The Harris Sisters: Harris Family Christmas Traditions

This year instead of writing a parody of 'Twas the Night Before Christmas, I thought I'd write about our family traditions. Some have been around for ages, and some are newer ones that have developed over the past few years but are sure to stick around for years to come.

'Twas the Night Before Christmas Parodies

This is a Harris Family tradition that dates back to the days of yore (back to the 1900s as the boys like to say). These were originally created with good old fashioned pencil and paper while sitting at the kitchen bar on Christmas Eve night.

They DO take a little time to go over the highlights of the year, put them in some semblance of an order, AND make them rhyme. So, even though I didn't have the chance to pen a fresh one for you this year, I found a few scans of two original, hand-written ones from 1996 and 1997!

Seems like 1996 was a banner year, as Mama and Daddy apparently called the police on some suspicious looking neighborhood activity whilst wrapping presents on Christmas Eve night! Never a dull moment in the Harris household, I tell you!

The Legend of the Burn Barrel

If you were reading closely in the second parody above, you might have caught the second tradition: the burn barrel. This is something that we Harris Sisters have always joked about, especially at Christmastime. Have an entire living room full of crumpled wrapping paper, tissue paper, and bows? Never fear! Daddy will burn it in the burn barrel! Of course, we grew up in a different era when burning trash was not discouraged like it is now.

Over the years, we have moved the actual unwrapping Christmas presents to my house instead of Daddy's house. But we have never let that interfere with the legend of the burn barrel. The grandkids are all familiar with it. Instead of feeding it with wrapping paper as we did growing up, Daddy keeps a pile of kindling and logs outside just so that they can make a fire in it when we visit at Christmastime. The legend lives on! Here are a few photos of us around the burn barrel.

National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation

If you look closely at the t-shirts we're wearing in the photo with Daddy above, you'll see that they say "Fun, Old-Fashioned HARRIS Family Christmas" and they feature the station wagon with the infamous giant Christmas Tree from the National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation movie.

We watched this movie every year at Christmas growing up and we still love it to this day. Misty had these t-shirts custom made for us one year and they were a big hit.

Deanna and John have a set of the Moose mugs that are featured in the movie. Perfect for drinking egg nog:

And so do we (don't hog the nog, man!)

But we also identify with the next door neighbors in the movie, Todd and Margo.

And Daddy? Well, he wears his custom Griswold 00 Blackhawks jersey at Christmastime to celebrate! In this picture he's holding his absolute favorite gift: chocolate cherries. We wrap them like Mr. Shirley's L-Shaped Christmas gifts that he receives from multiple employees. (Who the heck even knows what those gifts even were?)

But nothing tops the year we planned an entire Christmas Vacation Themed party. That was a hoot!

Eat at a Mexican Restaurant

OK so this is a newer tradition that has sprouted up over the past few years, but we are running with it! It might be one that our children continue with their own families. My boys certainly ask about it every year, so it is firmly planted in their heads already!

Every year The Harris Sisters converge on our hometown of Roxboro, NC in the days after Christmas to visit with Daddy, see the Christmas decorations downtown, visit the small shops on Main Street, and start our official Harris Family Christmas celebration.

Harris Sister Misty's daughter, Emma, has a birthday on December 27. So, we have taken to going out to dinner at the local Mexican restaurant. We get to have a wonderful meal as a family and celebrate her birthday at the same time.

You might notice that we check in with you guys on Facebook in these days and post pictures of what we're doing. If it ever looks suspiciously like we've got a bar behind us in the photo, well, we do!

Feliz Navidad, Peeps!

Take a Group Family Photo

Even though some members of your family may have traveled a long way to visit, and even though not everyone may be able to stay for the same amount of time, we figured out a long time ago that there's no better time to take a family photo than when everyone is together for the holidays.

We usually choose to take our photos outside for the best lighting (and to avoid piles of presents, wrapping paper strewn about, etc., in the background). We will take them inside if there's rain or snow, but we find that with a group as large as ours, we can spread out more and just get an all-around better photo outside.

And we always take the photo with whomever was able to attend. No excuses of "so-and-so wasn't able to make it this year, so we're not taking the photo" or "I didn't know we were taking a photo, so I don't like what I'm wearing." Guess what? 10 or 20 years from now, even the most fashionable person in that photo will question his or her fashion choices/makeup/hairstyle, but everyone will be glad you were in that photo.

We use a digital camera set on a tripod to take the photo and we set it to automatically take 10 photos so that everyone who did come can be in the photo (no one is missing from the photo because they were taking it). If you have the camera, but not the tripod, you can buy one on Amazon for cheap!

And these photos make great gifts too! We usually collect the photos we take throughout the year and compile them into a calendar for Daddy as a Christmas present. If you get one great group shot, you could also frame it as a gift.

We try to make sure that if we don't get a group photo at Christmas, we get one in the fall when we visit each other. We shoot for at least one or two group photos a year. We take different combinations (whole group, Daddy with daughters, Daddy with grandkids, etc.). Here are some group shots we've taken over the years - you'll notice how our family has grown!