Day 20: Your Favorite Christmas Tradition

My family is what we'll call "unconventional." Whenever I think about holidays I feel like we don't have specific traditions that we've done every year since the beginning of our family. There have been so many disruptions and changing circumstances that we just started blowing in the wind and doing anything that meant we could be together.

During the years of two Cole children at Todd and LuCinda's there was a playroom downstairs and a shared bedroom with bunkbeds upstairs. When two became three, playroom turned preteen bedroom for Kirsten and half bunkbed/crib for Courteney and Spenser. When I think about Christmas as a child there is one specific thing that replays in my head year after year...

We weren't allowed downstairs until 8:00 a.m.

Spenser was always the first one awake, not just because it was Christmas but because this girl was the naughtiest of naughty kids. As soon as she saw one of my eyes bat open I could hear, "Courte? What time is it?" I would bust out of my sheets, let down her crib door, and somehow the two of us together could get her out of the crib. We would run to Mom and Dad's bed and jump on them yelling, "Hurry! It's Christmas!" and then snuggle with them until they told us it was 8 and we could go get Kirst.

Even though we were an official 4 years and 7 months apart, we shared so many moments together. I guess I've always been a little on the immature side. I hope my kids share as many great times as we spent together.