Happy Thursday friends! I thought I would break things up with some fun Christmas facts about me and my family, as well as some of our traditions. I would love to hear you answer some of these!
1.) Real of fake tree? We have a fake tree, and I always had a fake one growing up due to owning cats + having allergies to lots of things. Plus, our last fake tree lasted I want to say 6 or 7 years so it ended up being way cheaper than buying real every year.
2.) Christmas morning breakfast? It depends. for a few years I made a special danish thing, but last year I didn’t since I had a three month old, so not sure what will happen this year! Sometimes we just eat leftovers from Christmas eve. 
3.) Favorite Christmas Album? Definitely the Carpenters. I grew up listening to it over and over so it just means Christmas to me to hear it!
4.) Where do you spend Christmas? We spend it with my side of the family. Bobby’s family all gets together at Thanksgiving but not really at Christmas so it just makes more sense. We spend Christmas eve with my parents, and on Christmas day we all go to my cousin’s house (everyone used to come to my parent’s house.) 
5.) Favorite Christmas movie: This one is tough! The Santa Clause, Elf, and Christmas with the Kranks are all up there. OH! and Home Alone. Gah this is too hard!
6.) What’s on your wish list: A new lens for my camera.
7.) Any traditions? I usually make snicker cookies on Christmas eve, and we always read ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas as well as the Christmas story from the Bible.
8.) Stockings, yes or no? My parents always have a stocking for us, but last year and this year Bobby and I aren’t doing stockings because we would rather use that money to travel than on trinkets we don’t really need.
9.) Do you put up outside lights? Yes! It makes me sad that it seems less and less people do this. Growing up we would drive around on Christmas eve and look at the lights. Now we are hard pressed to find hardly any in our neighborhood.
10.) Do you open presents Christmas Eve or Christmas Day? Growing up we opened presents from my grandparents on Christmas eve, and then gifts from my parents and Santa Christmas morning. My parents also used to let us open one gift from them on Christmas eve. Now we just do everything Christmas morning.
I can’t wait to see how our traditions evolve as Emma Kate gets old enough to understand Christmas!
QOTD: Answer one of the above questions in a comment!
I was noticing that not many people decorate outside for Christmas anymore also.
So sad because at Halloween the whole neighborhood was decorated!
I am all about the fake tree and I love your gate idea. I need that for my 1 year old!
I’ve always had a fake tree because we didn’t want to deal with the mess of a live one.
Some of my neighbors in my apartment complex have decorated their balconies, both for Halloween and Christmas. It’s fun if I’m coming home at night and i see the lights on.
The Carpenters – yes! One of my favorites, too!! 🙂 We also open presents on Christmas morning…I feel as if it helps Christmas stretch out a bit rather than opening them all on Christmas Eve! 🙂
What a fun post! Love your house:)
Thanks!
Your house looks beautiful! Here in Anchorage people don’t like putting up Christmas lights, so it’s hard to find good ones. When I lived in Philly people were out of control with the Christmas lights and I loved driving around to look at them all!
Thanks! That pic is actually of the house we lived in before this one, but it looked beautiful in Christmas lights!
Christmas becomes so much more special when you have kids to share it with. My son is almost 6 and I love all of the traditions that we are creating for him. I love outdoor Christmas lights too! There are neighborhoods near us that go all out with lights and even have tours that you can go on. We go every year and my son loves it!
So fun! I can’t wait until next year when EK understands a little bit more!
I grew up having a real tree. There was never any questions about it in our house even though my dad would try to be the grinch and say we were getting a fake one. Tradition was always to get it the weekend after my birthday (dec 12th.) This year my husband and I bucked tradition because the weather has been so nice. It probably won’t get decorated till then because we’ve had a busy week. We love putting lights up outside and this is the first christmas in our house so we were super excited to do so.
I remember decorating our first year, it was so fun finding a spot for everything!
Christmas morning breakfast…now that my kids are beyond the Santa thing, I make a crockpot breakfast casserole that cooks overnight. Then I can eat while said children sleep the day away 🙂
Good idea!