Learning2Exhale: New traditions

Growing up we did the big celebrating on Christmas Eve (Noche Buena) we would house hop to my grandparents on my moms side and then go to my godmothers house and our last stop would be my grandparents house on my dads side. All the kids got to open gifts at 12 midnight and it was so much fun. It was a large Peruvian family and my grandparents who we called Lito and Lita their wedding anniversary fell on Christmas so it always warms my heart to remember the kisses they would give each other every year.

Lito passed away last year on fathers day and they would have made 50 years of marriage. May he rest in peace and we miss you and love dearly.

Lito and Lita on our wedding day April 5, 2008

I digress, but the point I was trying to make is when will our family open gifts? When I was a kid we would get home from my grandparents house and then we were allowed to open our gifts under our tree it was about 3 o'clock in the morning at this time. So we always said that we opened gifts on Christmas Eve but really it was just the butt crack of dawn Christmas morning.

We have to create new traditions for our family and we decided to open gifts Christmas morning where everyone is coherent and alert. Also, no one has to go to bed after opening their gifts and have to wait to play with them in the morning. But we will get to open one gift Christmas Eve and that will most likely be our Christmas Pj's. So here we go we are starting a Russell family tradition with our daughter we will wear our new Christmas Pj's while we open gifts Christmas morning.

We kind of already started the tradition two years ago I opened my first set of PJ's.