Extra Credit: Due Date- Wednesday, December 17- "Holiday Howdy!" How much fun would it be to hear all of our classmate's voices?! Record a holiday greeting and post it on your homework page. Don't hold back! Use your best Southern drawl, your stuffiest British accent, your Texas twang... I'll use my California valley girl voice!

Click on globe for my "Holiday Howdy!"

Due Date- Wednesday, December 17- "Christmas Traditions." Share a beloved Christmas/holiday tradition your family has. If you celebrate a holiday other than Christmas such as Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Ramadan... then great! Teach us how you celebrate!

Our family has many cherished Christmas traditions that readers of my blog will be familiar with. Many can be seen by visiting my Christmas Cottage. Our Department 56 collection of villages is a favorite as is our Christmas morning brunch. I also made Justin and Jessica Christmas stockings for their very first Christmas that you can see, too. One tradition that is rather unique is the way we do our Christmas stockings. Santa used to fill all of the stockings and we would open those first on Christmas morning while Jeff and I had a chance to wake up with some coffee. That would also give the grandparents a chance to arrive without having to get here at the crack of dawn. Well, since the "kids" are no longer children, we came up with a new way to stuff those stockings. Now instead of Santa, we all buy each other a small gift to put in our stockings. Each person has to be sure and not get caught adding their stocking stuffers on Christmas Eve. I've been known to get up at 2 or 3 am so as not to bump into any other Santas! Finding something small and yet special for each person has become a very fun part of our holiday tradition. It reaffirms the notion that good things do indeed come in small packages.