A few years ago, I started posting a Christmas list. Things to do at least once in your life. Some of them should happen every year. This year, I’ve added a few updates.

1. See Handel’s Messiah live.
2. Participate in a live nativity.
3. Get your picture taken with Santa Claus as an adult.
4. Read the Christmas story as a family.
5. Go to a multi-hundred-voice, over-produced spectacular Christmas production at your local Baptist mega-church.
6. Participate in a multi-hundred-voice, over-produced spectacular Christmas production at your local Baptist mega-church.
7. Attend a carols by candlelight service.
8. Make a pilgrimage to the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.
9. Leave out cookies for Santa Claus.
10. Eat the cookies left for Santa Claus.
11. Go Christmas caroling in your neighborhood or at the nursing home.
12. Wear a really ugly Christmas sweater.
13. Listen to someone yodel through Silent Night (I witnessed this at a Lutheran church in Oregon last Christmas…I am not kidding you! I saw “yodeler” listed in the program and started laughing. I was not disappointed).
14. See Polar Express in IMAX 3D.
15. Watch A Christmas Story 5 times back-to-back on TBS.
16. String popcorn, cheerios, fruit loops, etc. Eat more than you string.
17. Make a gingerbread house.
18. Pack a shoebox for Samaritans Purse Christmas Child.
19. Send a letter to Santa.
20. Watch A Charlie Brown Christmas (this one should happen every Christmas)
21. Cut down your own tree after at least 2 hours of deliberation. Preferably a Charlie Brown tree.
22. Give a gift to your post officer and trash collector.
23. Go shopping on Christmas Eve.
24. Finish your Christmas shopping before Thanksgiving.
25. Give the gift of time to someone who really needs it.
26. Kiss someone under the mistletoe.
27. Fry the turkey.
28. Play football with your family after eating the fried turkey.
29. Decorate your house with something really outrageous and embarrassing.
30. Read a bunch of children’s Christmas books with friends.
31. Go see the Nutcracker.
32. See the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center.
33. Assemble a train under the tree.
34. Make your own advent calendar.
35. Don’t stop celebrating on December 25. Celebrate Christmas all the way through Epiphany.