On the 7th blog of Christmas: Our Christmas traditions.

Have we said how much we love Christmas already?? ;) It's the best time of year and, no matter how many years go by or how old we get, we look forward to our family traditions. Whether it be things that we do and have done since we were kids or new traditions that we only started maybe 13 years ago when we moved house, we get incredibly giddy for it all. As the big day gets closer, we thought we would share with you some of those traditions...

Harry Potter!

Christmas morning usually consists of me, Lucy and Jen being the first downstairs waiting on everyone else. We switch on the tree lights and turn on the TV, we love watching the music channels and listening to all the Christmas songs to get us geared up for the day, but our favourite thing to switch on is Harry Potter. It doesn't matter which one or where it's up to, there is something so homely and comforting about these movies that we can't help but feel happy and content while watching them, even when mum comes downstairs and it's playing in the background while we chat!

Christmas lunch.

We have never really had Christmas dinner, as our Nanna and Grandad have always done Christmas lunch. So we tend to begin our Christmas feast around 11am. When we were younger we went to their house, but for the last 13 years we have done it at our house. Our Christmas lunch consists of 3 courses, a beautiful starter that is always the same, a salad with prawns, lettuce, potatoes, prosciutto, tomatoes, olives and cheese. Sometimes there will be plates of Grandads homemade pizza or Auberjine or whatever he has been making that morning too. It is delicious! Then we have our main course of a fish pie (one of Grandad's favourites that mum makes) lamb, roast potatoes and yummy vegetables. I don't think I can actually remember us ever having a Turkey! :p Last but most definitely not least we have dessert but more on that later. :)

Pandoro!

Christmas would not be complete without a table full of delicious desserts to enjoy and munch on all afternoon. Usually we are too full from lunch to eat dessert straight away so we will sit, chat and prepare the table with all the yummy treats we have then devour them when we are ready. Our Christmas would not be the same without plenty of Italian goodies. Pandoro and Baci being our absolute must haves. We mentioned in our Christmas episode of Life is sweet that we will open up the box of Pandoro and stick our heads in just to inhale the heavenly smell...well, we weren't kidding! These are the moments where we feel the most thankful, being around the table with our family and good food is the best place to be!

Crackers.

Mum buys Christmas crackers every year. No matter how goofy the prizes or silly the jokes, we enjoy them and of course we have to wear the hats too. Our most precious memories are of Grandad reading the jokes out in his broken English and laughing to himself while his hat is falling off his head. One year it fell down and he decided to wear it around his neck and keep it like that, he looked so silly and so cute. He is the best!

National Lampoons Christmas Vacation.

We all have our favourite Christmas movies, that until you have watched them, you don't feel properly like it's Christmas don't we? Well besides our classics: The Santa Clause, Elf, The Holiday and Love Actually, our family have always sat down together to watch "National Lampoons Christmas Vacation." It doesn't matter how many times we see it, we all sit laughing and cringing at the same time. The best part is seeing our Dad laugh and enjoying himself! Clark daydreaming about the pool anyone?

Celebrations.

What could be more perfect than sitting in your pajamas by the Christmas tree, watching Christmas movies after a delicious Christmas lunch, munching on a box of Celebrations? This is one of our favourite things to do with our little sister. When we were younger we would use the Celebrations to play our own game of Fort Boyard...no really, we would hide them in the Christmas tree and all around the living room and play games to find them. One year we all swear one just disappeared, it was supposed to be in the tree but we couldn't find it, to this day we don't know where it went. What is your favourite Celebration? I don't think we could actually pick, we'll take one of each please! :)

Leftovers.

One of the best things about having Christmas lunch is that there are plenty of leftovers for dinner. Usually we eat so much at lunch that we are stuffed. Even so it never takes long till we are back in the kitchen nibbling and looking for more food. We sit at the breakfast bar sharing the leftovers and our Auntie is normally on the couch watching TV shouting for us to make her a sandwich or something too! :p

Boxing day = Pajama day.

We know Boxing day isn't a thing here in America but we tell our husbands about it all the time. We almost think Boxing day is like Black Friday, it's the day after Christmas and all the sales start in the shops. To us though, it's a day where we stay in our pajamas and watch more Christmas movies with our celebrations! :) It's also the day we sit around the table and write all our thank you cards. When we were younger mum used to have to sit with us and make sure we wrote them, usually at some point the week after Christmas, but nowadays we like surprising her and getting them done on Boxing Day! Yes at 27 we still like to surprise our mum by being good little girls!! ;) 

What are some of your Christmas/Holiday traditions? We'd love to read about them in the comments below!
Have a great day!
Love Kelly
xx