Christmas

I have a pet peeve. That pet peeve is listening to christmas music before december 1st. This year my family started putting on music TWO DAYS! before december 1st! I was so mad and i wouldn't sing along. Which is something that my sister and I always do. We usually put our tree up on the first but with such busy schedules, we ended up waiting until the firat weekend to put it up. My mom is haaving us do this thing where everyday from 12 days before christmas until the 25th we open this little present thing with a scripture that we read aloud and a goody that goes along with it. On the 23rd this year everyone in my family except for my dad (who finds such things boring and a waste of time) is going with another family minus their dad to go see the OBT performance of The Nutcracker! My mom and sister and I have done this together for four years now so it's kind of a tradition. Then on the 24th we make sure the whole house is clean for 'santa' and then whoever wants to help my younger brother and me makes cookies to put out with the milk for him. We read the Christmas story from Luke and then we go to bed. The kids all sleep in the same room usually mine and my sisters. My brother always wants to stay up talking but I try to sleep because I know that I'm no fun to be around when I'm sleep deprived. Then we 'sleep' until anytime after 7 or 8 because we are not allowed to get up until then, and we go into my parents room and they bring us breakfast. My dad goes out to light a fire in the fireplace and then we line up in the hallway in order of age and cover the eyes of the person in front of us. We just trust caitlin to keep her own eyes closed. Then we walk in to the livingroom and open our stockings! They are handmade by my grandma except for my brothers who's was made by my mom and is actually a little smaller than mine and my sisters. After we are done with that, Isaac, the youngest chooses a present for someone else in the family and they open it and then it is my turn to choose one for someone else and then my sisters and all the way up and again until all the presents are opened. Then we start writing thank you cards and we eat lunch. For the past two years, we have gone downstairs and watched movies for the rest of the day. We rarely watch television and though we watch movies more often, we don't often get to watch them all together as a family.