Christmas traditions.

Yesterday was the first time I've celebrated on Christmas day. Well, I have opened my presents on the morning of the 25th once before, but I was on my own, and it was only because I worked a 14hour shift on the 24th.

Anyway.

It was nice to see how someone else celebrates Christmas, but I can't get over how "short" it was... got up, opened the presents, and that was it really. No more christmassy stuff. I think I prefer what my family usually does, but that's probably because that's what I'm used to. But like I said, it was nice to see how someone else celebrates.

What are your traditions? How do you celebrate Christmas? Do you celebrate it at all?

What my family usually does is, we don't decorate until the evening of the 23rd, then when we get up on the 24th it's all christmassy and the stockings have been filled and there is usually a present for each of us under the tree from Santa (if you don't believe in him you don't get presents from him, Haha!). If the 24th falls on a weekday then we go to work for a few hours, usually to 4 at the latest, depending on what kind if job you have of course, but my family has always been lucky with that.

At 5 the church bells "rings the Christmas in". My family doesn't go to church, because we're not religious, so at 5 we sit down and have our dinner. The others have sheep and pork ribs with loads of other stuff, while I usually have rice porridge (in Norway porridge is also what Santa eats.).

After dinner we put everybody's presents under the tree and then we sit down for a few hours and read cartoons and play board games. My family's favourite is trivial pursuit.

Then around 8 or 9 we start opening the presents. My sister is usually the one that goes and gets one from under the tree, she reads the label, gives it to the person it's for, sits back down and everybody watches as that person open the present. It takes a while to open all the presents, but I like it. I like seeing what every one gets, who they get it from, how they react and all that. That's my favourite thing, seeing other people open their present.

By the time we finish it's usually close to midnight, we might stay up for a bit longer to "play" with our presents or a quick round of TP, and then we go to bed. I like how it's a whole day of Christmas, and not just a morning.

This is how we celebrate with my mum, and how we used to celebrate when my mum and dad was still together. I've not celebrated with my dad since they got divorced, I've only seen him after Christmas so we've just opened our presents from each other.

How do you celebrate?