Tradition.

This weekend was totally crazy.. We were virtually NEVER home. I am definitely ready to spend the day tomorrow doing absolutely nothing with Cody. Hopefully our house won’t smell of fire and smoke tomorrow. Oh yea, we Cody  is super awesome and closed the flue to the fireplace when apparently the fire was not completely out all the way and then left for 6 hours….I guess in his defense he did check to make sure it was cold and he isn’t really used to having a fireplace, and a wood burning stove isn’t really the same thing. NEVERCLOSINGTHEFLUEAGAIN. Thankfully we took Ellie to my mom’s and she wasn’t in her kennel during this smoking disaster. God, that would have been awful. I don’t wanna think about it.

This was our (me and Cody) third Christmas together, and since we have come into each other’s lives, our Christmas holidays have been a little more extreme. This year we spent Christmas Eve day at his family’s house about an hour away, after that we rushed over to my mom’s house for dinner, and then after that we went over to our friend’s house to eat cookies and watch a Home Alone marathon (did you know there are 4 of those?!?), and then finally we were able to go home and sleep at 2am. PS. This is the first year I have not slept at my mommy’s (yes, mommy) house the night before christmas. I have ALWAYS woken up to presents under the tree that Santa had brought while I was sleeping. Don’t judge me. I’m not sorry. It was awesome. On Christmas morning, we were woken up by Ellie barking because my mom got here at 845am and we got to open presents. Then, we went over to my dad’s house to open presents there, AND THEN for dinner, we drove up to Cody’s parents’ house for dinner. Ay Yi Yi. I am happy it is over but I am so thankful that we are able to be able to do all that and spend time with everyone for Christmas.

So that brings me to the point of all this. Family traditions. I was thinking about all that we do and realizing how wonderful it is to have our special traditions. And since being part of cody’s life and vice versa, the new traditions that we have been introduced to.

Here are the ones we celebrated this year:

1. At Cody’s family’s house, everyone gets together. There are about 24 of us there (I have no clue most of their names or how they are related [but to be fair, neither does cody]) and we do a huge white elephant exchange. It is so much fun and everyone is so welcoming and loving and it happens every year.

2. Eating Christmas dinner with my momma. Its nothing fancy and if I wanted to I could wear sweats, but I love it. I love being able to spend that time with her.

3. Opening our stockings first on Christmas morning. EVERY YEAR.

4. Packing up all the gifts for my dad, sister, and step mom and lugging them over to their house where we try to open them before everyone else arrives (that never happens).

5. Bagels (that my dad drives to davis for when we live in sacramento and I am SOOO thankful he does), cream cheese, and lox (from Costco, of course) with about 13 other friends and family at my dad’s house on Christmas morning.

6. At Cody’s house, I have been lucky enough to be integrated into the tradition of using the empty wrapping paper tubes as swords and having a sword fight with Cody and his mom and dad. It is AMAZING. Seriously so much fun.

This is the aftermath….DESTROYED.

I am so grateful for all the traditions that we celebrate. I love that we are going to be able to do these thing in some way or another for a really long time and one day hope to pass on to my kids. I do want to start one more tradition in my house (and Cody agrees), I want to start the pajama tradition. Where you get a new pair of pajamas every year and that is the one present you open on Christmas Eve.

What traditions do you do? Any new ones you want to start?

***UPDATE***
Is it possible to have a holiday hangover? Because I totally have one of those today.