Friend Friday: Holiday Traditions

1. Your favorite holiday memory:
I accidentally started filling out my questions with question 2 and now all of my favorite memories are ones I thought up for all the questions below.
But another good one is the year my mom slept at the top of the steps on the floor so that we couldn't go down at 1am to open presents.  We actually tried to climb over her to get downstairs. She did not like that.  All 3 of us kids slept in 1 room. My grandpap also slept in that room.  My grandma was sleeping in my room and my younger brothers room  had nobody in it. We always tried to stay up all night, but it didn't work.  But we did try to drink lots and lots of water so we'd have to wake up in the night to go to the bathroom and then we could open presents. (I was never the one to wake up first. I think it was Timmy, but I can't remember for sure.)  I wonder what year this was.

The year before we did go down at 1:51. (If I remember correctly.) The year before it was 3 something and the year before that it was 5 something.   We were getting worse.  I used to nap after opening presents but I'm not sure if everyone in my family would.

2. Were you ever a victim of those family Christmas party photo shoots? What do you think about them now? Care to share an old photo?
Growing up we had all the kids stand up by height/age. Once those weren't the same, we didn't quite do them anymore.  I'm the one that forces family pictures nowadays. I tried for years and years and years and nobody would do them. Then one year my mom wanted one just in case one of us died, so she'd have a family picture and then we took them a few years in a row.    Since I'm the one that forces them, you can tell I want them.
Too bad all old photos are at my parents and aren't digital/scanned so I don't have any really old ones to show.

Christmas Eve 2009

Christmas Eve 2005

I went through all my digital pictures with a keyword search of Christmas and made a little album if you want to see more.

3. Best Christmas gift you ever gave: home made scrapbooks.  I thought Maggie was going to cry when she opened it. Kate wasn't as surprised because Maggie already got hers. I uploaded a few pictures today.

Right before Maggie opened hers, I had opened my blank scrapbook from her, so Maggie said "and it's filled out too" and she was in awe.  Each scrapbook was over 40 pages. At least I learned I could type the stories and print them twice. Some pages were identical. Sometimes I did something with Kate and not Maggie so those went into Kate's and vice versa.
I also tricked them a little and gave them both little photo albums with a few pictures from our college career. I thought it was a trick. They were super excited to get those.  The scrapbooks only were from Freshman year and the little albums were about 60 pictures from some key things throughout college.

I scanned them. It filled my hard drive. I don't think I have the scanned version anymore. I lost it when my hard drive crashed. :(

4. Craziest/funniest holiday family tradition: Eating fish on Christmas Eve is crazy because I don't like fish. OK that's not crazy but we have no traditions.   Maybe the time we didn't have a tree in our basement so my brother put the presents around the dogwood?

Christmas 2002

(There are 3 computers in the background. My dad is at one and the other 2 are on.  Is that normal for Christmas morning? )

5. Favorite type of Christmas cookie: Peanut Butter (not with the Hershey kisses)  If you ask about dessert/candy it would be peanut butter fudge.  Peanut butter balls/buckeyes are close behind. If you are talking frozen cookies that you are sneaking before Christmas, then no-bakes are the best frozen; I don't even eat them thawed anymore.  I am the cookie maker for the holidays. I make a lot of kinds that I don't even like.