What makes the holidays special?

Twas a few weeks before Christmas when all through the town, we asked our readers to share the best traditions around. What puts the sparkle in your holidays? From heartfelt (and funny) movies that capture the spirit of the season, to treats that make Christmas extra sweet, to festive family traditions and memorable gifts, you told us why this is the best time of the year. So get cozy, grab a cup of cheer and read on! And in case you didn’t hear, have a holly jolly Christmas this year!

Your favorite holiday movies (beginning with most popular)!

1. Elf
2. Christmas Vacation
3. Home Alone
4. The Year Without a Santa Claus
5. It’s a Wonderful Life
6. Die Hard
7. White Christmas
8. Miracle on 34th Street

Favorite holiday meal or dessert?

-Christmas cookies with icing
-Pepperoni bread that we make for our friends!
-Goudas
-Christmas morning Breakfast Braid
-Beef tenderloin with mushrooms
-Orange rolls for breakfast
-Baked ziti and tiramisu
-Breakfast casserole on Christmas morning
-Honeybaked ham
-Christmas tree Reese’s
-Pumpkin pie
-Christmas Saltine Cracker Toffee
-Christmas brunch
-Turkey gravy with hard boiled eggs on stuffing
-Pumpkin pie with lots of whipped cream
-Everything! Southern dishes and desserts, all made from scratch in my grandmother’s kitchen. She always had two meats, 8+ sides and 6-8 desserts. I don’t know how she did it all.
-Having cinnamon rolls Christmas morning.

Favorite holiday tradition?

-Reading Christmas poems with my family.
-Rowing our late grandfather’s row boat that he built while battling cancer around Smythe Lake on Christmas Eve as he did for many years before he passed!
-Opening one gift on Christmas Eve while eating Goudas!
-Advent calendar
-Christmas carols in Hutchinson Square (Summerville) with hot cocoa and cookies.
-Viewing the Christmas lights at James Island County Park.
-Giving PJs to open Christmas Eve. My kids love it and look forward to it every year!
-Trip to one of our NCAA football bowl games (GA Tech or USC)…such fun, impromptu, usually a new place to visit!
-The “Christmas in the Alley” party on Daniel Island.
-Trimming the tree
-Going downtown to Belmond/Charleston Place to see the holiday train display in the lobby!
-Christmas Mass with the family
-Christmas music
-Decorating the tree
-On Christmas Eve, I present my two sons with a few new ornaments that represent the year- where we have traveled, special milestones and things that are unique to each of them at this time. They get to hang them on the tree and we all get to relive some great memories. When the boys grow up and have their own homes, they will not only have their own ornaments to take, they will have a box full of memories.
-Driving around looking at Christmas lights and visiting Santa every year.

What is the best gift you’ve ever received?

-“Shark Attack” Hot Wheels track
-Homemade gifts from my kids!
-Having all of my family together for Christmas is better than any material gifts.
-A hamster
-My daughter gave me a jar filled with reasons she loves me.
-An antique clock that belonged to my husband’s grandmother that I’d always admired. It was such a shock that his mom shared it with ME.
-I’ve received so many amazing gifts over the years I can’t single one out! But as a child my most favorite gift from Santa was my easy bake oven!
-A kitten
-Finding out on Christmas Eve 1996 I was expecting my first child!
-A kitchen (stove/oven, refrigerator, and sink) all made out of heavy cardboard (which I got when I was five); it lasted for years!
-Ring from parents -My first bike
-My two sons’ handprints, transformed into Gamecocks! I have them on tiles and mugs.
-My two girls
-Bigger clothes!

What is your favorite holiday memory?

-Tracking Santa and putting reindeer food outside
-Spending time with family
-Christmas Eve 2014 - singing Christmas carols by the piano with friends and family in Glenwood Springs, Colorado, while it was snowing outside.
-Decorating the Christmas tree and recalling memories from the ornaments we have collected from our years together as a family.
-Spending a week on Kiawah with my family and my husband’s family, too.
-When I was young, I always remember coming down the stairs after Santa had come and it just felt like the whole room sparkled! Might have been the tinsel, but it felt magical!
-Wasn’t at the time, but when Santa loudly dropped my new keyboard!
-Getting a kitten in my stocking when I was 6.
-Coming downstairs with my brother and sister to find all of our presents under the tree! Santa didn’t wrap our gifts so they were all open and we couldn’t wait to see!
-Can’t remember my favorite, but my worst was when I had gotten my wisdom teeth out on December 23rd my freshman year of college. Christmas was painful and not merry or bright!
-Christmas Eve church service in an unfinished, unheated building.
-Christmas caroling
-Seeing my boys open presents with their cousins in their great-grandmother’s living room - in the very same spot I spent every Christmas as a child. My grandmother, Jamie Christmas (we call her the OG and her home “The original Casa de Christmas”) is in a nursing home now, but - I feel so blessed my boys were able to have that experience for all of those years.
-Our trip on the Polar Express and recently our holiday trip to Disney World. Both were so magical!
-Getting together for Christmas Eve dinner.