It’s the season of spending time with loved ones, and Alli Phillips and her family truly take that to heart.

Phillips is one of eight siblings, and their Thanksgiving and Christmas celebrations are something straight out of my favorite holiday movie.  

“We have this super fun tradition on Thanksgiving where we have our own football Superbowl. All the cousins, my immediate family, friends, in-laws, everyone in the extended family comes over and we divide into two teams. My dad and his brother, my Uncle Paul, have two teams and we play,” she explained. “Then, my mom and all my aunts are in the kitchen and we all cook together, talk, and have this massive feast that lasts all day. We have at least 20 pies total, too. Our house is the gathering place, and there’s usually 30 plus people there. We play games, we eat, we mingle, and we play pickleball.”

Given the size of the guest list, there's obviously a lot of prep work involved.

“In the family group chat, we all take dibs on different things,” said Phillips. “The main dishes I usually do are the rolls and the mashed potatoes.”

The holiday festivities, however, don’t end there.

The day after Thanksgiving marks one of Phillips’ favorite holiday traditions.

“Our Christmas Tree Party is when we take all the Thanksgiving decorations down and go find our tree for the year,” she shared. “Then, we decorate the whole house for Christmas. We all sleep under the tree that night and watch as many Christmas movies as we can.”

Her favorite holiday movies are Home Alone, Polar Express, and It's a Wonderful Life.

“We’re big Hallmark people, too. My dad is actually the worst one in our family. Even after Christmas he was watching Hallmark Christmas movies through February,” mentioned Phillips. 

The Phillips family loves their holiday traditions. And each family has their own unique traditions that make the occasion special. 

“Another tradition we have is on Christmas Eve. Everybody has a cup of pudding, and in one of them there’s a nut, and whoever gets the nut will get a $5 bill,” she revealed. “I’ve never gotten it. This just shows how unlucky I am.”

Phillips shared another one of her favorites that exemplifies the holiday spirit.

“Our Christmas tree ornaments are very eccentric. But on Christmas Eve, we have a tradition where everybody chooses one ornament off the tree and tells us how it reminds them of Jesus,” she concluded. “It would be like an ornament of Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer and we get creative and correlate its meaning back to our savior. After all, that’s the real meaning of Christmas.”