UGA Christmas
One tradition I celebrate during the holidays with my friends and family is UGA Christmas. Every year on December 23rd, we have my mom's college roomates Amber and Stefanie and our friends come over to mom's house for our annual UGA christmas get together. We call it "UGA Christmas" because mom, Amber, and Stefanie all went to the University of Georgia. Most of us are UGA football fans except for my brother. It's stressful for my mom getting the house ready, but it's so much fun hanging out, talking, and catching up. Mom is usually working on preparing dinner when everybody starts arriving and I catch up with my buddy Jared until dinner is ready. Then we eat dinner at the kitchen table and in the living room. After dinner, we will all gather in the living room for dessert and to open presents. Once we finish dessert and opening presents, we take a group picture and sometimes watch marching band videos on Youtube.
Christmas Eve
For as long as I can remember, we have always gone up to my great grandmother's house on Christmas Eve except this year because Grannie Jo was recovering from the flu. Anyway, normally on Christmas Eve, my mom, brother, and I go up to Grannie Jo's house in Tate, GA, and spend time with Grannie Jo, my Cousin Chris, his wife Tanya, and their son Lucas, Aunt Linda, my Uncle Ryan, and sometimes cousin Chloe. We eat food, spend time together, and open presents.
Christmas Day
Christmas Day starts by spending the morning with mom and opening stockings and presents with her. Then dad picks my brother and I up at noon to spend Christmas and New Year's at his house with him, my stepmom, and stepsisters. Once we get to dad's house, we'll normally start by snacking on appetizers and opening our stockings. I'm not sure how long we've been doing it, but when it comes to the stockings, we decided that everyone in the family pick someone else's name and whoever you picked, you had to buy and wrap whatever they wanted in their stocking. After we open stockings, we relax for a few hours and then have dinner before opening presents. After dinner and before we open presents, we'll pray about Jesus being born and also read the part in the bible regarding his birth. Once we do that, presents are distributed one at a time and once everyone gets a present that's addressed to them from whoever, we open them and continue that pattern until there aren't any presents left under the tree.
New Year's Eve
Every year on New Year's Eve, my stepmom's friends Matthew and Julia and their son Dominic come over to our house to celebrate with us. We'll usually eat snacks, play games, watch tv, and if a college football team is playing in a bowl game, I'll sometimes keep track of the score online. Around midnight, we'll sometimes turn on the tv to watch the Times Square ball drop or a channel similar to that. Once the clock hits midnight, we'll excitedly say "Happy New Year" to each other. Even though I'm sometimes usually upstairs in my bedroom by the time it happens, it's still exciting. Last year, I posted pictures from throughout the year on Facebook. I think I'm gonna do it again this year, and will possibly continue it in the future. I'll probably call it my "Social media New Year memories tradition" or something similar to that.
