a tag to share Christmas memories

i was recently tagged by my green eyed gal friend, christina, @ luvin this life. she shared some of her favorite traditions and memories of Christmas in this post and tagged a few of us to share some of our memories from Christmas also.

i loved Christmas as a little girl. it was so exciting and fun. but, my family was not into many traditions. we usually celebrated the holiday with my dad's side of the family on Christmas Eve and my mom's side of the family on Christmas day. and, we opened presents together somewhere in between those times. but, i loved it all. i always loved the idea of having traditions that we could do each year but it never really worked out to remember what we tried to do the year before. so, we just enjoyed Christmas in the moment.

but, then i married the most traditional man on the face of the earth. he grew up with lots of traditions that he wanted to carry on into our family life and i loved it. there was no real purpose to Christmas Eve in aaron's family, except that everyone except his parents used it to finish off their Christmas shopping. can you imagine that? still shopping on Christmas Eve? after aaron finished his Christmas shopping he would head home to watch "scrooge, a Christmas carol" with his mom, wrap his gifts, drink egg nog and eat Christmas cookies. his mom and dad would have already exchanged gifts some time that evening. all of the celebrations of Christmas always began Christmas morning in their family. it all started with a wonderful brunch, gifts, then dinner. aaron is from a large family and their house was always full on that day.

so, when aaron and i got married we incorporated many of these traditions into our Christmas celebration and started a few of our own. one of the best memories for me was our first Christmas Eve together. aaron wanted us to sit at home, exchange our gifts for each other, watch "scrooge," drink coffee, because i hate eggnog, and eat Christmas cookies. we still do this today. he wanted to wait until Christmas Eve to do all of our shopping, but i could not do that. i had to have that done by then. so, that tradition changed some. i loved this tradition we started. it was our time to celebrate together, just him and me. i still look forward to this romantic Chrismas Eve tradition with my husband every year. we have a very large family of our own and adding his and mine together makes for a lot of family gatherings each year. but, this time with him each year is so precious to me. it is a tradition that we can do, together, year after year as long as we both shall live.

what traditions were you apart of?  what traditions do you incorporate into your Christmas now?

i am supposed to tag 5 other bloggers to pass the sharing of Christmas memories around. but, if you stopped by today to visit and would like to share a Christmas memories post. i would love to stop by and read it. so, please come back by and let me know and i will hop over to share in your memories. or, if you just want to share your favorite memory here in the comments, that would be fun too.

the rules:
write a Christmas memories blog.
include the link to my post somewhere in your blog.
tag five other bloggers.
then return to this blog's comments and paste the link to your Christmas memories blog.

i would like to tag:
tara
kristin
rosel
mimi
adeye

please share a favorite Christmas memory or tradition in an upcoming post.