Our Easter Traditions

I've always been a big fan of Easter. Really, I'm just a big fan of holidays. But as I child I think I may have even loved Easter more than Christmas. I know you're incredibly anxious to hear my reasons.

1. It kind of marks the beginning of spring for me. The Easters I remember as a child always seemed to have that perfect muddy, warm, no need for coats, jump rope & bubble blowing weather.
2. Chocolate is better in the shape of eggs.
3. The Easter Bunny got us great presents: new summer outfits, bubbles, MONEY, cds, and fun summer toys.
4. Following a trail of eggs to find presents is awesome.
5. Following clues to find presents is awesome as well.
6. And of course my most favorite part of Easter:

The Cadbury Creme Egg!

Those were our traditions. The Easter Bunny would usually leave 3 candy egg trails (one for each of us kids) leading to a bunch of our presents in a different spot in the house. As we learned to read, we would still have our candy trail, but there would also be something hidden, and we would have to figure out clues to find out where it was hidden. It was always so much fun.

I love holiday traditions. We are not a very religious family so we never took part in any of the religious Easter traditions dealing with church, but I know plenty of people who do. 

I can't wait until my little one is born and a little older so I can keep our Easter traditions going.  

I'm really interested in hearing what other people do for Easter, if anything at all. Please share! 

And enjoy your chocolate-egg holiday!

Ps, Random fact? I wrote this post last year and forgot to post it.

Christmas Traditions

I love traditions. Christmas traditions are my favorite. How about Christmas, questionnaire-style? Please play along :)

How many trees do you usually have, and how are they decorated?

Although I love the idea of a bunch of themed trees, we've always just had one. It used to be decorated with a wide, crazy assortment of ornaments but as we got older Mom started making it look a little more matchy/classy.

When do you opens your presents?

We always open presents Christmas morning. Mom and sister have tried to convince me and brother to open them on Christmas eve so we can sleep in, but Christmas is Christmas, and you don't mess around with tradition.

Do you open presents slowly, or rip into them?

We are the slow type. We take turns opening one present and once we put the present aside, the next person gets their turn. We're in no rush so why not take the time to savor it? That's definitely a tradition I will keep with when I have my own family.

What do you do on Christmas eve?

These days, we don't follow many of our old traditions now that we've all moved around. Back in the day, it would be the first night Mom would break out the Christmas baked goods. There would also be tons of chocolates, chips and others goodies. The main Christmas eve snack? "The Dip", as we call it. Basically your salsa, ground beef, cream cheese, topped with mozza cheese and baked in the oven. Oh so yummy. We would always open one Christmas present each on Christmas eve, and one family one. The family one was always a movie. For many years, it was always a Land Before Time Movie. We had them all.

Christmas dinner?

Always turkey. It's the one time I know for sure I'll get a big, amazing, turkey dinner. Where we eat it is always different. We've hosted it for all my Mom's family before. We've gone to have it at a different relative's places, we've had it with my ex stepfather's family before. The only thing that stays the same is that it's always with some kind of family and it's always turkey.

Do you get a white Christmas?

Usually. This year we get a rainy/flooded Christmas. We've been having some sort of wind storm for days now. 

What's your favorite part of Christmas?

Usually just the anticipations itself and the 'happier than usual' feeling I seem to get. The family time. The baking and turkey dinner are great as well though. 

I will be posting 'Friday Recommendations' tomorrow, as I did last week - with lots of fun Christmas links. Besides that, you won't be hearing from me for a couple of days. 

Merry Christmas all!