Singing for presents...

"Sing a song... THEN you'll get your present"... 

OK, so I have THE fondest memories of childhood Christmases! My dad has 2 sisters and 4 brothers... so that made for {huge} family gatherings. The usual scene consisted of 10 cousins, lots of delicious Korean food, and {from what I remember} so many presents that they hardly fit under the tree... My cousins Julie and Amy are my female cousins closest in age to me... Whenever one of us would call out for, "mom" all three moms would respond in all the chaos. Ever "sled" down a flight of stairs on a pillow? Oh, so much fun. Being that our parents made us work/perform for our gifts, the whole morning was dedicated to choreographing elaborate routines to showcase our dancing and singing ability. Doing the snake and singing "rubber baby buggy bumpers" comes to mind. {I kid you not.} When it came time to exchange gifts, everyone would gather around the tree and the fun would begin. My dad and all of his brothers LOVE to sing so it would usually start out with one of them doing a fabulous rendition of a song {in Korean, mind you} and all of us laughing until tears streamed down our faces... Then, one uncle would assume the role of M.C. and start calling each of us up to accept a gift. ALWAYS with a hug to the gifter and ALWAYS with a song {Into a microphone of course. Oh yes, blog readers. It was serious business!} I was so shy... I remember my palms getting sweaty as I thought about which song I'd sing next... Presents weren't allowed to be opened until EVERYONE had received all of their gifts. Each of us would end up with what seemed like mountains of gifts in front of us... When the signal was given, we'd {furiously} unwrap our gifts. All you could hear was the tearing of paper as ribbons and tissue paper flew into the air... Exclamations of, "COOOOOL... OOOOOH.... AHHHHH" filled the room as we opened our gifts. By the end of the night, we were always exhausted... We had so many gifts that we'd have to fill up large garbage bags to take them home. I always felt sad at the end of the night and couldn't wait for the next Christmas to come. I always felt loved... not because of the gifts but from my wonderful family who kept the tradition going for so many years...

This will be Leyla's second Christmas and I love the excitement on her face every time she looks at our colorful Christmas tree. Families are not as big as they used to be... I feel sad sometimes because Leyla may or may not be able to experience the same large family gatherings for the holidays... but no matter what, I'll make sure that they will be just as happy and just as bright. {I'm all for tradition so I may just have to make Leyla sing for her gifts when she gets older...} Hey, I had to go through it, right? {wink wink}

Happy Holidays and may the season bring you and your families much joy!

Aaaand, because I can't do a post without pictures, here are a couple from Leyla's first Christmas last year.