Quirky Family rituals! Thanks Preacher's Wife.

I am joining The Preacher's Wife today to share some quirky family rituals.
We don't really have any that seem too quirky, but I wanted to participate in this because I just love The Preacher's wife. She is very quirky. And I mean that with a great deal of respect.

I'm loving the word quirky. I need to add it to my list.

I think the most quirky thing we do is open presents on Christmas Eve.

Ok. I know. I know. Just calm down!

It started years ago when my husband and I first got married. His little sister has a Birthday on Christmas Eve. So we would go over to my In-laws house for a Birthday party and a Christmas party. Well, while we were there my MIL wanted to be able to give us our presents too, so we would open them. When we had our first daughter it was natural for her to open her presents from them then too. Now 3 kids later we still open the presents from them on Christmas eve. We do save all the other presents and stockings until Christmas morning though.

Do you guys have any quirky Christmas rituals?

Day #1

Last night we put our #1's on 2 of our 3 Christmas countdowns/countups, the other is truly a countdown so it was set at 24 days left.

Ok. Did it take any other family forever to figure out what number we are on? It was the 1st and Christmas is on the 25th, how could it be at 24..........we had calendars out and fingers were counted. It was ridiculous. We do it every year.

And yes I homeschool and can't even do basic math. Whatever.

This year so many of you have such great ideas that you have shared in regards to Advent Calendars.

Is it calendars or calenders?

And yes I homeschool and also can't seem to spell.
Whatever.

Some of your ideas included having a small family activity attatched to each day; baking cookies, reading a Christmas story together, etc.

I love this and have stolen tons of your ideas. I did however come up with one of my own. kinda.

Last night's little paper said:
Sing Jingle Bells and Santa Claus is coming to town . together. Outside on the deck. Really loud.


I wish we more of a spiritual family that knew the words by heart to Silent night or something, but I knew we didn't and I thought printing out the words and handing them out and turning into a complete drill sergeant, would ruin the festive mood I was going for. So I went with some classics I knew we all knew.

At first everyone, and by everyone I mean my husband and teenager, bulked. My 5 and 9 year old were all over this!

But my cheery encouragement prevailed and out we all went. It was only 20 degrees out so we probably should have put coats on but I wasn't about to stop now.
At first the singing was quiet and everyone seemed nervous and giggly. But by chorus 2 of Jingle Bells we were belting it out!

We don't even have close neighbors so I don't know what the big deal was. I think it would have been even funner(totaly a word) if we did. I can just see people sitting in their living rooms watching t.v. and thinking they hear singing and stopping to listen for just a minute. Don't you think they would be smiling?

We sure were.
And wasn't that the point. smiles.

So, if you have sing a song together as one of your activities, why not try it outside for the whole neighborhood (or woods) to hear.