Christmas Tradition

Being a family with two different cultures allows us to have all kinds of traditions. I grew up doing some things that Dan doesn't do and so did he. So we kind of mixed them up and during this 10 years we have created some new traditions of our own. But one of my favorites ones is going out at night and drive around the neighborhoods to admire the Christmas lights. We have been doing this for years and I love it because back at home you don't see the beautiful lights out in the front of the houses, they would probably get stolen :)
While living in Utah we came up with the idea of finding the best houses and giving them a little prize (usually candy bars). So we drive around until we find the perfect house, no inflatable decorations, just plain lights nicely displayed and then we knock on the door and explain what we are doing there and let them know how much we appreciate their efforts in making their house look so nice and we give them the candy bar with a diploma and sometimes a trophy or a medal.
Last night we ventured out into the night with the kids. We found nice people in Humble last night but the one that I won't forget for years to come was this lady who came to the door and didn't even want to open it, she said she wasn't interested and I understood, I mean who comes to your house at 7:20 at night? I tried to explain what we were doing there but decided to just walk away, when the lady looked out the window she saw Shayna with her Santa hat on and then she called us back and apologized and I could tell she felt really bad. She let us explained the whole thing and said it was really nice of us to do that. She invited us in and offered us cookies and had the nicest conversation while she was finishing baking the cookies. Her granddaughter made a nice drawing for Shayna and the lady kept talking to Shayna the entire time. You should have seen Shayna, she almost cried when the lady didn't open the door, but she made sure Shayna didn't feel bad afterwards. She gave Shayna a slice of pizza and tons of cookies to take with us. Meanwhile Dan is sitting in the car wondering what happened to us, were we dead or what? Their house was just as nicely decorated on the inside as it was on the outside and she just kept telling us what a neat thing we do. So last night I felt the true spirit of Christmas, even if we were rejected at first :) I love making memories with my kids, I think they are the most precious gifts I can give them, because I treasure the happy memories I have growing up with my family. Merry Christmas everybody.