I share your love of Christmas. My husband and I are not religious so the holiday has become ABOUT our little traditions.

We have adult children and it is hard to get everyone together when their partner's families want them for the holidays too, so we do an early Christmas. It's often easier for everyone to get days off since the people they work with usually want the days around the actual holidays off.

This year Christmas was December 8th.

I don't cook anymore (I went on strike five years ago and nobody went into a tailspin) so we have hors d'oeuvres and other bite sized food for Christmas dinner. Most of them are purchased pre-made so heating them up s my only prep work.

There are lots of vegetarian options. Those frozen Greek Spinach in puff pastries, baby quiches, dips with yummy crackers or cut up veggies. There are some vegetarian black bean and cheese tamales at Trader Joes and I heat those in the microwave and serve them with a dab of sour cream and some green and red salsa. We are from Texas where tamales are a holiday tradition. I buy a bagged chopped salad that has cranberries in it and serve it in some small red bowls I found at a garage sale. I also have special Christmas dishes that I serve on. You can find some cute paper plates to serve your food on. That makes it special!

For a few years I've microwaved the hassleback potatoes from Trader Joes. You have to buy them when they come out and freeze them because they are super popular and never still in the stores during the holidays. My crew all love potatoes and these are pretty and special not to mention delicious.

This year I made a dessert yule log out of pre-made thin ginger cookies (you stack them on their side, the "cement" that holds them together is the frosting/icing which is a mixture of lite cool whip and gingerbread cake mix with some cream cheese mixed in. They can be decorated with little candy holly leaves and red hot candies and Sophie can help put them together. No baking and you can sit at a table to put them together. You freeze the stacks of cookies after you "frost" them with the icing mixture. Each person gets their own log and they look and taste great!)

What makes a tradition? For me it's nothing to do with what everyone else does. It's those things that we do year after year. My adult daughter and her husband and my step-daughter and her partner love my Christmas dinner the most. Does anyone really like turkey?