Holiday Traditions

Me in front of the giant tree downtown

Back when I was adamantly 'respecting the bird,' I touched on several of my Thanksgiving day traditions (as silly as they can be), but now that Thanksgiving is officially over, it's Christmas time.. And we have some legit holiday traditions. The first one actually starts on Thanksgiving day right around when the food coma starts to kick in and we're all buzzin' on our mimosas and white russians. That's when we watch these two wonderful, Christmassy movies.

Hilarious? Check. Taking place during the holidays? Check. Inappropriate? Double check. Perfect. If you haven't seen either of these movies and don't offend easily, I strongly encourage you to check them out immediately.

Every year we get a real, live tree and usually chop it down ourselves (after hours of deciding which one is perfect, of course). Then we watch more traditional Christmas movies (my mom's favorite is "It's A Wonderful Life" even though my sister and I think it's way depressing) while stringing popcorn and cranberries to hang on the tree.

One of my very favorite traditions, however, is gingerbread house decorating! My mom has legit cast iron molds and she bakes the gingerbread herself every year. Check out my house from last year:

Also, I'm absolutely in love with holiday parties.. especially ones of the Ugly Christmas Sweater persuasion. This year we're having a cousins' Ugly Sweater party and I am super stoked.

This one was from freshman year of college!

What are some of your favorite Christmas traditions?