What is your Christmas tradition?? :)

[tikeyas_mom]

For thoughs of you who donot celebreate Christmas, but DO celebrate honica(sp?) or another holiday in December, i want to know what your traditions are :p..

In my house we get our tree from up in the bush, my dad gets a tree cutting licence and goes to get one. we all go and tabogan and have a blast. then we decorate the tree the next day :).

On Christmas eve my family eats turkey and then we go out to look at Christmas lights, *my lil brother looks up in the sky for santa of course ;)*.. When we get home from the Christmas light hunting we open one present. Then we watch Christmas Specials and goto bed, my Brothers and I stay up like all night. It is great.

On Christmas morning my lil brother wakes everyone up and yells that is it christmas lol. Then we all get up and eat breakfast and set up munchies *olivs, carrots, dip, chips, and chocolate* then we munch out all day :). at around 10 am we get to open gifts from reletives and Santa ;).. We also open our stolkings too :).

Then after all that fun is over we go tabogening witht he dogs and then we goto chirch, Last year we went to chirch on Christmas eve. It is weired in my family we never go to church except for on Christmas.

WHAT R YOUR FAMILY TRADITION!! :D

[tatsxxx11]

What a beautiful tradition! I got all mushy just reading about them:) Trust me, those memories are one's you'll treasure always and carry on yourself, when you have a family of your own, if you do; or just keep for yourself! I'll have to come back and write about mine; they're very much like yours! Right now the "hounds" are barking outside!:D

[Kfamr]

Christmas Eve we normally go to neighbor's houses and exchange gifts with them (and between the pups ;) ) eat snacks and so on... Maybe open a few gifts from parent's.

Christmas Day, we open all of our gifts from each other and "Santa". the pups open theirs. We clean the living room, which is normally FULL of wrapping paper. Then get ready to go to my grandparent's. But, this year we're going to my aunt and uncle's (Grandparents as well as many other relatives are coming.) to have dinner/exchange gifts with them.

I really don't want Christmas to come. It's just normally a stressful day/week. Especially since there's a lack of money in my family, and we're not able to offer as many gifts, and recieve as many as we used to.

but, I guess it's ok anyways... My favorite part is watching Simba open and enjoy his gifts.

[primabella]

honica(sp?)

Chanukkah :)

On Christmas Eve we would normally all go over to my grandmothers house. My whole family would be there and it would be amazing. We would stay up late playing Bingo, card games and talking about everything. Then one of my cousins would dress up as Santa, come downstairs and give us all our presents that were being exchanged between the families.

On Christmas day, we would wake up and empty out our stockings then open our presents. Then we would clean up and go to my other grandparents house. At night we would probably go back to my other grandparents' house with the family.

Things have changed so much. My grandfather died a long time ago and since then, it's never been the same. My cousins are all married and have their own families. We might just go to my aunts house but nothing special. :( Christmas morning hasn't changed though. Last year Mickey was so jealous of the presents and got in the middle of all of it. Lol :D

[ILoveMyAbbyGirl]

It's a different date every year, but this year, on the 20th, is my grandparents on my mom's side's Christmas party, and let me tell you, my mom has 7 sisters, all of whom have 2 or more children, and some of them have kids also. There's lots of us there. We rent out a hotel and have a Christmas party and go swimming in the pool and open presents. I love it. It's probably my fave part of the Christmas season, because lots of them I haven't seen in a while.

Chrsitmas Eve we go to church, and that is really neat too. It's the same every year, but every year the tree in the church gets bigger and better. We listen to the sermon, then afterward, we pull out the candles we get at the door and light them from the isle candles. They turn out the lights in the church except the lights on the tree and we sing Silent Night. I love that part, it's so cool. Then we go to my other grandma's house and open more gifts from my dad's side of the family and have a large dinner. Usually on the way home we look at the lights on the houses and drive past the house that has TONS of lights. It's better each year.

Christmas day is spent with my family at our house. It's just my parents, me, my brother, and my sister, and this year, our newest addition, my nephew. We open presents in the morning and the living room is a huge mess until someone gets up (we usually all fall asleep from my bro waking us up at 6am to open presents) then we clean up and have Christmas dinner.

THEN, if I am lucky, my parents and my friend Rachel's parents talk and I get to go visit her house in Minnesota over the weekend. Yay!

I LOVE CHRISTMAS!

[Shelteez2]

My brother and I set our alarms and get up very early.
Then we sneak upstairs and snoop through the stockings.
To pass time we make coffee for our parents and get breakfast stuff ready (ie get the bacon out to defrost, get the pans ready on the stove etc).
After enough time has passed we wake up our sisters and get them to wake up our parents...
Then we all open our presents. My brother and I sit on either side of the tree and hand out presents.
Dinner is either at our house or my aunt's house (her and my mom switch every year). Since this year it's my aunt's turn, we will pack up all of the presents for other family and take it to her house. After dinner we exchange presents and open those.

[GoldenRetrLuver]

On Christmas Eve my family goes looking at Christmas lights, and then a movie afterwards. On Christmas Day, we'll open presents around 10:00 AM, or when everyone gets up. :p Then the pups open their presents. :) Then, around noon time the whole family will get together at my grandma's house, (My parents, me, my sister, aunts, uncles, cousins, so it's A LOT of people.) We'll have lunch, and most likely go to church. After church, we come back and eat dinner/lunch depending on the time.

So, nothing special.

[Tonya]

Christmas eve, we go to my mom's house, then my dad and his wife's house, then my biological father's mother's house. Christmas day, we go to Mike's dad's house, then Mike's mom's family's house, then his grandma's house. (Everyone lives 1-2 1/2 hours apart.) Then, Christmas nite, we hear crap about who's house we missed or didn't spend enough time at.

Starting next year, after the house is remodeled, every holiday is here. Screw the family members if they can't get along enough to be in the same house because I'm not running around anymore!

Sorry if I sound bitter. I just came to this realization this year that I'm an adult. Why should I drive all over the place on Christmas just because everyone else can't get along?

[cali]

christmas eve we have ham and carrot cassrol, and potatos and such, then a jello,cake,and whipped cream trifle, after that we open presents while litning to christmas music and video taping the whole thing, we each save one gift that we open in the morning, then we go to bed, and in the morning we get out stockings, and wait till everyone else is up, for breaky we have finnish rye bread, other things, then we open our last gifts, and then my brother and I watch christmas specials while my mom makes supper(only this year we are going to a friends place) so this year we are bringing the pula gotta have pula! lol so we have that stuff, and when supper is ready the table is set all fancy, and everything is set out for supper, we eat then we do our own thing after that :D

[GoldenRetrLuver]

Originally posted by cali
so this year we are bringing the pula gotta have pula!

Forgive my ignorance, but what is Pula? :o I've never heard of it.

[cali]

dont worry not many people have ever heard of it lol, its a finnish sweet bread, its breaded, and the top is coverd with egg and then sprinkled with these finnish suger crumble things, its really really good!:D

[GoldenRetrLuver]

Ooooh sounds good! :)

[Sevens]

Well, this year we are trying to do something different. Brian's parents live here in the same town as us, but my family (parents, siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins) live an hour and a half away.

Instead of splitting Xmas day waking up early, driving like maniacs, opening presents, eating breakfast, then rushing back to spend the evening with his family, we are going to do it different. Also, this is the first Xmas we have the dogs.

We and the dogs are going to my parents' house on Xmas eve, have dinner, and spend the night. Then we'll get up, my grandparents will show up, we'll open presents, then have breakfast. Breakfast is creamed eggs on toast with sausage, fruit salad, juice, and coffee.

Then we'll leave and be back to our town by lunchtime so we can spend time with his family. His younger bro will be here from San Francisco and his sister will come from Pennsylvania. There will be lots of great "island food" (his parents come from the West Indies)...curried prawns, rum cake, fish, salad, ham, lotsa of tasty veggies, fresh bread, probably about 5 different pies. It will also be our (Brian and me) first Xmas together married, so that'll add an interesting dimension too.:)

[tikeyas_mom]

yay i love christmas!! :)

all your traditions sound so nice :D..

[green_chameleon_girl]

Christmas here is almost the same every year. Me and my sister dont go to bed until 3 o'clock in the morning;) then we wake up at 5 o'clock and ask our parents to go open presents.. guess what the say!!??:D
gooo baaack tooo sleeep *snore* haha lol..
so we rip open our stockings compair what we got and are always :DHAPPY:D with what we get from the stocking. then we go to sleep and wake up around 9 and open presents and all that neat stuff. Then we go to my nannys house and meet up with family eat a HUGE dinner and open more presents. I really love christmas ALOT!!:D

[carole]

This year will be quiet, my sister and family are going to Hahei, to their beach house and spend xmas there, just her family, we will go and see my mum and dad or they will come over here, but we are not having a huge feast on xmas day, as we are going to Valentines buffet restaurant for our feast on boxing day, so we all love going there so should be great., always such yummy food, so no stress , no work this year cooking over a hot stove, YEAH!!!!!!, its been a stressful year for my family, so it will be nice to sit back and chill out this xmas.

Alot of families in NZ spend xmas at the beach, or have a barbie, as its hot here, I really do want to experience a WHITE XMAS one of these days. I guess i will have to go back to the homeland for that.:)

[RICHARD]

One tradition that I miss is gathering food toys and clothes to take across the border into Tijuana, Mexico..

My dad was a president of a Ham radio club that would throw a huge party in a dance hall and pass out treats, gifts and food.

After a few times doing something like that the luster and the commercialism takes the edge off the holidays for me.

Some things I remember the most were watching children going thru piles of clothes, holding a shirt up to see if it fit and going over to a sibling or parent for their approval.

Or handing a woman a bag or basket of food and watching the tears well up in her eyes while she
thanks you over and over and over again.

But even more special is watching a kid take a candy filled stocking to their brothers and sisters to share..

But my favorite of all time is the time we took boxes of oranges to hand out to the childern..

After you see a three year old kid doing the "orange dance" laughing and smiling, holding their
gift over their heads with two hands - you really see what is important and what a fun Christmas tradition it was.

[micki76]

Well dangit, Richard. I'm sick and teary already and what do you do?

Yeah, you made me cry. Silly, ill woman. :)

[slick]

Shhhh, don't tell anyone but Richard made me cry too...... :( :(

Micki: hope you feel better tomorrow because the bar will be open early, I'm sure.

[RICHARD]

oh my,

sorry about that.:(

It wasn't supposed to be sad...

Actually, doing something like that fuels you for a while afterwards.

[slick]

Don't worry Richard, I'm a sap at the best of times.

great thing to do Richard. :)

my family tradition...
well first of all i don't have much of a family to have a tradition... we don't even act like a family...

so therefore, we do nothing on christmas. no lights/decorations are allowed. no gift exchanges. i guess the tradition is to, "better not be happy."

[Russian Blue]

Originally posted by cali
dont worry not many people have ever heard of it lol, its a finnish sweet bread, its breaded, and the top is coverd with egg and then sprinkled with these finnish suger crumble things, its really really good!:D

Here's a link to a pic for people who are not familiar with what pulla looks like:

Pulla Recipe & Pic (http://users.dls.net/~chrismac/pulla.html)

Actually, I'm making some pulla this weekend! This will be my first attempt, since my mother usually makes it for Christmas.

Wish me luck!

;)

[MammaMangorin]

Here in Sweden and the rest of the scandinavia we have a tradition the 13th dec. It is verry often children who made it.. They are sining christmas songs in white dresses... I can't explain it in a good way but show some pics.. The traditons name is Lucia.. (Dont know it the pics working :rolleyes: :confused: )

http://www.aftonbladet.se/noje/famefactory/img/wictoria_12_liten.jpg
http://www.vasteras.se/carlfors/hbild/lucia8.jpg
http://www.uta.fi/laitokset/fil2/pohk/nordistnet/lucia.jpg
http://www.ystad.se/ystadweb.nsf/pictures/0b8161274dcf46f5c1256c630047f15c/$file/lucia.jpg

[slick]

This is my tradition. Always keep the Christ in Christmas. I've noticed that some of you call it Xmas and I totally respect that. I'm just saying that to me it's Christmas.

And that all I got to say about that.

Now for my other tradition. Home-made Baileys and I just might bring a bottle or two to the CA BBQ next year.:) :)

[CathyBogart]

Brian's family celebrates on Xmas eve, they have a fairly early dinner and this year they're doing a gift exchange rather than everyone getting everyone else gifts. Much less confusion.

I'm glad of that, because I hate trying to open gifts in an "orderly" fashion, especially when they have the five year old hand out all the presents. :rolleyes: The gift exchange will be fun and short, then we can EAT! *drools* Both of our families are full of good cooks!

Thursday we're going to my aunt's house. Muahahaha! My family is a buch of LOONIES! Almost all of the adults drink a little bit too much wine, and then we play pictionary, or charades, or something that's more fun when everyone around you is a little tipsy. :D

Gift opening is done in a half-arsed orderly-ish way...meaning there are usually onle two or three gifts being opened at a time, and the floor is covered in wrapping stuff. The dog will inevitably be wreaking havoc and generally just making things more fun!

Oh yeah, my family each opens ONE gift Xmas eve. :D

Edit: I would like to add that to me the TRUE holiday is the Solstice, which I celebrated in my own way, alone. :)

[cloverfdx]

Richard that is wonderful what you do for all those people, i got all teary eyed as well :)

As for Christmas tradition it has all been changed this year (minus a few people :( ) but we had dinner at our house with my Pop, Aunt, Cousin, Bro's & their Fiancee's and Girlfriends and the Mutts. Mum opened all her pressies when she came home from work and we pretty much sat around eating and drinking (Softdrink) for the rest of the day.

But i did con one of my Brothers to come and walk Clover and Elvis with me ,well he said he wanted to walk Elvis :D i did not mind and my lil cousin came along to the park with us.

Mums still not home 12:25 on Boxing day she went to drop one of her friends home.


all of your traditions sound wonderfull. :)