When I think about Christmas and the holidays I always feel so nostalgic about all of the traditions I had as a child. When I was a kid, I would put out cookies and milk for Santa Claus and carrots for the reindeers. My parents would show me a tape recorder of the reindeer's eating the carrots. I would wake up Christmas morning with the plate of cookie crumbs and remnants of the carrots feeling so excited that Santa had visited. Each year on Christmas Eve my family and I would take a night drive after dinner to look at Christmas lights. We would drive through nice neighborhoods and admire all of the decorated trees and houses.

As I flash forward into my teen years and young adulthood, Christmas has changed a bit for my family. Now that my parents are divorced we were not able to maintain all of the traditions I had as a child, I am okay with it and have accepted it. I spend Christmas Eve Dinner and with my mom and family friends and early Christmas morning with my dad. Now we have new traditions such as going out to eat for dinner with my mom and friends instead of cooking as we did in the past. The one tradition that my family kept was baking fresh-made croissants on Christmas morning. Over the years, family dynamics changed a bit, but that never stopped me from having a fun-filled Christmas.