Christmas is a wonderful time where you can get together with family and make memories that’ll last for a lifetime. Each family celebrates in different ways, and has unique traditions that they’ve made over the years. Here are some family traditions from fellow school members at Rocklin High.

“So every year we leave out two pickle ornaments with the cookies we leave out for Santa, we ask him to hide them in the tree. On Christmas morning, it’s a race to see who can find the pickles, if we find the first pickle, that person gets to open the first present of Christmas. The second pickle means that that person gets to choose what gift they open. This was invented by my parents to stop us fighting about who gets to open the first present,” said senior Aly Choon.

“My mom’s side of the family always gets Chinese food for dinner on Christmas Eve,” said senior Susannah Wullschleger

“On Christmas Eve, we open two presents. One of them is always Christmas pajamas. We get personalized Christmas pajamas with our names on them, and then we get to choose one gift from under the tree that we want to open,” – Lexie Johnston

“My siblings always sleep under/around the Christmas tree on December 23rd, and then on Christmas Eve, we make homemade pizza for dinner and then we act out the nativity together,” said senior Aubrey Price

“We always watch National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation on Christmas Eve,” said senior Autumn Santos

Marissa McCrary, a freshman here at Rocklin High School, said, “So on Christmas we don’t have our names on our presents, instead we have “code names”. My parents have done this my whole life so that way we don’t know which presents are for us. We find out which name we are on Christmas morning.”

One of my favorite Christmas traditions that I do with my family every year is on Christmas Eve. Every Christmas Eve, we go out to breakfast in the morning, then either go see a movie or do an activity, like ice skating. Then, later that night, we get together with our extended family and do a gift exchange. At the end of the night, before we go to bed, each kid in my family gets a pair of pajamas.

Traditions are a great part of the holiday season, bringing friends and family together. These traditions are something fun that you can share with others, and something that you’ll remember forever.