Christmas Eve is a special day in our house.  We have a special family tradition, that made it easy for me to take a day off from training.  I actually didn’t have a complete day of doing nothing.  I did lift weights this morning, but once that was done, I was able to focus on the rest of the day.

In England, where I grew up, it is tradition to have a large turkey dinner on Christmas Day.  It is a huge feast, where everyone eats too much and then falls asleep, while watching television. It is a big event and is a lot of hard work to prepare for.

Many years ago, when our children were very young, my wife and I chose to cook the turkey on Christmas Eve.  We did it to save time on Christmas Day, but the turkey smelled so good, that we decided we would have turkey sandwiches for dinner on Christmas Eve.  To get us in the mood for Christmas, we also decided to watch “It’s A Wonderful Life” that Christmas Eve.  This was the start of a family tradition.

For more than 20 years we have watched that movie on Christmas Eve, and most years we have also eaten turkey sandwiches.  We have watched that movie on Christmas Eve every year, including when we were on  a vacation.  We even took a DVD of the movie all the way to Australia in 2005, in order to continue our tradition.

So, today was no different.  As we prepare for a relatively quiet Christmas Day with our kids once more, we spent today cooking a turkey.  It’s just what we do on Christmas Eve.  It’s a fabulous tradition and definitely one worth taking a day off from training for.