Christmas is almost here, and I am super excited about it. 

For my family, from Thanksgiving to New Years is a time where we all get together and eat food that each family cooked. 

The reason I wanted to write this article is because although it is a holiday, there are many different ways you can celebrate it. For this article, I will only be covering two ways to celebrate. 

The first one is one that I do with my family. 

What we do is we prepare any food that needs to be prepared for the day, which we do for all three holidays that I mentioned before. 

Christmas Eve we start making the food that can be made in one day and doesn’t need to be refrigerated. 

Once everyone is ready, we all eat and have fun with each other before it is time to open presents.

Once it is time, we first start with the secret Santa gifts for the adults and then we have the little kids open theirs.

For the secret Santa tradition that we have, we all grab a name from a bag and we see who we get on Thanksgiving Day, this way, we can get the gifts early so we can have it before we wrap the gifts.

The next tradition is the more traditional Christmas, where people open presents on Christmas day. 

I talked with NECC student Andrea Sanchez to find out more about how other families celebrate the holidays. 

Before Christmas Eve, what do you do anything before that day?

“I normally help with buying the food for Christmas Eve.”

So, what do you do on Christmas Eve?

“I help out with cooking and setting up the table.”

What time does your family stop celebrating and go to bed?

“There’s not really a time that we stop celebrating, we just go to bed at whatever time we can.”

Does your family open presents Christmas day in the morning or at midnight?

“We open presents on Christmas day in the morning.”

There are many other ways to celebrate Christmas, but I can’t put in a single article. 

Christmas is memorable for everyone in their own different ways. 

A good example is when I was little, they would tell my siblings and I that we would have to stay up until 12 on Christmas Eve to open our presents unless we would have to wait until everyone wakes up to open presents on Christmas Day, which can take a long time. 

That was a memory I’ve always stuck with and looking back, it still makes me happy thinking about those moments. 

I hope everyone has a great Christmas, no matter how you celebrate it, or if you don’t celebrate it at all.