I'm a poet, don't ya know it. This is my sister's tree from last year. I think I made everyone a bit nervous with my picture taking. When my Mom was alive we used to go to her house on Christmas eve and open presents. I have opened my Christmas gifts on Christmas eve for as long as I can remember. Way back. But, since my Mom died, my daughter, niece, and nephew open them on Christmas morning.
My Mom said she had too much to do on Christmas day with getting the dinner ready and all. Because we were such a large family, it takes hours to open the gifts. So, she moved the opening of gifts to Christmas eve. Well, that was real hard to convince kids to open them the night before NOT! So, a tradition began.
It was nice also because we could have better food. Personally, I hate breakfast food like pancakes, etc. On Christmas eve we could have all the goodies, cookies, cakes, meatballs, cheeseballs, cheesetrays, sloppy jo's, Italian sausages, barbecue ham, creamed chicken, relish tray, veggie tray, veggie pizza, oh the list goes on and on.. Oh, and alcohol. :)
Since I was the youngest and the smallest (well, we are talking years ago), I used to sit under the tree and hand my Mom the gifts. She would announce the name and hand them the gift. The later years, we didn't buy each other gifts anymore, just bought for the kids, and 90% of the gifts ended up being for my Mom. It became very tedious sitting under that tree. Especially after I turned 35. I tried very hard to hand the job over to a niece, but the family wouldn't hear of it. I think they just liked to torture me. I fumed because I kept spilling my beer.
Oh, memories. We would try to begin opening gifts at 7:30. It usually ended at 11:30 or midnight. My Mom insisted that only one person at a time could open a gift so that we could all see it before moving on to the next gift. Then when they were all for my Mom we just sat and watched her open them. Every once in a while a kid would have one to open. My Mom always hung stockings for each grandchild with a little money in it. My sister always bought lottery tickets for the kids. Get them started gambling early! Yeah!
My middle brother would sit on the steps.From there you could see down into the living room and the gift opening. My Mom would decorate the stairs every year with garland that had little plastic red berries on it. Over the years, my middle brother would throw those berries at us down below in the living room, so as the years went by, the garland had less and less berries. He is such a clown.
I miss my Mom and the Christmas eve's. It just isn't the same. We all do our own thing on Christmas eve, now. And, on Christmas day we all get together at my eldest sister's house for dinner. If we can make it. The sister's usually get together. Except for my niece's Mom. The niece that I have custody of. She is usually out of the picture around the holidays. Oh, well. Things change over the years. My Mom liked for things to stay the same. She was very stubborn.