Flashback Friday, Christmas traditions!!

I'm going to have to change it up a little and go with Jill on Flashback Friday!!!

Here are 5 flashback memories/traditions from Christmas time while I was growing up in Albuquerque, NM:

5. Going to pick out the perfect tree, I liked it to be full and bushy and Jason and Mom liked the spaced out limbs to hang ornaments in...we would strap to the top of the sedan and bring it on home to put the knitted afghan tree skirt that Granny Shaw had made around it. Also, something I remember that probably sounds so crazy to a southerner is that we would put strands of chili pepper lights around the tree.

4. SNOW DAY!! We had plenty of those and we would take our inner tubes up to the mountain (Sandia Mountain) and go tubing down the hill, some of the best memories I have were in the mountains tubing or skiing.

3. Going to the airport every Christmas Eve to pick up my Granny from MS. Dean would show me the out going planes high in the sky on the way to the airport and say "that sure does look like Santa, he must be getting close!"

2. On Christmas Eve we would set out Luminarias (brown lunch bag with sand in the bottom and a votive candle to light it up) lining our driveway and sidewalk, it was a Southwestern tradition we picked up when we moved there, it was so pretty when all the houses would put these out.

1. Our hallway picture...before we were allowed to go see what Santa had left us we all had to sit in the hall (no brushing hair, changing, or peeking!) My mom now has an album full of all the "hall pictures" from when Dean and Jason were babies up through Hudson and Harrison in the hall on their first Christmas! ( I will have to get one to put on here!)

I have some vivid and special Christmas memories from being a kid, thanks Mom and Dad, I only hope we can have some traditions that the boys will remember forever and carry on to their families one day.

My sister-in-law Ashley gave me a great idea and I want to pass it on. She buys a voice recordable ornaments every year and lets Lucy and Grayson say "Merry Christmas" on it and say a few things that Santa brought them. She said it was such a great way to preserve their little voices and that now they press the button daily to listen to what they got and how they sounded years ago. She also suggested getting a recordable ornament and getting the Grandparents to say "Merry Christmas" and a little message for the kids so that they will always have a memento of their voice for when they are gone someday. Merry Christmas!!