I love Christmas.

I don’t know if it’s the fact that it’s finally acceptable to put a tree in your house or the red and green color scheme. It might be the stockings by the fire place or the presents under the tree. It might be celebrating the birth of Christ by candlelight Christmas Eve as we sing Silent Night.

I love the season, I love the way people treat one another, and I love the way that Christmas movies and music are joyously anticipated so much so that people argue over whether or not they can be played before Thanksgiving.

Since I was little, we have had many different Christmas traditions around the house.

Christmas starts with my mom, dad and me opening my stocking. My dad then goes for a run while my mom and I make cinnamon rolls (from the tube of course) and watch "Arthur’s Perfect Christmas." We then get ready, and my sisters and the boys arrive. We open gifts as a family and make the same bad jokes every year. After we open gifts, we all disperse to get ready in our own ways. Whether it’s helping my mom get food ready in the kitchen or helping my dad figure out which wrapping paper is best to go in the fireplace, we all contribute in some way.

After a while, my extended family all comes over and it turns into a massive social hour. By the fireplace, in the living room, or around all the snacks in the kitchen, everyone is updating one another on their lives from the last year's time frame, or however long its been since we’ve all been together.

After a while, we eat dinner together. We have twice baked potatoes, asparagus, and salad. We’ve had soup bars and taco dip, and all these random different foods that somehow magically collide to form a delicious meal.

For dessert, we snack on peanut butter blossoms, peppermint bark, and sugar cookies shaped like stockings with all of our names written across them in icing.

We continue to eat and talk and talk and eat until someone brings up gifts. We all gather in the living room and what starts out organized and slow quickly turns into chaos. Wrapping paper litters the floor, ribbon is being twirled around many different hands, and gifts are being oohed and ahhed over as people open their different presents and thank one another.

After a while, as the all the gifts are opened and the room begins getting cleaned up, we kind of settle into this rest period. It is quieter, and the dishes are all being done. It’s a post-meal nap, without as much sleep.

After the extended family heads out and the house becomes quiet again, we all scramble to clean up the random plates of food left out, the wrapping paper bits still lingering on the living room carpet, and dance around the kitchen putting things away and talking about the highlights of the day.

We then gather in the family room by the fire and watch "It's A Wonderful Life" together. It’s quiet, the fire is crackling and we’ve all seen the movie a million times. We know every quote and we each have our favorite scenes. We watch the movie, everyone falls asleep at least once, and Christmas comes to a close.