Family Moment Monday - Christmas Traditions

I am participating in a special edition of Family Moment Monday. Visit Motherhood for Dummies to read about other Christmas traditions, or to post your own.

There are a lot of Christmas traditions in my family, but one of my favorite was the placing of baby Jesus. We used to set up our Nativity Scene every year underneath the Christmas tree, but we would not put baby Jesus in the manger. On Christmas Eve every year, after we had returned from midnight Mass, one of us children would be able to put baby Jesus in the manger. I always would look forward to when it was my year to do it!

Speaking of midnight Mass, that was also a great tradition in my family. We would go to midnight Mass, and somehow Santa would have visited our house while we were gone. I still don't know how my parents did it, because I don't remember them ever taking separate cars!

My dads side of the family has never been huge gift givers. For the adults, we do a Secret Santa, which we call a Cherry Pie (because originally we put all the names in a little plastic cherry pie). The adults just get a gift for the one person they pick, usually under $20. As children we always had presents, but we usually didn't get tons of the hottest and newest toys. My grandma would get us things like socks and towels. To be honest, we loved them! In fact when I was 11 or 12, my grandma got me these two pairs of flannel pajamas that I have worn every single winter until this year, when I decided to let them go. Of course, I ran out to Walmart and got an identical pair because I loved them so much!

How about you, what are your Christmas traditions?