Guest Blogger - Nicole

Hello readers!

Today, beautiful and funny Nicole from PRAIRIE PRINCESS is sharing her holiday traditions. Please make sure you visit her blog!

Without further ado - here is Nicole's traditions.


Ok here are my Christmas traditions...

When I was young, before the age of 10 my family lived in California. On Christmas mornings we would open gifts, then head out to my aunt and uncles house about half hour away.

When I was 10 my family moved to Montana where life was quite a bit different. We had no family here, so our Christmas traditions centered around the 6 of us-my parents and 3 siblings. Our traditions evolved over the years, but essentially was this:
-Christmas Eve service at church, then we would go out to dinner as a family. Nothing fancy either-I'm talking Chinese buffet or Pizza Hut.
-get home and mom would prep Christmas morning breakfast.
-all the kids would go to bed. I was the WORST at getting up in the middle of the night to see all of the gifts "Santa" put out. Sometimes I would get up several times!
-usually I was the first one awake (and I'm the oldest of the 4 kids!). I'd wake my siblings up and we'd go jump on our parents bed.
-my dad would get up, but wanted to drive us crazy. So he'd put his coffee on, then go outside to feed the cows and horses. It probably only took about 30 extra minutes but it felt like an eternity!
-we would destroy the presents and ball up the wrapping paper and throw it all over the room.
-we also have a really odd tradition with our stockings-in them we get bottles of baby apple juice, a can of olives, a mini bear filled with honey and peanut butter. And my dad always gets cashews and my mom microwave popcorn.
-we'd eat breakfast, which included an egg and sausage bake and sweet rolls.
-after breakfast we'd open all of the DVDs we received and watch movies in our pajamas all day long. I think my mom was the only one who showered and got dressed.
-for food we would snack on little smokies, cheese balls and crackers until we ate a dinner of prime rib, potatoes and salad. My favorite part of the meal though was the cake we always baked. My family is fairly religious, so we baked a birthday cake for Jesus, and sang happy birthday to Him. Kinda different, but I loved it. Helped keep us on track for the real celebration of the day.

Now that we live near my husbands family, Christmas has changed a little. His extended family lives around here so we spend the holiday with them. My first holiday with them was difficult because I actually had to get dressed! Ha ha ha. But no fear, I'm rubbing off on them...my mother in law officially declared that this year we are having a sweatpants Christmas :)

With the birth of our first child coming up in the next couple of weeks, I can't wait to start many of these traditions with him :)

Thanks Jen for letting me share my Christmas memories with your readers!

Thank you for sharing with all of us Nicole!
Merry Christmas!

PS  I still have a couple of guest spots open