Christmas Traditions part 4 (last one I promise)

A lot of my family traditions took place on Christmas Eve, but one that didn't was eating at the Lion House. Every year we would go down during December and eat lunch there. It was usually during a day of shopping. For several years now my dad has reserved a private room upstairs for us to eat in, and sometimes has to make the reservation as early as July to make sure we get it. We still do this each year, and will be going this year on the 23rd. Yum!

On Christmas Eve we would always go over to my Grandma's house and take our presents which we would be exchanging the next day so they could be dispursed under the tree. On our way home my parents (and then John and I when we were older but Jill & Mike still believed in Santa) would always pretend to have seen Rudolph up in the sky. This would of course convince us to hurry as fast as we could when we got home to get ready for bed so we could pretend to be asleep when Santa arrived. The funny thing is that once we got home and were ready for bed we still did quite a few things together instead of hurrying into bed. We would always read Luke chapter 2 and then watch the opening nativity scene from the movie Ben Hur (my dad loves that movie, and the nativity scene is really well made). We also lit every candle in the room, turned on the Christmas tree lights, and sat there for a few moments enjoying the beautiful soft glow. Then came the best part. We were all allowed to open one present that night! My parents would try to have a few items under the tree to us from them so we could choose something. We never did the pajama thing, so I'm talking hardcore toys here. It was awesome. And it just made it that much harder to wait until the next day. The last thing we would do is listen to Why the Chimes Rang. If you've never heard it or read it, it's a really neat and touching story. Email me or leave your email adress here and I will send you a copy of it.