A Christmas Tradition

Thanks to everyone who voted for me in the QC School of Design DIY contest.  I guess it ended a day early and I wasn't the winner.  No biggie (although I'm super competitive and winning is AWESOME).  Now to get on with life.  I want to share one of my favorite family traditions with you today.

I grew up in a teeny tiny town in Utah where I lived a hundred yards down the street from my grandparents.  Every Christmas Eve we would go to their house and have a family dinner and party with all of the aunts, uncles and cousins.  It was so much fun!  But it was always something my grandma worried about.  That's her to the left, by the way.  She always wanted everything perfect... and it was. She passed away just over a year ago so this Christmas will be the second one we'll spend without her.  I miss her so much and her Christmas Pie will live on with my family.

This Christmas Pie had nothing to do with food and everything to do with presents.  Grandma would buy small gifts for every grandchild according to gender and have them wrapped by Christmas Eve.  Then she would tie either a blue or pink string to them (depending on if they were boy or girl gifts), put them in a basket and cover the basket with a cute Christmas towel. 

We were always excited when it came time to do the Christmas Pie.  Every kid would get around the pie and grab a string.  When grandma said it was okay, we would simultaneously pull the string attached to a gift and that was the gift we got to unwrap that night -- Christmas Eve. When we all got a little older, she started buying gifts for us individually instead of just the gender and she would tape our names to the end of the string. This is one of the simplest, yet most memorable Christmas traditions in my family.  Now my cousins, siblings and I have moved away from home but every year we come together for our Christmas Eve party (which is now held at the town hall instead of Grandma's house) and we have the Christmas Pie for our kids.  This tradition will never die and it's something I'll do with my grandchildren too.

What are some of your family traditions?  If you've posted about them leave the link in the comments section!