Christmas is my favorite time of the year. I love snow, Christmas lights and music, Santa Claus, the presents and spending time with my family. I love waking up on Christmas morning finding my gifts under the tree and breakfast in the kitchen. I love all these things about Christmas, but the reason we celebrate is to remember the day Jesus was born. This is what Christmas means to me.

What Christmas means to me is celebrating Jesus' birthday and getting to spend time with my family. My favorite part of Christmas is getting to help my mom decorate the Christmas tree and making cookies for santa. Christmas is my favorite holiday.

Every Christmas season rolls around and brings my crazy elf, Minnie. She is always getting into mischief. Like one time, Minnie hung from the ceiling fan in my kitchen. Another time, Minnie made a Christmas town on my dining room table and sled down a mountain of baking flour. I love getting up in the mornings to see where Minnie is hiding and what she’s been up to all night. She is a crazy gal.

Each year we dress in our Christmas clothes and my family goes to pick out the most perfect Christmas tree for our house. I always go for the biggest, fattest tree that I can see. We pick out a tree and take a picture in front of it. Then my dad packs it up into his truck. We bring it home and have the smell of pine and tree sap on our hands. We sip hot chocolate and look at our beautiful tree.

My favorite Christmas memory is from last year. It snowed so much that we had to leave my papaw’s house early, which made me sad, but once I woke up the next morning and saw all the snow we got, I was happy. After we opened gifts, we played outside all day, and I finally got to have a white Christmas! This was the best Christmas ever.

My family has many traditions during Christmas, but these are my favorites. We spend every Christmas Eve at church celebrating the birth of Jesus because this is the most important part about Christmas. When I wake up on Christmas morning I can smell breakfast through the house, I usually jump out of bed to look for snow and presents under the tree. I spend time with my family on Christmas day, we play in the snow and with new toys. I am thankful for traditions and celebrating Jesus’s birthday on Christmas.

Something funny that happened to me and my brother was that my MeMe mixed up our gifts. When I opened mine I had a blue boy gift, and my brother had a pink gift. Everyone laughed, because my brother said, “Why is this pink?” And then my MeMe said, “Oh! I must have mixed up the gifts!”

A family tradition that we observe every year is the wrapping ball game. My family gets so competitive which makes it funny. My older sister and cousin have to wear gloves to make it fair for me. The ball is made up of surprises wrapped tons of times in plastic wrap. You roll the dice for doubles and race to the center of the ball, where the big prize is.

A funny experience I had through the holidays was last year when I was trying to learn to ride my hoverboard Santa brought. I thought I was doing okay, but then I started spinning in circles really fast and couldn’t stop. I yelled for mommy and she grabbed me and stopped the spinning. It was scary when it happened, but now it's funny.

If I could grant one wish for the world it would be for every child to receive a Christmas present, expensive or cheap. I think that every child should receive a present because I usually get a lot but there are some kids who don’t get any. Every child should wake up and see gifts under their tree. I picked this because I’m always happy when I see gifts under my tree, and every child deserves to be happy.

If I was granted one wish, it would be that families would be able to gather this holiday season. Nothing has hurt more than not being able to gather and celebrate during this pandemic. Families need love, need to hug, need to endure togetherness. I hope everyone's holiday is filled with love.

My family has a lot of Christmas traditions! Like before Christmas, we go to Archer Park and look at all the displays of lights. On Christmas morning we jump out of bed and look for our Christmas pickle. Whoever the lucky one is, well, they get money. On Christmas Eve we go to our grandparents house. My mamaw makes eggnog. It is the best eggnog that I’ve ever tasted. Once we get home we make tasty gingerbread. Last, we leave cookies and milk for Santa and we try so hard to fall asleep