CHRISTMAS EVE IS IN ONE WEEK! In honor of the rapidly approaching holiday and ‘Throwback Thursday’, I’m sharing some epic family pictures from childhood Christmases.

We have many fun family traditions over the years. We’re discovering new family traditions now that my parents sold the house and moved to the city but growing up, one thing we loved was singing Christmas Carols at the Village Green on Christmas Eve. We did this in lieu of going to Church. This wasn’t because we didn’t believe it important to recognize the point of the holiday, but because we lost a little bit of the Christmas spirit when families would show up and reserve rows of seats so there wasn’t room for others who arrived on time. So we dressed in warm clothing and sang Carols at the Village Green instead and sang Happy Birthday to Jesus on the 25th (Brit usually played the piano) and we attended church on every regular Sunday of the year.

Another family tradition of ours is opening one gift on Christmas Eve. I’m not sure whose idea it was (lie- it was mine) but I think it started when we had some gifts that would be useful on Christmas Eve like pajama pants or hot cocoa or a Christmas sweater. And then we had a little brother who eagerly continued the tradition year after year…

As young kids, we would drive up to Milwaukee on Christmas day and have dinner at the Millers. If you’ve been reading this blog, you’ll recognize my Aunt Peggy’s name. As I’ve mentioned before, she is like a Martha Stewart and her elaborate and gorgeous Christmas decor was always something I looked forward to seeing. She even made miniature Moose as table decorations out of pine cones! Amazing. And her husband Eric would gather everyone by the kitchen table to sing Christmas carols. It was such a blast. As her kids grew and moved out of the house and all of our families expanded, we switched to our own traditions. We’ve had many meals at my grandma Tommy’s and even cooked at home quite a few times.

One of my favorite memories is pushing my two twin beds together and having all my siblings sleep in my room on Christmas Eve. We usually watched The Santa Clause and looked for him outside my bedroom window. We didn’t all fit in the bed. The boys usually slept in sleeping bags on the floor. But we didn’t care. The point was to all wake up together!

And when we did wake up together, we had to sit at the top of the stairs. No peaking. Mom and Dad always liked to start coffee and the bacon before we came down. And snap a picture of us in our pajamas, of course. Our bedhead has always been phenomenal. Except Lo’s. She wakes up looking like a model.

One of the most special things about Christmas are our hand-stitched needlepoint stockings that our mom spent hours and hours creating. AND THEY’RE GIGANTIC. Santa may have coughed up some cookie when he took a look at those stockings he had to fill. Its unbelievable how much thought and energy Mom put into those stockings. I want to say 90 hours a stocking. That’s dedication (and sorry future children- needlepoint is not one of my talents….) We’d sit there by the fire and open each of our stockings one by one. Then we’d take turns opening up our other presents.

After gifts, there was always tons of relaxing and back gammon by the fire. We’d listen to George Winston, Bing Crosby, & Vince Guaraldi. Our version of the Classics.

Then there would be family phone calls to our cousins and grandparents. Tons of lounging around in our pajamas. And then we’d take a little time to get ready for dinner in the afternoon. Perfect holiday with lots of family bonding. Always.

AH. I love Christmas. The Most Wonderful Time of the Year! Really.

Here are just a few of my favorite Christmas pics from Childhood :)

Cheers & Enjoy! xo

cheers christmas family memories tbt throwbacks