Everyone has their own holiday traditions and favorites. Some people are sticklers for the classics like Bing Crosby’s White Christmas and live Christmas trees. Others create their own traditions with new favorites like Love Actually and presents like the new iPhone. We wanted to know what Christmas meant to you, our readers, and so we asked. Here’s what you said:

Holiday Movies

One of my favorite parts of the holidays are the movies. Everything from those cheesy Lifetime made for TV ones (don’t judge! you know you get sucked into watching them too!!) to the classics like How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Just watching others reveal in the magic of the holidays, gets me in a candy cane, hot cocoa kinda mood.

My pick: How the Grinch Stole Christmas and A Charlie Brown Christmas

• Heather J Hopkins: The Bishop’s Wife
• Amy Beth Lloyd Mayfield: Mixed Nuts!
• Liv Wilson: Home Alone or Elf! Too many to choose!!!
• Benjamin Shapiro: Bishop’s Wife and White Christmas. 
• Ivan Vasquez: National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation
• Karen Rass: A Charlie Brown Christmas
• Lucia Cape: How the Grinch Stole Christmas 
• Melonie M. King: Frosty the Snowman 
• Adriane Van Kirk Scott: Love Actually and National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation
• Dawn Waldon: Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer
• Bud McLaughlin: Die Hard …
• Jana Arnston Payne: Trading Places and When Harry Met Sally. Hands down!
• Donald Bates: Miracle on 34th Street, the original not remake
• Stephanie Kimball Amis: Going My Way with Bing Crosby and The Bells of St. Mary also with Bing
• Gina Graham Barlow: Emmet Otter’s Jugband Christmas

Songs

I love music. I’ve always got something playing; while I’m working, bouncing around the house, or driving around town. So to me Christmas Carols are an essential part of the holidays. As a kid, I always knew it was really Christmas when my family was in the car on the way to my grandmother’s house and the Alvin and Chipmunk’s Christmas tape (yes actual tape) came out.

My pick: “I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas”

• Jessica Smith Mullins: “The Christmas Song”
• Nan Tippie: “Let It Snow!”
• Nikki Salvail McElroy: “Oh, Holy Night”
• Terrie Pierce Baby: “Baby, It’s Cold Outside “OR “It’s Beginning to Look a lot Like Christmas”
• Angela Beth Ridgeway: “I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas”
• Betty Laughlin Hamrick: “O Holy Night”
• Christy Mims Graves: “It Came upon a Midnight Clear”
• Tami Anderson Newcomb: Joan Jett’s rendition of “Little Drummer Boy” or “Mary Did You Know”
• Courtney Maddox: “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch”
• Brandon James: “O Come All Ye Faithful”
• Erin Lakeman Keniston: “In the Bleak Midwinter”

Favorite Presents

Now I know the holidays are not about presents. But it would be difficult to talk about Christmas without mentioning them. The ones you get that make you go “has this person met me?”, the truly great ones that knock your socks off, and the ones you bought that were spot on.

My favorite: My pick comes from my childhood and one that will come as no surprise to folks who know me: my pink sparkly tutu.

• Benjamin Shapiro: Commodore 64/128. My first computer.
• Rhonda Clifford Cramer: Honda 50 mini-bike about 33 years ago and it still runs! I was a tomboy!
• Heather Price Thacker: I wish I could say a pony..lol..But really it was an iPhone the first year they came out…I almost took it back because I thought it was too much money for something I’d never use…
• Amanda Randolph Bishop: My son who came on December 28th!
• Paula Claunch: My bike! Nicknamed ‘the pink hurricane!’
• Stella Beasley Wilson: An electric typewriter in 1966. Thought I was hot stuff but really the best was my one and only daughter born December 14 almost 36 years ago!
• Tyra N Blake Whitlow: A ring and proposal….almost 11 years ago!

Christmas Trees

The epic debate: artificial or live? As is turns out, this question is not as simple as one (or I) might think.

My pick: While I love love love live trees, my black thumb votes for artificial.

• Gena Rawdon Wilhite: Artificial, because of allergies. I buy a fir scented candle every year so I can trick myself into believing it’s real.
• Benjamin Shapiro: Real, cut it down myself. And it is humongous. It looks like I stole it from a town square
• Alex Andrea Frye: Artificial…we have a pretty sentimental tree-owned it since my brother was born-35 years now.
• Tarin Frost: Real and will never go fake. As a kid we used to go “hunt” for one Griswold style; some of my best memories.
• Tim Smith: A rapidly dying one….LOL
• Kristie French: One big live in the living room and a small artifial in the playroom with Snoopy on top.

Holiday Beverages

When it’s cold outside, there is nothing that warms you up better than a tasty hot beverage. Ok, the tasty part really has nothing to do with warming you up, but it certainly helps it go down easier! For me a classic sign that the holidays are drawing near is the change in the Starbucks menu. When they bring out the holiday drinks, I know I better get a move on my present shopping.

My pick: Gingerbread latte 

• Frank Simon: Eggnog – with a little Jack!
• Shawnette Cole: Peppermint Hot Chocolate…
• Benjamin Shapiro: Wassail. Or a Tom and Jerry. It’s like what I imagine the Ghost of Christmas Present’s milk of human kindness tastes like.
• Alicia Legg Dawson: Hot chocolate!
• Kristie French: Baileys & Coffee
• Lynne Berry: Eggnog latte!!!
• Alex Andrea Frye: APPLE CIDER!!
• Luz Gillespie: The key word is holiday drink. You can have hot chocolate anytime but when you see the eggnog you know ’tis the season.
• Sandra Rhodes: Egg nog…