Most people have holiday traditions or at a minimum new traditions that they are trying to establish. Over the years my holidays have changed with such epic life events like marriage, divorce, kids, illness, elder family members and deaths in the family, but the traditions help keep everything centered and familiar.

Every Christmas morning my son, his wife, my sister and her significant other, my parents, my dog(*) and myself get together at the parents home for breakfast and gift exchange. I'm the one that ends up making breakfast, and its always centered around my home made country sausage. This year, I'll be making stuffed french toast sticks! We elected to not do a gift exchange this year, and just enjoy each others company and watch "A Christmas Story" (another tradition).

New Years eve is spent at home with the dog(*) and watching fireworks around the lake I live on. This gives me a good opportunity to train the dog, and a new one this year; to not fear the fireworks and to relax in the moment.

So...what are your family traditions?

mine are
Christmas eve i always go to my grandfathers home at 3 to spend time with the family exchange (small) gifts..Then over to my grandmothers house at 5 to eat and enjoy family making conversation and exchange gifts..I then come home and cuddle up with my wife on the couch to watch some tv and relax

christmas morning we open gifts of course..then in the afternoon me my dad my baby sister and my step mom and my wife always go over to my oldest sisters house for a christmas dinner and small gift exchange..and then my dad my sister and i and my wife go to my uncles house to visit with my aunt uncle/cousins grandma and great grandma it always happens in that order and its pretty much how its always been\

and new years eve i just sit at home have some beer and watch ''the ball drop''..not the party goer who goes out to often id rather sit at home relax with a few brews and thats about it for me

We head over to my moms on the 24th for supper and a few gifts. Then on the 25th we switch off each year between my house, and my brothers house. That'* about it.

24th is also my moms birthday, we always head over to her church and listen to a christmas sermon.

25th I. Do an early morning gift exchange at my dads, then head back to my moms for lunch and an afternoon gift exchange. Then my dads whole family meets at my grandmas on Sunday to watch the football game, and do another gift exchange and white elephant.

Never was a New Years part goer myself, given my druthers I prefer to go camp out some where for the night. Or stay home and eat chinese food lol.
Funny you mention the dogs and fireworks, the people we got our dog from said he would get stressed out by loud noises but in all the time we've had him the only thing he doesn't seem to like is the sound of my angle grinder. Other than that he'll hangout with me while I run the chain saw, air hammer, shoot of fireworks, he'll sit right at our side when the wife and I are target shooting, and when I hears me chamber a round in the shotgun he gets all excited and wants to come along with me.

It'* all about conditioning isn't it Jack? I make a habit of taking my dogues favorite treats when we watch fireworks. When one goes off, the dog gets a treat. When they associate the yummy treat with the funny noise, they are no longer frightened and look forward to it. I learned this trick while training hunting dogs from puppies. I would fire a cap gun off just before they ate.....worked like a champ!

thats pretty much how i get my coon dogs and hounds used to it

Well, on Christmas eve, my family and I go to my grandparents house for some dinner, then go to church. Then go back to their house for some gift exchange. Afterwords, we come back to our house to open presents (it'* convenient that my grandparents and us are neighbors), the reason we open presents on Christmas Eve is because my dad is a firefighter, and my mom is a nurse, so it is very rare that they are both off for Christmas. The whole "Santa" thing didn't last long in our house. On Christmas day, afternoonish we go to my aunts house for dinner and gift exchange.

I'm starting a New One This year !!!

I plan on asking my girlfriend the "Question"....














































































Can we have an open Relationship LMFAO...........


































I hope I have enough beer !!!



haha this is going to be FUN!!! Cause she has no idea

and for the record if stealth doesn't show up again here we know what happened LOL