the kitchen. She would turn those on every Christmas morning & we would listen to them play the Christmas songs (both sacred & secular) they were programmed with.

*Since I've been married and really in the past couple of years, Z & I have gone on a Christmas date at some point during the season. While we've never said it had to be anything fancy, it has turned out that way. Last year we had dinner at The Edison at The Grove Park Inn and sat out on the porch afterward (on an unseasonable warm December evening) & talked & dreamed & laughed. This year's date was our overnight stay at the Biltmore as mentioned in my post from January 1.

There are many more traditions I would like to start & am working on some of them-buying an ornament that represents the year or big moments in the year, writing a letter to Z each year, giving to a needy family each year, etc. Perhaps 1 day I'll get it together enough to accomplish everything my overzealous heart desires. But until then I'll relish the memories I make with the traditions I have now.

So what are some of your Christmas rituals & traditions? Maybe you have one I need to add to my list...