Christmas Traditions: Siblings

I'm sitting here crunching Halloween M&Ms that I stealthily swiped from Chloe's hidden stash. The past twenty four hours have been awful. Nothing catastrophic or blogworthy. Just one of those days when anything that can go wrong does. Are you starting to believe in Andrea's Law yet?

I've been wanting to do some Christmas tradition blogs, so I thought I would start that mini series today and try to lift my (Christmas) spirits a little. If that doesn't work I may have to find some other 'spirits.' Ha ha I kid.

If you have a Christmas tradition with your sibling(s), I hope you'll blog about it and link up :) It will be fun to read the other traditions going on out there! If you don't blog, go ahead and leave a comment. I look forward to reading some more sibling traditions!

It's no secret that I LOVE my bubby. He's pretty much my favorite family member, and without him I couldn't have survived MANY family functions. Ok I could have survived, but it wouldn't have been nearly as bearable.

If you knew me in my younger days, however, you know that this has not always been my feeling toward my brother. I always loved him, yes. But I didn't always like him. Most of the time we were fighting. I was verbal, he was physical. I'd lash at him until I provoked him, then hide in my room while he tried to bust the door off the hinges...ahhh those were the days. :)

Anyway, despite our usual fighting, there were a few occasions on which we called an unspoken truce. Those included visits or family functions on my dad's side, adventures with baby-sitters, and holidays.

The proverbial white flag was waved as the sun set on Christmas Eve. We would exchange our gifts to each other, and realize that maybe we liked each other just a little. A LITTLE. We'd then go about the events of the evening. Usually church service, and sometimes we'd have Christmas with our dad before church started. When church was over we'd come home and get ready to go to bed.

Every year we took turns sleeping in each other's rooms. We'd drag out our sleeping bags and sleep in the same room. Usually one of us had twinkly lights up, and we'd stay up late talking about Santa, about what we wanted to get, and about what to do when we woke up ("if you wake up first, wake me up"). I don't even know how our tradition got started, but we kept it going until I hit my teen years.

I'd nap off and on, never really sleeping, always checking the clock (we weren't allowed up before six). I'd get up to go to the bathroom several times and check to see if Santa had come. Knowing I wasn't allowed in the living room until morning, I'd stand in the hallway and squint, trying to make out any new shapes in the dim tree lights. As soon as six rolled around I'd say, "Hey, are you awake?" He was a heavy sleeper, but in his younger years he always got up for Christmas. We'd get Mom and head to the living room for presents.

By the time we were in the car to go to my grandma's we were probably arguing again, but for a brief time it was fun to get along.

While we didn't always get along, I'm so glad we have great memories scattered throughout our childhood. It was one of my favorite Christmas traditions. Just don't tell him that ;) Do you and your sibling(s) have Christmas traditions, or did you when you were kids? Comment below, or blog about them and link up! Hurry, the Linky closes at midnight Wednesday night!