Over the past two days we (Mary, Tori and I) have engaged in both old and new traditions. Since we are always with extended family either home or away over the true Christmas Eve and Day we generally choose a day at the beginning of December on which we will celebrate our Christmas. That gives us a day to plan ahead with all the excitement and anticipation that Christmas Day should bring.

On Wednesday night, our Christmas Eve, we opened our stockings. Always fun to see just how much we can cram into those things! Thursday the 21st, the end of fall/beginning of winter, marked our Christmas Day. The weather outside was frightful…frightfully un-Christmas-like and warm, that is! I started a new tradition by having gift bags of chocolate and other silly stuff (like vibrating toothbrushes, dental floss…good things to go with chocolate! 😉 ) for the girls to open when they got up. We took our traditional trip to the theatre and saw a movie, Rocky Balboa was this year’s choice. We then came home, ate delicious stew that had been in the crock pot all day, and watched White Christmas.

Once again I decided to add a new tradition by reading Twas the Night Before Christmas outloud to the girls. I remember this poem being so magical when I was a child. It was something you heard, mostly in snippets, as you watched holiday television specials or heard holiday stories. If you haven’t read it, or if it has been a long time, I suggest giving it a read. It was surprising how many stanzas I didn’t recall. I also read the origins of the piece which are included at the bottom of that link. We followed that up with our yearly reading of the story of the birth of Christ from Luke Chapter 2. This is my favorite in all the gospels…oddly enough because it is the one that Linus quotes in A Charlie Brown Christmas and that speech always touches my heart with its sincerity and truth.

After that we tore into the gifts. Now that Tori is older we really make opening gifts a long, drawn out affair, taking turns and oooing and ahhhing over each present. It took us a few hours and we enjoyed our time together.

(Tori with Motley and Razz, pre-gift opening)

We are dog-sitting for our ‘nephew’ Motley while his parents, Abby and Mike, are in Hawaii celebrating Christmas with Mike’s parents. We closed in the living room with the child gate while we opened gifts so that we didn’t have to keep an eye on the dogs roaming the house. You would think we locked them in prison. Razz, our old dog, is the worst. He lays in the living room on his blanket year round, but the minute we put the gate up to open presents he gets stir crazy and the prison break plans go into full motion. He wanders and whines and looks absolutely miserable. No matter that both dogs have gifts under the tree…they are locked in for goodness sake!!!

They soon expressed their true feelings for their enforced confinement and the Christmas festivities:

(Razz)

(Motley)

They both stayed like this until everything was over. Truly hilarious.

I won’t go into the gifts except to share with you book and/or comic book lovers my literary treasures from this Christmas:

The Absolute Sandman was a gift from Jeff a few days ago. Thank you, Jeff!!! This release of the first 20 issues of Neil Gaiman’s wonderful Sandman comic series is a beauty to behold. Remastered coloring on the first 18 issues, DVD-like extras, incredible binding and presentation. Wow!

DC didn’t stop there, they released Absolute New Frontier earlier this fall as well. I had ordered this and asked Mary to take it and put it under the tree for me. Jeff wrapped it up so I could not see it before I brought it home and opening it last night was the first time I had laid eyes on its wonderful slipcase. You can see images and read my gushing, fan-boy thoughts about Darwyn Cooke and the New Frontier series here. I am so excited to have this amazing series in this format.

Last, but not least, it wouldn’t be Christmas for me if I did not get something Lord of the Rings related. Mary did not let me down as she got me this set of books that I have coveted for awhile. The hardback set of the trilogy, illustrated by the incomparable Alan Lee. Very cool! I plan on reading these again throughout the next year and doing so with my new hardbacks!

Books for Christmas are always a winner in our home! Have a wonderful holiday weekend everyone and don’t forget that on Christmas Eve it is my turn for the 2006 Advent Blog Tour so come on back to see what I have to share with you that evening.