Southern Weddings

Right now I can’t get "we need a little christmas" out of my head. I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s my favorite, but it’s there now!

My favorite holiday song is Joy to the World. I think during the holidays many people forget the reason for the season, and this song always makes me remember why we are celebrating Christmas! Happy Holidays!

I’m a sucker for duets so I’d have to say "Baby, It’s Cold Outside." Plus, as a Chicago native, I am really relating to it right now!

O’Holy Night… best Christmas song ever. Especailly by Nat King Cole!!!!

Hands down my favorite holiday song is "Happy Christmas (War is Over)" by John Lennon. I don’t think that there could be any song that makes me feel so happy and inspired during the holidays. I get chills every time I hear it!

My favorite Christmas song, is without a doubt – "I want a Hippopotamus for Christmas". This song is a rare gem! If you haven’t heard it before – check it out on you tube. You will never forget it! That song could put me in the Christmas spirit anytime of the year! It really does take you back to your childhood, when you could barely stand to wait until Christmas, to get that one gift you’ve been obsessing over!http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtqIM_bPTws

My favorite Christmas song is Better Days by Goo Goo Dolls. It’s a wonderful song for the rest of the year but it has special meaning at Christmas and helps us to remember what Christmas is really about. Give it a listen and you’ll see what I mean :)

Baby it’s Cold Outside by Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong. Hearing it sung in the movie Elf by Zooey Deschanel and Will Farrell is the best part of the movie.

Baby It’s Cold Outside, I love love love that song.

I love the theme song from Christmas Vacation! It’s always one of the first Christmas movies we watch each year, and since it’s the first thing you hear in the movie, it’s one of the songs that really kicks off the season for me!

Either "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" by Jack Johnson or "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" by the Bruce… I can’t decide!

My favorite holiday song would be anything from the "love actually" movie. its the first movie I turn on when it starts to get cold… that and ‘elf’.

My favorite Christmas song is I’ll be Home for Christmas. I’ve always loved that song and especially now that I actually don’t live at home anymore!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME! HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME! HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!! HAPPEEEEEEE BIRTHDAYYYYYY TOOOOOOO MEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Cause today is my birthday! LOL!

Frosty the Snowman

"All I Want for Christmas"… but Whitney Duncan’s new version of it!http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?i=294342098&id=294342095&s=143441

Silent Night is the epitome of Christmas to me :)

My favorite is Silver Bells!

Last Christmas by Jimmy Eat World!!

Hear the Bells!

I absolutely love " A Wonderful Christmas Time" by Paul McCartney. Each time I hear it, I just have to bop my head and sing along…"simply having a wonderful Christmas time." You can’t be in a bad mood when you hear that song.

"O Holy Night" is my all time favorite! I first heard it sung by an opera singer and feel in love with it. A couple of years ago, Target put out a Christmas CD and Kelly Clarkston blew me away singing that song.

All I want for Christmas -Chipmunks!

I have two: Better Day by Goo Goo Dolls or Hark the Herald Angels Sing.

Bing Crosby’s "O Holy Night". Years ago, my father sang this as a solo with the church choir behind him. He passed away 9 years ago, but every time I hear that song, I feel his presence.

Hark the Herald Angels Sing is my favorite Christmas song! I make it my special request at our Christmas Eve service every year.

I absolutely positively ADORE the Carol of the Bells.

It would have to be Ray Charles "That Spirit of Christmas". I guess I love it so much because of the movie "National Lampoon’s Chrismas Vacation". The classic scene when Chevy Chase is sitting in the attic watching old movies. Love [email protected]

I love when the Chipmunks’ song comes on the radio! I know it is a little annoying, but it reminds me of when I was little and used to play it on my Fisher Price record player. I would turn it up to hi speed so the chipmunks sounded even more high pitched!

Mariah Carey’s version of "All I Want for Christmas is You" always gets me in the holiday mood!

absolutely "it’s beginning to look a lot like christmas" and sleigh bells!!!

I’ll Be Home For Christmas! Christmas is definitely a time meant for family and friends.

"Santa Baby" because it puts a smile on everyone’s face!

Alvin and the Chipmunks "Christmas Don’t Be Late" is definitely the one that has kept me singing for 22 years. :-)

We always open all of our gifts on Christmas eve and stockings on Christmas morning. But I’m looking forward to creating new traditions with my fiance!

Over the past few years, I have relocated frequently for my job. Some years, I was unable to make it home for Christmas. My mom began the tradition of mailing me my favorite southern grocery store chain cake. Now, even though I’m back in the South and can run down the street to that grocery store, and even come home for Christmas, she still mails me a special Christmas package that includes the cake!

I have 2 favorite holiday traditions now that I’m engaged. When we celebrate with my family, we always go to the movies on Christmas Day. You’d be surprised, but the theatres are actually quite busy on Christmas. And my second… when we’re with my fiance’s family…his mom’s delicious tamales that only come out during the holidays! They’re delish!

My dad used to tie our gifts to kite strings, then wind the bobbins all over the house. It would take hours to find the gifts, and they’d usually be within 20 feet of the starting point. I’ve started doing that with my friends now, and it’s so much fun!My other favorite? Making tons of cookies!

Its a tradition that we no longer have since I have taken over doing the preparation of the Holiday meals. However, growing up it was tradition in my house that I was the "taster" for all the dishes. As my grandmother and mother prepared our holiday meal I was called in to taste the dishes as they were prepared to see if they were seasoned or flavored right. I think it started as a way to make me feel as though I was helping out in the kitchen (though I was too young to do any of the serious cooking), however, it helped me to learn all the recipes from my grandmother and mother, ones which I lovingly prepare for my family now.Hopefully when my fiance and I have children we can make them the special "tasters".

We would go outside and grab some clean snow, then swirl maple syrup over it. Tasty :) and suitable for us poor people. After that, we’d be all sticky while opening presents, but that just made it easier to get the wrapping paper all in one heap — stuck to our fingers.

Every year after Christmas dinner and the family has exchanged gifts we all sit down and play games– Wheel of Fortune, Deal or no Deal DVDs are among the favorites. It is always extremely intense because everyone is so ridiculously competitive. It definitely makes for fun times every year though!

When my parents first moved to the U.S., they didn’t have enough money to spend on unnecessary items like a tree and ornaments. That first Christmas here, my mother and brother hand made ornaments. Thusly, they started a family tradition where each person gets to make an ornament out of whatever they like. They’re considered family heirlooms and every year, we pull them out and decorate the tree with them as well as store-bought ornaments. Each one has a story though and the ornaments have chronicled my family’s history here. My mother keeps them all and delicately wraps all of the ornaments up after each Christmas – some are just made with photographs or cutouts of Holiday books with toothpick glued onto them as frames. It’s a tradition I hope to continue when I start putting up my own family tree.

Christmas eve cooking!!!! Lots and lots of stirring in the kitchen and weird enough, barbecue in the middle of the night. My siblings and I really love it. More than the gifts I think it’s the togetherness of the family that makes holiday worth celebrating.

We always have my mom’s beef stew on Christmas Eve with homemade cornbread, and on Christmas day we make sure to watch either A Christmas Story or National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation so we get in some good laughs together.

For large gifts (coats, sporting equipment, off shapped gifts, etc.) my family starts with one written clue on the Christmas tree that then leads to another clue hidden somewhere in the house. The recepient follows the series of clues and discovers the present at it’s final destination.

Gosh, this is the reason I love Christmas so much…everyone has something so special. We actually do two unique things…when my mom was a little girl her mom always bought pomegranite’s for the children so we do the same thing. My mom also still buys me an Advent calendar every year. I still get just as excited as I did to open it every day as I did when I was a little girl!

We have a tradition at Christmas, every year, no matter how cold it is…all of my cousins, my brothers, my step dad and a few of my uncles and me get out and play basketball in my Ma-Maw’s front yard. Everyone is so competitive and is so much fun trash talking people you only get to see a few times a year. Its all in good fun and we have a blast.

We exchange one present on Christmas Eve for a cliffhanger for Christmas morning!!

This is really silly but my sister and I used to dress up as elves on Christmas morning and put all our gifts to our family in a huge black garbage bag (our Santa sack!)…we’d try to get dressed really quietly at 5 am but would be giggling and loud, hahha. We’d go around and drag our family members of bed so we could all go down and sit by the tree and open gifts. Such a great memory.

My little brother and I, who is 13 years younger than I am have started our own tradition. For the past five years – we have been doing a "random gift exchange". The price limit is $15 – but most of the time it is things we find. Who ever is the "most random" wins bragging rights for a year! Some gifts have included – raw chicken feet in a cooler, a potato, the scariest looking 6 foot pinata you’ve ever seen, my fiance’s dad’s old ponytail ( he had cut it off, and kept it?? it was about 6 inches long!), a pair of run over reading glasses he found while riding his bike, and a homemade sandwich of worms and dirt. This has become one of the things I look forward to most at Christmas!

For about 20 years, I coordinated a Christmas Eve dinner (with singing Christmas carols and everything) with my immediate family and family members that live next door to my parents. In the most recent years, I have cooked the entire meal myself. Since I’ve been around, we have had Christmas breakfast next door at my aunt’s house.

One of my favorite traditions is going to my grandparents’ house the Sunday before Christmas. Because my family is huge, everyone draws one name and we all exchange gifts after a great lunch of homemade biscuits, eggs, grits, and cubed steak. (My Grandmother makes the best biscuits!) We have been doing this since I was little and I look forward to it each year. Since then, my family has grown a lot and I am more grateful each year for the time we have together. .

Christmas night we always load the whole family up in the largest car available and drive around to see all the local Christmas lights. We’re packed in a car like sardines….but we laugh and have a great time.

We’re an interfaith family, and to recognize both Christian and Jewish traditions, we celebrate Hannukah first, which means we don’t decorate the tree (usually) until Christimas Eve! It can be a little hectic, but that way we celebrate both holidays fully.

I don’t live near my family. They all live at least 1000 miles away. Every year, I send an ornament that reminds me of them to each family member. I also call each family member first thing in the morning Christmas day and listen to them open their presents from me. It’s as close as I can get to spending the holidays with them sometimes!

Now that we are "grown up" my sister and I do not spend the night at my parents on Christmas Eve, but we still come over for brunch in the morning. That time around the table with just our immediate family (and now spouses) is the best.

While it started out by accident, it is now become tradition — I fall asleep each Christmas Eve to "A Christmas Story" playing on television.

Instead of getting each other presents, my best friend since pre-school and I "adopt" a deserving child from my second grade teacher’s class. It’s so much fun shopping for little kids – especially for someone who has so little. We’ve been doing this since high school and have so much fun shopping together, wrapping the presents, and dropping the presents off from their Secret Santa.

Last year, my fiancee told me that we should exchange one gift on Christmas eve. I thought I was getting a Christmas ornament, but he proposed! We decided to exchange one gift each on Christmas eve ever year in honor of our engagement. Its a nice time for us to quietly escape from crazy family events for a few minutes!

We have the tradition of on Christmas Eve we tell the story of Jesus’ birth to all the children in the family and on Christmas Day after dinner everyone volunteers at the local shelter to give out coats and toys to needy children.

My brothers and I would always open our stockings first and eat our Reese’s Christmas trees for breakfast. It definitely isn’t the most healthy meal, but I love our delicious tradition!!

Every year on the night before Christmas we all get to pick out one present to unwrap. It’s so great because everyone puts a lot of strategy into the one they pick. There’s a lot of shaking gifts on this night. I personally always try to pick one that I think we can share and enjoy that evening. Coffee table books and games are always fun. This year I opened up fix a flat, a gift from my mom! Maybe better luck next year!!

Ever since I left for college, my mother and I call each other up and light our hanukkah candles together on the phone at the exact same time. We are thinking of upgrading to webcam next year.

My family always makes a traditional scandinavian bread with raisins on Christmas Eve. My mom and I start making the bread in the afternoon, and cook it on the stove in the evening. It doesn’t feel like Christmas without it!

Instead of presents, my fiance and I place little love notes or hand-made coupons (usually for footrubs) in a small mailbox ornament. Once our christmas tree is up and the ornaments hung, we just keep sneaking notes in there until we take the tree down. That way there is always a little surprise there when you walk by. What makes it even more special is that I have had that ornament in my family since I was a little kid and my mom gifted it to us when my fiance and I moved in together.

When I was growing up, my mom worked at the Department of Social Services. It took me until I was much older to really realize everything she did, but, I always knew it was important. On the days leading up to Christmas, my mom and I would collect gifts from church groups, families, and community organizations whom my mother had solicited to "adopt" a family for Christmas. These families had often taken on 1 or more foster children and had several other kids of their own. Barely scrapping by beforehand, the addition of foster children placed a tremendous financial strain on the family, especially at Christmas. Mom and I would take these gifts and then wrap them and label them (no easy task!). On Christmas Eve, my mom and I would drive around and deliver "Santa" gifts to these families. I will never forget the looks on their faces and the joy in their smiles as they humbly received the gifts that another family, a family of strangers, had sacrificed for and lovingly bought them. Each year I looked forward to doing this with my mom. Even though it was often stressful and extremely time consuming, my mother never stopped until she knew she had gifts for everyone she possibly could – even buying them herself at times. She really taught me what Christmas was all about!!

One of our family’s favorite traditions is pizza on Christmas Eve. The year after my parents got married, she and my father, who is in the military, went home for the holidays. They went out to dinner on Christmas Eave at a little neighborhood pizzeria with my grandparents and it started snowing – the first snow of the year. It ended up being the last Christmas for my grandmother, since she was diagnosed with breast cancer the following January. That Christmas Eve though was so magical, that remembering my grandmother and eating pizza became a part of our Christmas Eve tradition.

When I was young, we did not hang stockings in our very large family of 8 children. We decorated the tree on Christmas Eve and then opened one package each Christmas morning from Santa. On the Feast of the Epiphany, or Three Kings’ Day, we’d leave our shoes out by our bedsides and small gifts representing the gold, frankincense, and myrhh would appear…supposedly dropped by the three kings as they made their way to the Infant Jesus’s manger. This event on January 6 would close our Christmas season. It was so fun to wonder throughout those "12 days of Christmas" that I carried on that tradition with my own children.