G'morning.

Today, the By Grace authors share their favorite family Christmas traditions.

Christmas Traditions

ROBIN BAYNE

Since my sister and I have our own families now, we enjoy gathering on Christmas day to open presents at my house. We sit in a circle and open them one at a time, so everyone sees each gift and the recipient has a moment to appreciate it before someone else goes. It makes the entire process take longer and gives us time to savor the gifts as well as each other.

DONICA COVEY

Every Christmas Eve we all gather with my mother’s family at either Nanny’s or my aunt’s home. Everyone brings a dish or two and we spend several hours laughing and sharing love and joy with each other. I love this time spent with them all.

SHEILA HOLLOWAY

My husband's family gathers at my mother-in-law's house every Christmas. We spend the entire day eating, talking, drinking hot spiced cider and opening gifts. All the children get something from everyone. The gifts are small, but usually reflect the personality of the child.

CINDY GREEN

One of my eight-year olds favorite traditions is making a Christmas chain out of red and green construction paper. He makes it long enough to tear off one chain each day thus ending on Christmas morning. I also read A Christmas Carol to him every year (We started when he was five).

My sisters and I love watching Christmas movies. And the one we love the most is While you Were Sleeping which takes place over Christmas and New Years. It has become a tradition to watch it together each year.

MARY CLAYMORE

Our little family decorates the tree together. This year we'll have two. One in the entryway, and one in our living room. We pop corn and drink hot cocoa instead of cook dinner that evening too. The weekend before the tree goes up isn't my favorite, though. We CLEAN the entire house. No fun.

DENISE PATRICK

We don't have many traditions at Christmas, but one thing we always do is get up and fix breakfast on Christmas morning as a family before we open presents. It serves two purposes - the family has a great time deciding what to fix, who is going to fix it, and then serving, and the kids get a good meal in them before they start munching on goodies.

MG BRADEN

On Christmas Eve we spread out a huge selection of appetizers in the early afternoon and basically graze our way through the rest of the day. People can come and go, plates are refreshed, final presents are wrapped and it is actually quite relaxing. Right before bedtime the kids are allowed to open one present, which is usually a pair of new pj’s and then they set out their cookies and milk for Santa. After they are safely asleep we add "Santa’s presents" to the pile, build anything that needs building, take a cookie or two, some milk and head to bed ourselves. This year, as part of a new tradition, we will also add a box under the tree as a gift to Jesus – the box will contain notes we have written (or drawn for those who can’t write yet) in this week of Advent to thank him for the various things in our life.