A trademark of this time of the year is traditions. Almost every family has at least one- some sort of ritual to recognize the season, to initiate the festivities. Traditions are abound for most holidays- but it seems that most of them appear around the Christmas season.
In my family, every year we buy Chocolate Oranges, which are basically just chocolate strips in the shape of an orange. You always have to whack them against something, because we put them in the freezer. That's the job of my sister, because the rest of us "are weak and hit it too softly" according to her. After that, we all change into pajamas and gather around the T.V. with hot chocolate and our chocolate oranges.
Christmas movies are not of short supply in my house. Our most commonly watched one is a version of A Christmas Carol with Scrooge played Patrick Stewart. Most years we stay up late, until about midnight or a few times even one in the morning.
Usually before any of that starts, we all open one present, determined by my mother. Generally it's something that can used that night- fleece pajamas, a blanket, a stuffed animal, or something like that. One year I even got a music box.
Of course, after the movie or sometimes movies, we all go to bed. But it's a well known fact that no one actually goes to sleep for a long while. Most of the time, I stay up the latest, occasionally not sleeping at all. In retrospect, that's probably the reason that we generally go back to bed after the initial openings in the morning, before people arrive around noon.
The traditions that are passed down in my family can vary slightly from year to year, but they always stay essentially the same.
After all, what would Christmas be without traditions?
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