'Tis the season for rewatching your favorite holiday movies [1], eating too many snowman-shaped sugar cookies, and engaging in all of your favorite holiday traditions [2], whether they be easy traditions you've been doing since you were a kid [3] or new ones you've started since having your own children [4]. For Melissa Joan Hart, who visited PEOPLE Now to talk about her new holiday movie, Lifetime's A Very Nutty Christmas, it's very much all of the above.
When it comes to holiday traditions [5], Melissa says, "You name it, we do it." To name a few, her family builds gingerbread houses and always takes a photo with Santa (which she says they've already done a little early this year [6]), and each of her boys has their own Elf on the Shelf [7] who comes every morning of the holiday season as soon as the family's tree goes up [8]. But her favorite tradition of all [9] is one her parents started when she was a kid.
"My favorite one is one that I had when I was little — my parents used to leave us at the top of the stairs and go down to check and make sure the presents were there and that Santa had arrived. Because I think there was one morning when we were really little that Santa hadn't come yet and I think that we had to go back to bed, like, 'Santa hasn't come yet,'" she said, explaining the tradition's kind of hilarious (and relatable) backstory. "So that was a tradition my parents always had and I've carried that on with my children. I can still feel their anticipation when [they're] standing at the top of the stairs, everyone's awake, [and they're like], 'Did I get the thing I wanted? What is it going to look like down there? Is Santa here?!' . . . It's that build up of, like, the moment before you walk through the gates at Disneyland. . . I think the anticipation of anything is always better than the actual event."