In my household, Christmas is a huge deal. Christmas Eve and Christmas Day are filled with traditions, such as the Italian tradition of the seven fishes on Christmas Eve, leaving cookies out for Santa, and waking up unnaturally early on Christmas day. Even though I’m now 19 years old, I still act like a child on Christmas. I leave out cookies for Santa and I make my mom or dad eat a bite out of it to make it look like he was there. Then, I go to bed on Christmas Eve and my mom puts out the gifts. Then, the magic begins on Christmas morning.

On every other day of the year, I am a pain to wake up and will sleep the day away. However, on Christmas morning, I will gladly wake up at 7 AM with a massive smile on my face. I know everyone is still sleeping, so I quietly tiptoe into the living room. I see all of the gifts lined up under the Christmas tree. There are two piles: one for me and one for my sister. I always try to figure out which one is mine by seeing if I can decipher what’s in the boxes based on what I asked for. Then, once I take a look at the bite in Santa’s cookies, I wake everyone up. This is the part that annoys everyone.

First, I go to my sister’s room. I jump on her bed on top of her to wake her up. She moans and says, “Gianna, please stop. I want to sleep.” In return, I will annoyingly whine, “Come on D, it’s Christmas! Wake up!!!!!” I continue the whining until she gets up.

One down. Two to go.

I go into my parent’s room and they are half awake because they heard me whining to my sister in the other room. I say to them, “Get up!! It’s time to open presents!” My dad gets up easily because he’s a morning person, but my mom rolls out of bed slowly and moans like my sister.

Once everyone is awake, we make some coffee and open presents. My sister and I make sure that we are dressed cutely because my mom takes a thousand pictures of us opening our presents. After my sister and I open our presents, my mom and dad open theirs, and then, of course, my dog Bella gets some presents of her own. I swear that she gets the most presents out of all of us because she is the favorite daughter.

After presents, we all sit down and watch the Disney Christmas parade on television. This is my favorite part of Christmas morning because it combines two of my favorite things: Disney and Christmas. There is nothing better than Mickey Mouse wearing a Santa hat with fake snow in Florida and California. As we watch, we sing along and eat Christmas cookies for breakfast, which is a tradition in my family on Christmas day. Even though we’ve only been up for an hour at this point, I feel like a whole day has gone by with all of the activity and excitement. But the day has just begun because our extended family will be coming to us later on to celebrate the rest of the day.

Even though I’m technically an adult now, Christmas morning will always be magical for me. Being with family, seeing people light up when they open up gifts, and eating Christmas cookies for breakfast are simple joys that I will never want to give up on my Christmas mornings.