Traditionnnnnnn, TRADITION!

I'm finally home in Eastern PA, and it feels SO good. It's really nice to have a break and to get to hang out with the fam for a month. =) Speaking of, we've gotten 2 Christmas traditions in the books so far this year!

The first started when I was maybe ten - my mom, dad, younger brother, and I used to pile into the car and drive to a place where we could walk around, find a tree, cut it down, and take it home. Then the place got too expensive or closed down or something like that, and we had to find a different tree supplier. So we began what would become a Christmas tradition:

We took our little red wagon,

(similar to this)

pulled it down 2 or 3 blocks to the local bank where the Little League was selling trees, picked one out, put it on the wagon, and pulled it back home. This tradition is one of my favorites because of the time spent as a family and hearing my dad tell stories about when my brother and I were younger and he used to pull us to the bank in the wagon every Saturday morning. I also can't quite get over the tree vendors' faces when they ask us which car is ours and we point to the wagon!

The other tradition I love is making Christmas cookies. Now for my mom's side of the family, cookies practically require a NCAA bracket to figure out. My mom and her two sisters each make about 3 different kinds of cookie, their sister-in-law makes another one or two, and my grandmother makes at least 2 desserts and any other cookies they've forgotten. The kicker is, they never all seem to make the same 3 kinds every year. (Personally, I don't understand why they don't just keep it the same, but hey. That's their thing.)

Anyway, the one constant variable when it comes to cookies in my house is cutouts - the sugar cookies you decorate any way you want. They aren't necessarily my favorite to eat (that honor falls to peanut butter cookies with Hershey Kisses in the middle - "boobies," I just learned, is the technical term), but they are by far my favorite to make. We have your normal cookie cutters like Christmas trees, gingerbread men, ornaments, stars, and hearts, but we also have the "Christmas bunny," and "Christmas shamrock" - throwoffs of less cookie-driven holidays - and new this year...the Christmas unicorn! I get pretty into my decorating, prompting (usually) joking cries of "The oven's on but there's nothing in ittttttttttttttttt!!" This year, a certain theme permeated the festivities...

=D (credit to bro for the Deathly Hallows cookie)

YUM. Christmas Day, however, is when the real cookie smorgasbord begins!

[Also! Total lunar eclipse begins in ~1 hour! Who's gonna be up to watch it?? ....oh okay. probably just me. =) ]