How do you celebrate Christmas?

I have been looking at some blogs recently that tell how different people celebrate their Christmasses around the world. It's really quite interesting to read about how vastly different our traditions are! I guess we get into this little space where we think that everyone celebrates just like we do, so we don't share how WE celebrate.

On that note, here is how my family and I celebrate Christmas here in Ontario, Canada. To us, Christmas is all about family. We send Christmas cards to family and friends, and shop for gifts to give our loved ones to brighten up their day. These gifts are all wrapped in bright paper and put under our tree! We have a 7 1/2 foot fake tree ( I don't like the idea of killing a living tree so I can put it in my living room and burn it after I am done with it) which my boys decorate each year.

On Dec 24th, we have tourtière for supper. This is a meat pie. I read somewhere a long time ago that it was the traditional French Christmas eve dinner, so I started making it for Christmas eve. I don't know if it really is the French traditional dinner, but it's a tradition for us now!

Some years, we go to Niagara Falls and check out their light display, but we haven't done that in a couple of years.

We usually open one gift on Christmas eve, because we just can't wait! The boys will be shaking and squeezing their gifts in anticipation of Christmas morning, and choose just one to open early.

I will tell you in another post how we actually celebrate Christmas Day, since this is getting rather long and I do need to go finish what I was doing in the kitchen now :)