On the first day of Christmas

Today is day one of the 12 Days of Christmas Blog Challenge that Aly and Molly are hosting ...which yes has 14 days but they just couldn't cut two topics! Now lets get started!

Traditions

My family has lots of traditions and I LOVE all of them! Since Jason and I have been married some of those traditions have been altered and/or changed but I have also gained some wonderful new traditions since becoming part of Jason's family. Since Jason and I have been married we started the tradition of spending Christmas with one family and New Years with our other family. It gets a little complicated when you have three families (Jason's mom & step-dad, Jason's dad & step-mom and my family) to split time with at the holidays. Luckily Jason's dad & step-mom, and my family live about 35 minutes apart so that helps when splitting time! Essentially it comes down to Reno (where his mom lives) or LA (where his sister lives) for one holiday with Jason's mom & step-dad and then Kansas for the other holiday where Jason's dad & step-mom and my family lives. Here is just a quick snapshot of our holiday traditions depending on where we are that year for which holiday:

If we are in Kansas for Christmas
*Christmas eve is spend at my grandma Joan's house (my dad's mom). We have "snacky" foods then we open gifts.
*Christmas morning is spent at my mom & dad's house. We get our gifts from Santa (yes, as long as we still believe we still get gifts). Our gifts from Santa are never wrapped they are just placed in piles under the tree. Typically each of us knows exactly which piles is ours and we dash right to our pile! Then we get to open our gifts from our parents (which are wrapped and we each get our own paper that all our gifts are wrapped in).
*Christmas afternoon is spent at Jason's dad & step-mom's house. We usually open gifts once Jason's brother can get there and have some yummy food!
*We have Christmas with my mom's family sometime around Christmas, there are almost 30 of us now so it takes some planning to make sure everyone can make it! The tradition with the Cook family is everyone brings a $10 gift and we do a white elephant gift exchange.
*Typically we fly to Reno/LA on the 26th and spend a week there

If we spend Christmas in Reno/LA
*Typically we will fly in sometime around the 23rd or 24th and spend a week with the Best family.
*Christmas morning always kicks off with opening gifts and our stockings! Typically we get one big gift and our stockings. Jason's mom loves filling our stockings with all kinds of goodies, actually I'm pretty sure it is her favorite part of the gift giving process!
*Once we have opened our gifts and stockings Jason's mom makes us chocolate chip pancakes! This is defiantly by far my favorite tradition I have gained from joining Jason's family!


Like I said before I love the holiday season and I love every tradition I have with all of my families! The best part of the holidays is simple...spending time with our family!