The Aussie Osborns: 12 Days of Christmas | DAY 8: Childhood Traditions

I thought I would right up a post about some of the traditions that we (Benn and I) experienced growing up in regards to Christmas. Little things like this I LOVE hearing about so I thought you might like too. I am always interested in how people celebrate certain things in different ways and also so I can get some ideas for the future!

Benn's are pretty easy to explain, he's not much of a talker so he didn't go into great detail haha. Some of the things he said were;

Santa gave one or two "big" gifts (like a game boy or something) and the rest were from Mum and Dad
All gifts were placed under the tree
Carols and light seeing almost every year
Christmas at the beach every year

I, however, like to go into a little bit more detail...

We used to spend every second year with my Mum's family, which including all my aunties/uncles/grandparents etc. These were my favourite Christmas's. I LOVE big family gatherings. Except, the only thing was on Christmas day we had to wait until AFTER lunch to open up the presents. Not only that but the dishes HAD to be done and Ma had to be sitting in her chair with her cup of tea in hand. Seriously, you do not understand how hard that was as a little kid (age 5-11)! Plus, only one present was opened at a time - you had to watch what others received.
Now that I am older (and so is everyone else) things aren't quite as strict, or maybe it's just easier to wait? But we still only open one present at a time!
We were aloud to have Santa first thing when waking up, only condition was that we had to bring out Santa sack into Mum's room to open it with her. I remember wondering "why does she care what he got me?", but I know now that she wanted to see the look on my face for what she got me! Parents are so sneaky.
Santa gifts weren't wrapped and nothing under the tree was from Santa, only what was in our sack at the end of the bed.
Christmas light looking every Christmas Eve
Adding a new Christmas Decoration to our tree every year, which you can read more about HERE.
We also had a beautiful Nativity scene. I think it had about 12-15 pieces. Mum would wrap them up and each night leading up to Christmas we would unwrap a piece and read a scripture.