Now that I’m home for the holidays it’s time to get in the Christmas spirit!

If you are like my family then you have a few family traditions where until they happen it really doesn’t feel like Christmas yet. Let me walk you through a typical couple of weeks leading up to December 25th in my household.

First, there is getting the Christmas tree. Luckily this tradition has already happened, which is good because walking around the house with the Christmas tree smell filling the hallways really helps put you in the spirit. We always make sure to find the perfect tree… not too wide, not too tall, but still has enough room for us to hang all our ornaments. After finding the perfect tree we come back home bring the tree inside and place it in front of the large front window of our house. Then to complete the evening, we all settle down into the basement and watch Elf. All of ours favorite Christmas movie!

Then, decorating the tree is another favorite tradition of mine. We all get together in the living room where the tree resides, bring down the huge box of ornaments and my dad puts on our traditional Christmas playlist. Now it truly doesn’t feel like Christmas until the tunes of this playlist fill the house. I know this playlist by heart and in my somewhat biased opinion it consists of all the best Christmas songs. Now with the playlist singing, we open up the ornament box and begin to decorate the tree reminiscing on all the times and reason why a past ornament was added to our collection.

Lastly, there is our Christmas Eve family traditions. Every morning we get together with our favorite family friends and have brunch. There are bagels, french toast, fruit salad and a bunch of other delicious food! Then there is some time to get more wrapping done. But the major event of the evening is going out for Chinese food and going to see a movie. It is the best, there is no one in the movie theater and no competition to get tickets to see a new hit blockbuster. We usually see a movie on the later side so then once we arrive back home we all go to bed and wait for the big guy to come down the chimney.

So those are the three main holiday traditions that we make sure to do every year and until we do them it really doesn’t feel like Christmas! Hope everyone else has a great holiday season that is filled with traditions and Christmas spirit.