My Christmas Traditions...

Ever wonder how the Tse's spend their Christmas? Probably not. But I'm going to tell you anyway!

Many of our traditions started when we were young and we've pretty well carried them through until the present day. Other traditions started when Susan and I started dating. And yet other traditions, if you can call them that, started just last year.

Susan and I usually start decorating the house towards the last part of November or just before December. We have a fake tree but it's decorated with all sorts of things we've picked up over the years. This year we added some Disney Christmas balls and we put on those energy-saving LED lights - which aren't as nice in my opinion but then again I am helping to save the planet, so it's a toss up. We place wreaths and garland all over the place and try to create different displays in each room of the house each year. It usually takes us a couple days to decorate everything.

By the time December rolls around, we have already been practicing with our church choir for weeks in preparation for Midnight Mass. So the Christmas season begins pretty early for us in the Tse house.

For the past 10 or so years, we've hosted a party for our friends where we'd cook them dinner and play some Reindeer games. We did a Murder Mystery once, a Survivor themed party, and an Amazing Race party. This year, we're going to Vegas, so we're not having a big party. I guess it’ll be a nice break. We'll re-tool and come back with a vengeance next year.

On Christmas Eve last year, we started the new tradition of having a BBQ! That's right, we made mouth watering slabs of baby back ribs with corn, mash potatoes and other fixin's. It was a little odd to be barbecuing in the winter, but those ribs were pretty tasty and well worth the effort. My brother and sister-in-law seemed to enjoy themselves. There was no talking - only eating.

At around 8:30 pm on Christmas Eve, Susan and I get all dressed up and head over to our church to set up while our dinner guests lie on our couch digesting. They meet us at church later on. Our choir starts caroling around 9:45. We sing a lot of traditional songs of course, but there are a lot of really great non-traditional Christmas songs too. We sing for an hour and a bit and then mass begins. The church is beautifully decorated and the lights are dimmed with candles flickering around the altar. We end mass at about, well you guessed it, midnight. Thus midnight mass.

We go home and then head off to bed pretty quickly.

Well actually, when Susan is asleep I creep downstairs and fill her stocking! She fills my stocking sometime in the morning I guess. That way we never see "Santa" filling each other's stockings. My mom and dad continued to give my brother and I (and then Susan) stockings right up until a couple years ago. Susan never had a stocking when she was young! So, we're making up for lost time.

On Christmas morning, we get up around 9:00 and Susan and I run downstairs and dump out our stockings. We have to hurry though as we have our parents and siblings and their significant others over for breakfast. Everyone brings something different. We have eggs, waffles, assorted salted pork products, and egg nog. My family loves egg nog. We drink that stuff like it only comes out once a year. Wait... Susan's family? Not so much.

After breakfast, we open PRESENTS!! Our families usually bring over all of their gifts too so we have a giant present opening extravaganza. Susan, being the control freak that she is (I mean that in a good way), doles out the presents. We take turns opening gifts and ooing and ahhing at what everyone gets. As each gift gets opened, we crumple up the wrapping paper and throw it at my mom, who is carrying a large garbage bag. She is the keeper of the trash. My dad is usually filming the festivities so he can relive it later that day.

After all the gifts are opened, we clean up a little and then kick everyone out! We make some phone calls to say thank you for gifts and call some of our out of town friends to wish them a merry Christmas.

After a quick lunch, we start cooking for Christmas dinner! Susan and I generally cook all the big feasts - Thanksgiving, Easter, Christmas, special birthdays, Kwanzaa etc. It's just sort of a thank you to our families for all they've done for us in the past. We usually get my bro to pay for the turkey though. You'll see why in a second. Susan and I spend most of the afternoon preparing for dinner. We always have a turkey with gravy and cranberry sauce but we try to change up all the side dishes so every meal is a little different. It lets us be creative in the kitchen.

At around 6:30 guests start to arrive. We have between 12-35 people. It varies year by year depending on who is around and who has displeased me over the course of the year. I'm kidding about that last part...or am I? After dinner, my brother takes out his bucket and starts loading up the leftovers. I've actually weighed his bucket, and he takes home on average about 7-8 pounds of leftovers. He's actually made this a tradition at every large meal. It just wouldn't be the same without THE BUCKET. After dinner, we relax, eat dessert and then get fat.

It's a crazy time of the year but it always ends up to be fun. We have a lot to be thankful for and we're truly blessed to be able to celebrate Christmas so fully each year.

So that's it!

Merry Christmas!