Some of my favorite memories of Christmas time as a kid growing up are the Christmas Tins. The tins would be brought out (from that cabinet above the fridge that isn't good for storing much else due to the location) at the beginning of December and filled with all sorts of things that were made only at Christmas time. My all time favorite has to be shortbread cookies but close runner ups are 7-layer bars and homemade oreos. After eating a meal or when company came, my mom would always load a plate of goodies from each tin to be passed around for dessert.
Another of my favorites about Christmas was playing games with my family--card games especially like Oh Heck and Rook. We also had an amazing board game called Stock Ticker that we would start playing at the beginning of break and play each day never taking it down until the end of the school break. Go bonds and oil!!!
The other types of games my family would be into are the football bowl games! Not until I was in college with a team of "my own" did I fully appreciate college bowl season. My parents were here with us along with our longtime family friend for this New Years Eve and the VT Hokies game was that night. Our family dressed in Hokie gear, we taped the game, and put the kids to bed and then watched the game (without commercials!) It was fabulous!
So in tradition of my favorites here are two pictures of the current "traditions". Long live the holiday tins, games, and the college bowls!!!!
The camelias were to be in bloom (obviously not full bloom) and we managed to see a few that were just beautiful. 
Ian did like the maze garden as it was "like Peach Gardens (on Mario Kart Wii) but without the chompers. He verified several times that there would be no chompers in the garden. We did make it to the statue on our second attempt. Very muddy that day.
