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First our house then we head to my mom’s for round two. 

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We have them throw carrots in the yard for the reindeer (which we let the dogs eat after bedtime), we make them use “reindeer shampoo” to help them smell the right house, and we attempt to leave boot prints inside from the fireplace to the cookie plate to the tree.

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My Mom buys us pajamas every year, it started out as a joke, but turned into a tradition. She has us take a family photo and puts it in the family newsletter she sends out to her friends. I should embarrass my brothers and sisters and post their family photos here also.

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We've adopted eating Chinese food also, from the movie Christmas story. Dr. B 😂

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This is with extended family (grandma/grandpa, kids & spouses, and grandkids) on my husband's side of the family. We open presents from extended family Christmas day (evening), sometime day after Christmas if someone has a travel conflict. We sit in a circle and open one present at time (going around the circle). Have to say who it's from, open, and show everyone. Robert's mom started this cause she was missing seeing who gave what to whom before. When this started all the kids (my hubby, his 2 brothers, and 1 sister) had spouses, but there was only 1 grandkid. It didn't take too long, maybe 1-1.5 hours and to keep the 1 grandkid occupied, we let him pass out the presents. Now there are 7 grandkids and some are married, and 3 great grandkids, so it takes well over 2 hours, but granny still loves doing it this way. It's good for the adults and cousins, because of all the visiting, but is an extreme time investment.

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This is again on my husband's side of the family. All of us that can, meet up at the ranch around 12/30 or 12/31 and hunt through New Year's day and possibly the day after depending on how much time people have off work. Ranch is not electrified, so it's rustic and very old school with lamps you have to light, wood burning stove for heat in the room with all the bunk beds, gas oven and frig in the kitchen. It does have running water and a gas water heater now and plumbing for the sink, toilet, and shower thanks to a well my hubby and his brothers dug when they were in their teens. Before that you had to go to the outhouse to potty, and they had what amounted to a camp shower set up that they had to pour water into after warming it on the stove! All water for cooking and cleaning had to be brought in, so needless to say, they didn't shower much. Glad I missed that!

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This was my Dad's thing. He grew up in a very town (Refugio, TX) and my mom was just down the highway in an even smaller town (Woodsboro, TX) and there were loads of families that made tamales to sell for the Thanksgiving and Christmas and New Years. My Dad's family (and then ours) always ate tamales, chili, and beans for the day after those holidays. I added enchiladas and Spanish rice to our menu. My Dad really lamented when they moved out of south Texas that he couldn't ever find any good tamales or even just any tamales to buy. A few times I was able to make a trip to pick some up when I found someone in the area that made some.

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This first year we moved to Lubbock we decided to go get coffee/hot chocolate and look at lights with the kids. Well, it was still 70-80 degrees so we got ice cream. Now every Christmas Eve we get ice cream and drive around looking at lights in our PJ’s it’s the kids favorite thing because it’s only our 6!

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Each year we get either an apple or an orange in our stocking under all the candy and goodies. There is also a string attached to each person's stocking (the "elves" run them the night before). Then we each follow our string to either our present or a set of clues that lead us to our present. The string is ALL over the inside and outside of the house (minus the kitchen and bedrooms). We are all crawling through each other's strings to follow our own. If everyone is there (15+ people), we usually have to take a pause for breakfast/brunch and finish around 11:30. Makes it more about the fun/experience than what the present is at the end. :)

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We will finally start having my stepson for Christmas, so we are trying to come up with fun holiday traditions! I will be monitoring closely!

My family and I stopped buying Christmas presents for each other because we decided it was a waste of dollars. We decided to, as a group, pick a charity and donate what we would spend on presents or go shopping together and donate what we bought. We unfortunately don't live in the same states anymore because the shopping together was so fun!

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I started small Christmas trees in the last few years. Not necessarily one in each room. And so far I've collected 3 and it's so much fun to buy tiny ornaments!