Holiday Traditions

Today I was reading another blog where they were discussing holiday traditions, so I thought I would share mine.

Halloween - Ever since college my mom sends me and my sisters a plastic orange pumpkin full of Halloween candy and goodies. We have to save the pumpkin each year and return it.

Thanksgiving - Nothing too special here, either my mom or my aunt would cook Thanksgiving dinner with the usual - turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes, stuffing (some made inside, some not, otherwise there wouldn't be enough), sweet potato souffle, corn bread pudding, canned cranberries (my favorite), and of course pumpkin pie for dessert. This is making me hungry.

Christmas - If we have it our house, we always have lasagna (my dad's family is Italian), garlic bread and salad. If we have it at our aunt's, she usually does Honey Baked Ham with potato casserole. For presents we always open presents to each other on Christmas Eve night, and then Santa presents on Christmas morning. We open our Santa presents one at a time, in order based on where we're sitting around the tree. When we were little my mom would give us each the same amount of gifts so it would be fair, and they usually took a picture of us coming down the stairs on Christmas morning.

Easter - My mom would hide our baskets in the house and we would go find them. The baskets are quite large and so there were only a few options as to where they could be. We would always get the same 2 toys in our basket - an egg that was cracked at the top and when you open it the chicklet would squeak, and a thing where you had to push the piece in with your thumb to spin open the cracked egg to view the chicklet inside. When we were younger, there was much more candy in the basket, and as we got older there were more gifts than candy.

Birthdays - My mom would cook us our favorite meal (with dessert).

What about you, what are you favorite holiday traditions that you do with your family?