Here Come the Holidays

With Thanksgiving weekend closing in, it is time to usher in Christmas!  We plan to put up our decorations tomorrow, but in the mean time, I found this little questionnaire that I thought I would share!

1. What is your holiday wish for your family?
My holiday wish for my family is that we all create lasting memories and treasure our time together.

2. What is your Christmas morning tradition?
Growing up, our Christmas morning tradition involved getting up early to open our see what Santa left us in our stockings and then we would proceed downstairs to read the Christmas story from the Bible and open the rest of our gifts.  After we opened gifts, we would usually eat breakfast together and then get cleaned up and drive to Wichita to spend the rest of Christmas Day with my mom's family.  Now, our Christmas morning traditions are different each year because we rotate holidays with each of our families.

3. If you could ask Santa for one, completely decadent wish for yourself, what would it be?
The ability to travel wherever I want to and whenever I want to.

 4. How do you make the holidays special without spending any money?
I love to cook and entertain and love to go the extra mile to make guests feel comfortable and loved.  I also just like to get together with friends and family to spend time together and enjoy the spirit of the season.


5. What holiday tradition have you carried on from your own childhood?
Since we don't have a family yet, I haven't really been able to carry over too many traditions, but one tradition I still enjoy (and we still do with my family) is to read the Christmas story on Christmas morning.  It helps us focus on the real meaning of the holiday and not just the gifts.   My mom once tried to start a new tradition of making egg rolls on Christmas Eve but after one year of making them we quickly stopped because it was a very time consuming process.  

When Brandon was growing up his family always had German meatballs after midnight mass on Christmas Eve and they still get together, albeit earlier than midnight, to keep this tradition alive.

7. Where would you go for a Christmas-away-from-home trip?
My parent's lake house.  It is so beautiful there and so peaceful and if it snows, it is exceptionally serene.