Bah Hum Bug

The leaves are starting to turn yellow and orange. And as the air is cooling down I've been thinking about the holidays.

Describe your favorite holiday tradition?

Courtney: In my family, a lot of traditions center around food, like making Pumpkin Roll, Buttermilk pie, and Reindeer Droppings. It's not really Christmas or Thanksgiving with out it. But I think my favorite tradition would have to be our Christmas sibling gift exchange. As a kid we would draw names and would have 20 dollars to spend on that person. It's like a Secret Santa. Only the tradition really is how you buy the present! See, we would all pile into the car and go shopping together. We'd go into Target, get 2 carts, and start shopping. Mom would have one basket and Dad would have the other...and you'd shop for your person. The trick was that they were there too! And you had to do a cloak and dagger thing to get it into a basket without the others knowing who you had, and what you got them! Imagine having 7 people running around trying to keep everything secret. After everything was paid for, and stored safely and secretly in the back, we would go out for a nice dinner.
It's kind of hard to do it with just two people. But this is a tradition that we will do with our children. I have so many wonderful memories, and I want my children to have the same chances of creating their own magical memories!

Matt: One of my fondest memories during my early years was carving pumpkins. I loved to clean out the insides, puling out the seeds and "guts" of the pumpkin. And help my mom wash the seeds, place them on a cookie sheet, and bake them. Yumm, they are so good. We had to wait until dad was around so that we could use the sharp knives to cut out faces in the side of the pumpkin. It was always a challenge with my siblings to see who could come up with the scariest or goofiest face, and place it on the pumpkin.