As it is 'Throwback Thursday' I thought that today it would be appropriate to share some of my Christmas photos from a few years back and say a little about the traditions that we have in my house on Christmas day.

On Christmas Eve we still lay out our stockings for Santa, and we always have a picture while holding our stockings. We then leave some snacks for Santa and a glass of milk before heading off for a bed.

We three girls wake up at the crack of dawn. Scrap that, before the crack of dawn. We're just too excited for the day, and want to be awake for as much of it as possible! There's a rule in our house that we're not allowed into the living room (where our presents are) until 7am. So we get the house up and ready to walk in the living room door at bang on 7 o'clock. Present opening and exchanging always goes past surprisingly fast, and we find ourselves getting breakfast ready at 7.30. Breakfast consists of scrambled eggs on toast with smoke salmon, and now that we're older we even are allowed a glass of bubbly.



We then head to church for the Christmas day service, which I love because everyone is so jolly and the service is lots of fun, with kids showing their gifts and all my favourite hymns. Once back we now take Alfie for a walk where we meet lots of other dogs dressed in tinsel. Relatives are then picked up while mum begins preparing the meal.



What a whopper of a meal we have - but its Christmas day so why not eat your body weight in turkey and pigs in blankets? The dinner lasts for hours, as we like to have breaks to digest each course by playing games like headbands, music quizzes, and hum that tune. Its great fun, and impossible not to laugh and smile throughout the whole thing. At the end of the dinner we then play a proper board game together. This usually is Pictionary, but as my dad hates drawing we've started to branch out and this year the game of choice is Articulate.



We also have a ruling that TV is not allowed on Christmas day. That way we're able to spend much more time with one another, and get to pretend we're all kids again. And I love it.

It's funny how we've got ourselves into routines of which presents are opened when and what games are played, but I supposed the tried and tested method works, as we know that we will love the day. And that's why my family are obsessed with Christmas, its such a happy fun filled day to look forward too, where no matter what is going on we can still laugh and spend time together.

I'd love to hear some of your traditions, or routines that you have over the Christmas period!