Christmas Traditions

Everybody has traditions with every holiday. I want to know what Christmas Traditions people have. As you get older, those traditions change and when you get married, traditions merge and you make your own traditions with your new family.

We always put our christmas tree up the weekend after Thanksgiving. The tree was lit with colorful lights and had ornaments from my moms students from over the years. We have had 1 ornament (i think she still has it) from Marci Stilson, she was in 6th grade and she made it for my mom for Christmas. My mom has kept every ornament from her students and now she puts them on her tree in her classroom (i think).

As we got older, our tree changed. It then became a peach, blue and silver tree with white lights and we ALWAYS had my grandma Nells icicles on it. The icicles topped the tree off and made the tree gorgeous!

The Labrum side has a Christmas party in Mid-December. I remember it always being at Uncle Lee's and having Sloppy Joes. Each family would have a "talent" to do. We would do that upstairs in the living room. Then we would go downstairs and do the gift exchange. Then the big visit from Santa would come and EVERYONE has to sit on his lap. We even had Grandma and Uncle Rulon sitting on his lap! :) Nobody got away without sitting on his lap. We sang and laughed. I loved getting the gift from Grandma Labrum, and I will always remember it. There were too many grandkids/great grandkids for her so she made the gifts for us. She would make airplanes out of candy. With a package of lifesavers, sticks of gum.. That is something that I know Grandma did for her grandkids because she loved them so much.One year, Santa was so weird.. He has us sing "Happy Birthday" to Jesus. That is still a joke in the Labrum family. Now we all go to Aunt Luann's house and the little kids sit on the lab (the family is just getting too big) and we have $5 gift exchange.

We would spend Christmas Eve with the Ware side because they were right down the road. I remember 1 Christmas Eve traveling from Logan to Orangeville and it was a long day. Grandpa Rue would read to us The Night before Christmas and the Gift of the Magi. We would open the gifts from Grandma and Grandpa that night. Which were always pajamas. All the girls got matching pjs and the boys got matching pjs. We had to have the group picture in front of the big mirror.

When we got home that night, Mom and Dad would try to wind us down and give us their gift and send us to bed. It was always so hard to sleep that night. They even started to put sheets up at the doorways of the front room so we couldn't go peek at what we got for christmas. We would get up at 4 am Christmas morning and wake everyone up to open gifts! :) Dad had to go in and "check" to make sure Santa came to the house. We would open the gifts and by 6 christmas was over! :) Later that day, we would make the rounds to the Watsons, Leeflangs and Grandma and Grandpa Ware and they would come up to our house. We all enjoyed the food at every house.

Growing up, I never thought that Christmas was hard or I had less then anyone else. My Christmas' were always the best ever! We were never without. Thank you mom and dad! I love you so much!