Favorite Thing #95 - Christmas Traditions

I love Christmas and one of the things I love about Christmas are traditions. My family and I have lots of them. Some new, some old and I treasure all of them.

Since meeting my husband I have a new family with new traditions. They include:

• A Holiday Dinner with all of our friends and my husband and I have been planning this for the past four holiday seasons. Each year we pick a Friday night, a great restaurant and get all of our friends together for food, drinks, and fun. It's so great to get everyone together.
• Scrippsmas - This is the annual dinner and gift exchange with my brothers-in-law, sisters-in-law, and now my niece. It happens on a Saturday or Sunday night before Christmas. Each year we rotate homes and we have a nice home cooked dinner and exchange gifts. We started doing this about four years ago because each holiday we rotate family's for Christmas so this tradition guarantees that we will get together for Christmas.
  
• Ornaments - I started this tradition a couple years ago with the Scripps siblings and spouses (my husbands' side). Each Christmas I give each of them an ornament that represents them.
• Decorating the Tree - I love decorating the tree with my husband. We started a tradition that any place we go together we get an ornament. It's so fun to go through them and remember the memories of our travels.
  

And some of my old traditions that I treasure include:

• Christmas Eve - Every year we go to my mom's parents house and have a huge Portugeese feast cooked by my grandmother, exchange gifts with my mom's side of the family (each gift read by my grandfather), family picture, and rice pudding for dessert.
  
• Kitchen Gift - For the past 10 or so years I have been giving each woman in my family a fun kitchen gift. This tradition started on whim one year when my dad and I picked one out. It was such a hit we started doing it every year. Now than I have moved out of the house and am on my own I continue the tradition.
  
• Christmas Day - There are so many things I enjoy about Christmas Day - waking up to a roaring fire, bloody mary's w/ my dad, opening gifts, seeing my dad's side of the family, and of course my mom's cooking.
  

What are some of your favorite traditions?