Christmas traditions, old and new.

First, the old tradition:

We only have sugar cereal on birthdays and Christmas morning. So when the kids were little, we'd go to the store on Christmas Eve so they could pick out their Christmas cereals because I didn't want to listen to them continuously whine politely ask for their sugar cereals any sooner than I had to. They learned really quickly that the bags of cereal were much larger than the boxes, so we'd be waiting in the loooonnnngggg line at the store with each kid holding their huge bag of cereal. They had to hold their cereals; they would not put them in the grocery cart.

It was priceless.

I wish I had pictures.

Nowadays, we can buy our cereals before Christmas Eve since they are older now and don't whine ask politely for their cereals before Christmas. Much.

Actually, because of their "polite asking," we started the tradition of also having sugar cereal for Christmas Eve dinner.

Which I thought was an awesome tradition because it meant I didn't have to do anything. At all.

About 7 years ago (so the kids were 17, 14, 11, and 9 - not little kids anymore), some good friends invited us over for Christmas Eve dinner. We accepted the invitation and thought nothing about it.

When the kids heard about this new plan, you'd have thought we'd pulled off their fingernails and toenails one by one.

Oh, the uproar.

So we had sugar cereal for Christmas Eve lunch.

And everyone was happy.

Here is the cache of this year's sugar cereals:

And here's the rundown:

John: Marshmellow Mateys
Me: Reeses Puffs
Zach: Cinnamon Chex
Angela: Honeycomb
Kam: CocoRoos
Parker: Cinnamon Toasters

Kailen: Cookie Crisp (she was so bugged they were out of the bag version of her cereal)

Now, for the new tradition:

Last year we decided we'd be brave and break with the usual Christmas dinner fare after the kids told us that they really didn't like ham and were tired of turkey after Thanksgiving.

Really?

That would've been nice to know, oh, several years ago.

Anyway.

We decided to have a Mexican feast for Christmas dinner.

And we loved it!

So we did the same thing again this year. But this year I also made salsa because my friend Diane has the most amazing salsa recipe.  

Here's the feast:

John made guacamole and we had enchiladas (Diane's husband Doug's recipe), beans, chips, salsa, and our favorite applesauce berry salad.

It was so yummy!

And here are the feasters:

My most favorite people in the entire world!  

I think this tradition is one that we'll follow for years to come. :o)

And it's kind of funny that every single one of us is wearing either a UK or a BYU-Idaho shirt.

Me included, even though I'm taking the picture.

We are loyal.