Christmas Eve Traditions

I bet like many families this year, your Christmas Eve looks a little a lot different! Typically, my siblings and I descend on my parents’ house for a few days and it’s so loud and fun! This year, we’re all staying at our own homes and it’s so weird to think that it’s Christmas Eve today!

Because I can’t actually celebrate our typical traditions this year, I’m going to share them here! Because our extended family lived far away we spent Christmas Eve with close family friends. Every year we carpool down to Pittsburgh to the neighborhood called the Strip District. This neighborhood is full of international grocery stores, delis, bakeries, restaurants. We love shopping together – picking up sushi, homemade tortillas, fresh cheese and olives, and so much more.

After shopping we all stop for some of the most delicious pizza before heading homes to exchange gifts, eat more food, and hang out together. Then it’s off to church for mass. My parents never took us to midnight mass – it was too late to wrangle four kids! And when we got home, after the obligatory Christmas pictures in front of the tree, we have Sloppy Joe’s for dinner.

I know, isn’t that the weirdest thing? I think it was partially a tradition from my mom growing up and an easy and quick meal to feed all four of us after church. Then we get to open one gift from Santa – always a new pair of pajamas, even as adults. My mom keeps threatening to stop buying us pajamas, but we get them every year.

And finally, my mom reads the Christmas story, Twas the Night Before Christmas, and The Polar Express.

This holiday make look a little different, but we’ll be on and off Zoom today and tomorrow and I’m planning on spending most of my holiday weekend reading a lot of books!

I hope that whatever your holiday looks like this year, you get to spend some time with family and doing something you love, even if it’s not your usual traditions.