PEOPLE

The Southeast Missourian asked people about their Christmas holiday traditions.

Alecia Robert: "We let my son open everyone's presents. He's three this year. We helped him do it even when he was a year old. He runs the show, and we open gifts on Christmas Eve. It's hilarious, and it's all on film so we get to watch it every year."

Jim Litz: "It's an annual tradition to go to the Mizzou-Illinois basketball game in St. Louis. I was in active military for ten years, so it has become a tradition to get together with family. Also, we like to invite some folks over for Christmas dinner who have no one to be with."

Ginger Brown: "We enjoy baking cookies together. The kids pick out the cookies to give to Santa. If it snows, Santa leaves snow on the carpet. It it doesn't, my dad gets out his boots, wets the soles and sticks them in flour and makes white footprints on the carpet. Every year."

Joe Domian: "We take the kids around to see the lights in Cape Girardeau and in the country. My kids force me to decorate the house. I am not really up on climbing a ladder to put up lights, but it seems they enjoy it so much that I'll probably be doing it for a long time."

Betty Renne: "When my kids were small, our family went to a Christmas Eve program at church before Santa Claus arrived. Now that they are grown and live away from here, we still do this when they are able to get together. We usually have our Christmas on Christmas Eve."

Shane Morris: "We all get together for Christmas at a different place every year. My mom has eight sisters, so each year we go to a different sister's house. Everybody cooks something and brings it. We'll watch a football game on TV and watch the kids."