Merry Christmas!

I’d like to wish everyone a joyous and memorable Christmas. I’m grateful to have this time with my family so that I can  try to make each and every Christmas one that my children will remember and tell their children about. Our family traditions are unique to us and, while they may resemble traditions other families share, we have grown them with our own special flavoring. The seeds of these traditions began with those that my wife and I each had with our families as we grew up. We’ve taken these and made them into something unique and special to us.

• We always follow Santa on Norad’s Santa Tracker using Google Earth. As Santa makes his way along his route, the kids’ excitement builds and eventually come to tell us that they need to go to bed so that Santa will come to our house.
• We always watch A Christmas Story at least once, but sometimes it just stays on in the background as TBS plays it in their yearly 24 hour marathon. I first watched this movie in elementary school as the last activity we did before school let out for Christmas break. Everyone said Ralphie looked just like me and I accepted that as a compliment, though you might be surprised that I’m quite not so cute anymore.
• The kids always try to convince us to open a gift Christmas Eve and each year we insist that they should wait until Christmas morning and open all of their gifts at once. Inevitably, though, the kids win the argument against our feeble protests and we let them open just one.
• The kids always bake cookies for Santa to eat along with a tall glass of cold milk. The last couple of years, though, Santa has requested sugar-free cookies and skim milk.
• We always try to get up before the kids so that we can have the camera ready so that when they come wandering out of their rooms wiping the sleep from their eyes and squinting at the bright lights, we can see their expressions as they gaze on all of the things that were left under the tree for them.

These are just a few of the hundreds of little things we do to make this holiday our own. This year will be the first year that we don’t have to travel at all to see family. We’re so excited to be able to spend all of Christmas Eve and Christmas Day together, playing with our new toys.