@jespah,
Will we be graced with before and after pictures?
I do love before and after pictures.
As for Christmas... my dad and his wife will be visiting; they're Jewish (culturally if not religiously) and don't really celebrate Christmas but will be giving presents to sozlet and she'll be giving presents to them, not sure yet if we'll do that Christmas eve and then they'll take off from their hotel on Christmas morning (they're driving, and Christmas day is a good driving day) or whether they'll stick around with us. Probably the former.
If so, we'll wake up, hang out a bit, admire the tree, have some breakfast in PJ's, probably let sozlet open one present, then go ahead and get dressed and ready for the day, and then really go to town on presents. This takes a while, not so much due to volume as that we each have to look at each present, and talk about it, and write down what it was and who it was from (we get a lot of mailed presents from out of town), and then try to figure out what the next present might be, etc.
Then, when we're finished, we hang out and do things with presents. (Read books. Play with toys. Etc.) Then have lunch (no specific meal), then probably call or receive calls from various family members. Later, we may do some movie-watching.
Misc. sozhousehold traditions:
- Christmas stockings always include an orange and a tin of smoked oysters.
- Stockings are opened first, youngest first.
- Milk and cookies left out for Santa are examined for evidence of consumption.
- Everyone has to get dressed first. This is pure E.G. -- my own tradition growing up was to open presents in PJ's, then finally get showered and dressed once everything was opened. His family tradition was different, and his won out (except for the church-going part).
- Presents to each other should have cryptic clues on the cards that are hard enough that people aren't likely to figure it out ahead of time but accurate enough that they say "ohhhhhh, now I see" when they have opened the present. (sozlet's getting good at this.)
- Ideally, everyone should be up early enough that we can get started when it's still dark, and lights from the Christmas tree are the only illumination.
- Youngest is the "elf" and gets selected presents ("no, that big one in the back, with the gold paper") for herself and everyone else.
- Presents aren't randomly selected -- minor ones first, major ones last. (But the elf may select one randomly and get the go-ahead.)
That's all I can think of...
) on my return home!
)
