but what about the reindeer?

my family likes to celebrate holidays a little "different" than most families. not too different. just a little different. for instance, on halloween my mom would go to this store named 'visions and dreams' and pick up these candles that were all different colors and they were supposed to give off certain energies, she would dim all the lights and light the candles, turn on the movie practical magic and cook up some amazing pumpkin seeds. we did the trick or treating thing as youngsters and were over it pretty quickly.

super bowl is an honorary "holiday" in our family. the 3 things my mom loves the most in this world; 1 - me, 2 - my sister 3 - football. side note, my name was supposed to be Montana....after Joe Montana, until my grandma talked her my mom out of it. the best party we had for this was the 'white trash' party, my mom served chips in their bags, everything was in crock pots, cocktail weenies, jello shots and we had a keg on ice in the living room. our neighbors had a 12 seater van so we took the 3rd row seat out and put it on our front yard...'you may be a redneck if...',

i know what you're thinking...okay this all sounds pretty ordinary...here's where my mom got crafty. christmas is her all time favorite holiday, she loved putting up the lights and the 3 foot tall nutcracker that stood guard at our front door. we had the most beautiful tree on the block and her lights we strung perfectly. we had a tradition every christmas that i'm continuing this year, 'reindeer food', the combination of oatmeal and confetti that is supposed to let the reindeer know to stop at the house below. each year my sister loved this, on christmas eve she would get out the small bag of the mixture my mom had concocted and she would proceed to sprinkle it all over the front lawn. the tradition goes as follows...the confetti sparkles and alerts the reindeer to stop at the house below and the oatmeal is supposed to be a snack for the reindeer (similar to santa and his cookies). i have been asking people all over if they have ever heard of reindeer food and no one has known what i'm talking about so i figured i would spread the word right here! this takes all of 26 seconds to make (longer if you make the festive tag seen below).

see how i packaged mine for the kids this year

do you have any 'different' holiday traditions?