just got back from my grandparents' house. christmas eve is when we do our presents after a regular dinner. christmas is when we just eat together a traditional festive thing. i never thought about why we did on the eve, it's just how things are done at my grandparents' house. a couple years ago i was reading a marlene dietrich biography by her daughter and she said that doing presents on christmas eve is a german thing. if that's the case then it makes sense because my grandmother was raised by her german mother. not straight from germany but she grew up in a german-american ghetto if you will, a community where most if not everything was conducted in german and i think traditions were upheld as well.

so we played games, ate, opened presents, and played some more games. that was about it. this year it was a very small gathering. the local area family size has decreased significantly over the years.