Traditions

With the holidays approaching I've been thinking a lot about Traditions. The word alone (tradition) seems so ancient and something only our parents take part of, but of the things that I am most excited about during the holidays, I have come to realize are actually all traditions. Here are just a few:

Every year roughly the day after Thanksgiving, my family goes into the woods and cuts down a Christmas tree. This is just no walk in the woods, this is the hunt for the "perfect" tree, which I'm not sure if Idaho has one. You really can't beat a $5 tree, but I tell ya, if the snow is deep then those pretty little round ones outside the grocery store just seem so appealing. And can someone tell me why when you find a tree and bring it home, it never seems quite as pretty and nice as it did in the woods? Even though struggling through several feet of snow at times is not at all fun it's even worse when you get your tree home and you put it up, only to find that Charlie Brown's tree is WAY better then yours, I just simply LOVE IT! Really, I do!

I'm not sure when or why this tradition started, I think it might have been when I was in college, but every Christmas Eve we open one gift. That one gift is always a pair of jammies. I absolutely love searching for the perfect pair for Carl and the girls, and I feel like that one little gift on Christmas Eve is a perfect preview for the day to come and its so nice to sleep in comfort on Christmas Eve.

Lastly, another Christmas Tradition is Sausage Bread. My sister married a guy named Don. On Christmas morning Don would make sausage bread. It this SUPER yummy bread stuffed with sausage, egg & cheese, topped with country gravy. Its really healthy (ha ha) and SO GOOD. Well, when I was a senior in high school, Don died of a massive heart attack, and since then in memory of him we make sausage bread on Christmas morning.

Wow, I can't wait for Christmas!!!