I love the story of the reindeer bells @SoCal gunner !
For as long as I remember, we gathered at my grandparent’s farm for cookies, snacks and of course, a few beverages on Christmas Eve and then enjoying our gifts on the morning of Christmas Day followed by a traditional Christmas dinner. As a child, I would always stay with them for a week or so for the remainder of the Christmas break, sledding, exploring the barns and everything a farm could offer a young boy. My Pompa has been gone for two years now (at the age of 100) and it is not the same. Haven’t been back to the farm since.
With my own family, we still reserve Christmas morning for my own immediate family, children. Then it is off to spread time with my parents and brothers’ families where everyone brings a soup. My mother still makes lefse, a traditional Norwegian flatbread made with potatoes. Then off again to the in-laws. The in laws always get LaCasa pizza, a neopolotan style thin crust pizza made with Romano cheese.