Christmas Confessions,Traditions, Myths & Adventures

I have a problem.  I want my Christmas to be like every corny Christmas Movie I watch. Unfortunatley, there are not a lot of people around me that share that same feeling.  The hubby and I have been arguing and seem to every single year about this. So today I thought I would share a little of my Christmas self and see if anyone is with me, or am I crazy??

I have never been kissed under the mistletoe. Sounds like a good movie, right?
Does this really happen to people?
My Mom used to hang some in our foyer and anytime a good looking friend of my older brother’s came over OR my boyfriend if I had one at the time (for some reason mine always broke up with me around Christmas), I envisioned a passionate and romantic kiss under the mistletoe.

Still Waiting.

I have never had a REAL Christmas tree. I know, you think this is SOOOOO tacky right? Well, in my opinion it “stems” from how you grew up.  I remember the first tree of my own I bought with my Mom – I still have it and we still put it up along with a bigger fake tree. Next year the hubby and I agreed it might be fun to try a real one. Mostly because we need a new FAKE tree and we say we will get one on sale after Christmas every year until we realize we are broke after Christmas and never do it. I want to be one of those people who drive around with it on the top of the car. I’ll make the hubby drive an extra ten miles after we pick it out that day. I’m not sure I even know anyone where we live who has a real tree? And I have never strung popcorn on my tree either.

I have never had or received fruitcake. I consider myself pretty lucky on that one.

I didn’t know you pronounced it “Point-set-ia” until a few years ago. We just said “ Point-Set-ah”. Not that I have any. I am not an indoor plant kind of person.

Colored or White Christmas lights?: I grew up with all white all the time. The hubby was used to color. So our bigger tree has white and our original tree has colored. I like it either way.


I honestly do not remember what I thought about Santa. I had two older brothers, so I stopped believing fairly early, although my Mom was great about keeping up the façade. Our kids have grown up to believe he comes down the chimney. Which meant we bought a fake fireplace when we didn’t have one, he ate the cookies, and the reindeer ate carrots. Santa even left crumbs –which put me into OCD overload just thinking about the crumbs sitting out all night.

Someone reminded me about these the other day.  Our fake one is  lot more real looing -don't worry!

We still wait until everyone is asleep to unload the presents under the tree. We still read The night before Christmas just before bed, and I think we all still kind of hope those are bells we hear as we fall asleep.
A few Christmas’s ago when everyone still believed, we were driving home on Christmas Eve and the kids looked into the sky to see a red flashing light. I know it was probably a plane, but it looked very odd that night and they had great fun telling us to hurry home so we could get to bed. Another year when the kids were very little, and wasan especially sparse year for presents, we woke up and looked across the street to see (no, kidding!) 12 MALE deer in the field eating. Of course the kids assumed they were Santa’s reindeer and it was great fun!

I have never gone to see The Nutcracker or A Christmas Carol. I did finally watch Disney’s version of The Christmas Carol last year with Jim Carey and it was good. I would like to go to an actual ballet or play sometime though before Christmas.

I have never been in a nativity scene production, nor attended one. Never had to make the kids a costume for a Christmas play or church production.

My Mom always hosted Christmas Eve. We got dressed up, she made amazing food, we exchanged gifts and then.... we played.......

DIRTY PICTIONARY.
Yep.
It didn't start out that way, but every year,
Guys against Girls
there always ended up being
a very inappropriate picture of Santa and his elves.

I have never gone to a fancy New Year’s Eve Party.
When the clock strikes midnight, I believe I have been kissed maybe 3 times by the one I love.

But I have done the following:

Drawn out Christmas morning and opening presents as long as possible, just like my Dad did. We were not allowed to go down the stairs when we were little until my Mom and Dad were up, so we would get up at 4am and sit on the stairs staring down at the tree and presents. Finally around 7am, my Dad would get up, brush his teeth, make us brush our teeth, get his camera out, make the coffee, pour orange juice, and then, and only then we would open gifts one at a time. We do this same thing to this day with our kids.

Went Christmas shopping for my Mom with my Dad and two older brothers, every year. My Dad is an amazing gift giver. We spent hours at the fancy mall, most of the time in the lingerie department. I usually picked the colors but he had most of the say. My brothers rolled around in their boots and jackets miserably staring at the mannequins. We spent lots of time sampling perfume, looking at leather and fur coats, gloves and jewelry. My Dad then always saved one big gift for either us or my Mom that no one knew about except him. He would wait until we were completely done opening presents and had moved on to cleaning up and eating breakfast and then say, “Hey, you guys, go in the garage and get some steaks out of the freezer” and we would find cross country skis for all of us or something equally amazing. The hubby and I stopped sharing gifts a long time ago so that we could also do the one amazing gift for the kids thing.

On the way home from shopping we would stop at Bakers Square for pie, and then my Dad would tell us the story of why barn roofs are red (because the hunters shot santa’s reindeer, duh...) and other horrible stories. I haven’t told these stories to my kids YET.

When the kids were still little my hubby and I had a tradition of getting everyone in the car in their jammies he and I included, to go and try to find Santa and look at the lights on the houses. We did this until everyone was asleep except for us so we could carry them to bed and get everything done. This started when our first child was 1, because he would not go to sleep no matter what we did unless he was in the car. It got comical as the kids multiplied and got a whole lot heavier.

My Mom is an amazing decorator. Growing up, decorating the house for Christmas took an entire weekend. We saved the tree for when my Dad was out of town. He wasn’t a fan of all the hoopla. He also is a man who has never eaten a piece of cheese his whole entire life and cannot even stand to be in the same room as a pizza or anything with cheese as its main ingredient. So when the tree went up we ate pizza. Now, I too take an entire weekend to decorate the house.

There are still some traditions I would like to tackle and I have so much more to look forward to.

Real family.  Fake Tree

Real Family. Fake Fireplace.