Who doesn’t like opening gifts at Christmas? For many families, the act of ripping open presents under the tree is rooted in tradition. Everything seems to follow a ritual. Passing the gifts out. Taking turns opening the presents. Cleaning up the wrapping paper.

Here at the Reser household we have our own traditions as well. A couple days ago we opened our gifts on Christmas evening as per usual. This time, however, Sidney got to take part in our Christmas festivities. Below I have just ten quick highlights from our time opening gifts around the tree.

* My niece did the most significant walking she has done yet while we finished opening gifts. Several times she walked back and forth between my mom and sister, receiving a loud ovation each time she made the short journey.

A couple minutes before this photo was taken, Mikayla was walking back and forth in our living room!

* My sister gave my brother, Sidney, and I scratch off tickets. I looked at Sidney and asked her if she wanted to enter into an agreement where she would split the money she won from her tickets with me and I would split the money I won from my tickets with her. I proposed this deal in front of the whole family.

Sidney, not missing a beat, responded while flaunting her ring, “Baby, all of your money is already mine.” Everyone busted out in laughter.

* I wrapped a last minute gift for my mom seconds before we started passing out gifts. I hastily gave it to her as we sat down. I don’t know if it really registered to her that I was giving her a present. When all the gifts were opened up, I realized she had not opened the small package I had personally given to her. I also realized that it was nowhere to be found. After turning the living room up trying to find it, my dad and I went to the very bottom of the garbage bag that was filled with wrapping paper and recovered it. Honest mistake.

* Probably the favorite gift I was given this Christmas was the personalized stationary from my mom and dad!

I write notes all the time so this personalized stationary my parents got me was exactly what I needed.

* Finding the pickle is a tradition that my family does in conjunction with opening up gifts. My mom hid it in the tree and then sent my brother, my sister, her husband, Sid, and myself on a hunt to find it. After a couple minutes, my sister reached into the back of the tree and found it. Her prize was more scratch offs!

* How about a visual of our celebration. Here is a panorama of all of us opening our gifts in my parents’ living room.

Here is a panorama of our Reser family Christmas.

* As I did last year, I once again outfitted my dad and brother in Chanticleer gear. I took advantage of the sale our university bookstore had a couple months ago and got them baseball pullovers.

I got my brother and dad Coastal Carolina gear.

* When we were younger my mom (or at the time Santa) would fill the stockings of us kids with thank you notes. We no longer have stockings but my mom still made sure to wrap packages of thank you notes for the three of us.

Me holding the thank you notes my parents gave me.

* How about a time line of when we open gifts? We ate dinner at 3 p.m. after a day of watching sports and playing games. After we took some time to let the food from the delicious feast digest, we opened presents. Dessert was then available afterwards. From there we took our annual pilgrimage to the movie theater. This year we watched “Joy.” We then returned home and those (me) who wanted to wait a little while longer to eat dessert indulged.

Our Christmas family movie at the theater this year was “Joy.”

* It seems each year my mom always says “We are going to have a slim Christmas this year.” This declaration doesn’t bother me one bit but it never proves to be true, including this year. Once again my parents outdid themselves getting us all kinds of stuff that we didn’t deserve.

My mom once again outdid herself on gifts. It was nice to be able to share Christmas with Sidney.

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There you have it, everything you wanted to know about us opening our gifts. Have a great rest of your Sunday! This upcoming week I will be publishing a couple of my annual end of the year blog posts. Don’t Blink.