To get to the fire breathing nun, simply do the following:

1. Go to tinyurl.com
2. Send a check for $35 to Kaimi.
3. Enter the following numbers (one at a time) into the tinyurl field:

2k4dh
tlxa8
y23tsh
69rzz
yx4bmu
yynpsm
y3jpwk
y5w6ox

I guarantee, the link is one of those. Oh, and by the way, one of these steps is not real.

Happy hunting! I would try to make it more complicated (this is way too easy, and making these is a fun distraction) but unfortunately, a stack of 55 exams is still calling my name. . .

Your stories about nativity scenes are too funny, cmac! That reminds me that when we were younger my mother refused to spend money on a “real” nativity scene, convinced as she was that we would break it. Instead she bought a tiny plastic one and arranged it next to the record player. We used to put the angel on the record player and then turn it on in an effort to have the angel come flying dramatically onto the scene. (The poor angel didn’t last long.)

I love your tradition of cooking something nontraditional for your family for Christmas Eve dinner, Seraphine. We recently revived a very old tradition of having Baked Alaskas for dessert on Christmas Eve (cookies topped with ice cream and meringue).

Tatiana, I only wish I knew where such a thing as a wind-up fire-spitting nun came from!

“the wind-up nun that spits fire”, I so want one of these! Where do I get one?

Now that we’re grown up, we just open all our presents on Christmas Eve (we open them one at a time from youngest to oldest). We sing a few carols (especially John Rutter’s “Angel’s Carol”). On Christmas Day, we sleep in and do absolutely nothing (except play computer games, watch movies, eat cereal, etc.).

My parents’ ward has a Christmas music concert on Christmas Eve that we go to (and pretty much everyone in the family sings in the choir).

We usually go caroling the Monday before Christmas (for FHE). Yes, music is a huge part of my family’s Christmas traditions.

I instituted a new tradition about 4 years ago of me cooking something different/nontraditional for Christmas Eve dinner. One year I made cabbage rolls, another year I made pad thai, and last year my fiance and I made wienerschnitzel (well, he made it–I had to leave the kitchen for a long period of time because the onion we cut up for the German potato salad was so potent I couldn’t stop crying). I’m not sure that my family really considers it a tradition, but I have fun doing it.

My mom used to make a nativity out of white chocolate, and poor little joseph, mary, and baby jesus had their heads (if not bodies) bitten off by Christmas Eve.

My favorite memory was our nativity one year when no one wanted to be the angel. So we took one of our old dolls, placed a noose around its neck, and hung it from the ceiling fan (vaulted ceiling, for a more dramatic effect). When the angel appeared in the story, down swung the angel, hanging by her neck, twirling over the shepherds. It was marvelous.

And, I used to make my little sister open my presents and give me hints as to what they were.

I also remember a Christmas Eve when Ziff, who must have been four or five, cut holes in all of the wrapping paper on the presents under the tree because he couldn’t take the suspense anymore. (Now I wonder if either of his sons has tried that trick….)