Your Christmas Tradition(s)

[Jennpurr]

I thought this might be a cool thread to start.

What are your Christmas traditions? What do you do/have to do every year or it just won't be Christmas for you?

As for me, my family has to watch A Christmas Story every year. On Christmas Eve and Day, TNT will usually have their annual A Christmas Story marathon. It repeats all day and night. My dad will usually have the TV set on TNT all day. You'll get your fair share of Ralphie before the day is over. Believe me. When it comes time to cut the turkey, I've been known to ask my dad if it's fully cooked. I'll even tell him, "You'll get worms!"

Of course, Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without my dad mentioning at least once, how I stuck my tongue to a light pole when I was younger.


So, what are your traditions?


Jen

[AmbersSecretAdmirer]

Due to family strife over the years, Christmas is a good one if I can get from one end to the other without someone starting a drunken fight.

But I do need appropriate Xmas music in the morning, be it popular Xmas songs or carols. I also like carols when wrapping presents.

[jago]

The week before Christmas is always hectic for me because I usually end up buying presents late. The day before Christmas Eve is when my Christmas really begins and I must watch a Christmassy movie, usually A Christmas Carol or It's a Wonderful Life, before I start wrapping the presents. I stay with my parents from Christmas Eve to Boxing Day, then it's back home again and friends come to stay until the 2nd January.

[LtSticks]

This Xmas is going to be shitty, it's the first one that I'm not spending it at home, I've got work on Christmas Eve, I'm pretty much feeling depressed as it is so you know, its gonna be a bundle of laughs :(

Thank God I'm going home for New Years, I havent been home in a year and I think its starting to show :(

[umgaynow]

For me it's not officially the Christmas season until I watch The Bishop's Wife. Most people have never heard of it...but a Christmas movie starring Cary Grant, David Niven, Loretta Young, Monty Wooley and Elsa Lanchester...how can you go wrong?

I used to have a Christmas Eve tradition of scheduling myself to work, so that I wouldn't have to schelp all the way up north to my brother's place (cuz I really don't like him and his wife is a really bad cook) but now I don't have a job so I'll have to think of another genius way in which to escape...suggestions anyone?

Sandi

[cbrymm]

Christmas morning can not happen unless the four of us (my sister, mother, father, and myself) are seated around the Christmas tree. Since she is still some-what young, my sister wakes up at the butt-crack of dawn to begin opening presents. A few years ago, I did the same and we would wait (rather impatiently) for my dad to hurry up and get up. Now I have discovered how fun it is to sleep as late as possible just to drive my sister up a wall. Eventually she pushes me out of bed.

[mangled_monkey]

Um... we don't really have an Christmas traditions... when I was younger we had a tree, but that stopped when I was 12. My family usually just sits around and opens presents and watches TV. This year I'll be going with my girlfriend to her grandparent's house for Christmas to meet her whole family. I really hope it goes well and her family likes me...

[FineyMcFine]

My younger sister was always the most excited about Christmas and would not go to the bathroom the night before Christmas so she would be certain to wake up early and wake us all up. Though she's now 29, she still wakes up incredibly early on Christmas morning (when she's home; she's had to work the last several Christmases since she's an eye surgeon resident).

When we were little, my mom would make us wait upstairs until several mysterious things had happened downstairs. I used to think she was making coffee but as I got older I figured she was getting some presents out of hiding and maybe doing our stockings. I never figured my mom for a procrastinator, and she probably wasn't - she likely just wanted us to not snoop around and find the gifts the night before.

When we finally get up, we open our stockings and then open presents while drinking coffee (those who drink it). I insist that we go one at a time so everyone can see what everyone else is getting, but for the last 4 years we've had Christmas at my sister's house in Iowa and there are so many gifts for the kids that my brother in law has taken to wanting us all to open multiple gifts at once. And yet, I resist...

While opening presents we cook what we call "the breakfast casserole" which is actually a breakfast souffle made from eggs, cheese, ham and/or sausage, and bread. It's wicked yummy, and we eat it when we're done with the presents. Then later in the afternoon we have a big Christmas day meal, which varies but is usually not turkey since Thanksgiving was so recent.

[gabbles]

OOOooo good thread!

Well, I'm the youngest of four kids, so Christmas stayed overly-exciting for me much longer then it did for the others (I'm five years behind the youngest of my oldest siblings...there's a weird sentence...). However, they still get sadly excited for people in their twenties, and so do I (though I'm still a teen so I'm aloud to ).

So, we get up in the morning (early) and attack our stockings. Mum always said that when we each turned 21 we no longer got a stocking. My siblings are 26, 24 and 22 and they still get theirs. Hehe. Mum fills them with fun, silly things. We try to drag out opening them as long as possible, but fail miserably. My brother and I always have a 'secret' competition to see who can drag theirs out the longest...I usually win (just). We hold out as long as we can for our presents under the tree (we generally last till 10...we went till 10:30 once...). These are 'The Big Presents'...if you're getting a bike, this is when you get it. It's all the presents to each other, basically.

After this, we have a big breakfast, go to my Aunt's where the family is all having lunch (we then proceed not to eat anything because we do out own thing) but swap presents and I pretend to get along with them all (which I don't, really).

We then come home where mum cooks a HUGE seafood lunch (which by then its more dinner) and she cooks heaps of vegetarian stuff for me (she owns a Vegetarian Cafe, so I'm lucky!). We eat waaaay too much, then proceed to eat all the chocolate from out stockings (and half heartedly eat the fruit that Mum has always insisted on putting in them).

We then bum around, generally getting nicely tipsy (okay, drunk) and for ONE day, we all get along.

My family loves Christmas.

*hugz*
~Gabs

[Triscuit7]

Working retail at Xmas means I really don't have much of a life. Two traditions that I would love to discard are store related. There's always a sale on Dec 26 which means lots of stickers which means staying late on Xmas eve and getting to the store early on the day after. Bleh.

On the upside, I always try to watch "It's a Wonderful Life" and some version of the "Christmas Carol" - and cry pretty much throughout. My mother sends me homemade cookies (Snickerdoodles) and fruitcake - which I adore. I think I may be the only American of my generation that does, but I do...I adore fruitcake.

[cbrymm]

SallyMcFine,

While opening presents we cook what we call "the breakfast casserole" which is actually a breakfast souffle made from eggs, cheese, ham and/or sausage, and bread

We do too!

[FineyMcFine]

Wow, cbrymm, are we related? Here is the recipe in case anyone wants to give it a whirl:

Ingredients

6 slices bread, cubed (my mom says white, I use wheat and it's fine)
1 pound ham or sausage (cube the ham, about 2 cups, if you use sausage then brown it first and drain the grease)
8oz grated sharp cheddar (or more, sometimes I add a little more)
6 beaten eggs
2 1/2 cups milk
1 tsp dry mustard
1 tsp salt

Grease a casserole dish with butter. Add the bread. Add the meat and cheese on top of the bread. Mix up the eggs, milk, salt, and dry mustard and pour on top. Cover and refrigerate overnight. Take out of fridge in morning an hour before you're going to cook it - bake at 350 for 45 min-1 hour, until it gets nice and brown and crusty on top. YUMMY!

[GayNow]

My Christmas Tradition:

I clean the basement and then stay the fuck out of everyone's way.

The entire family comes to our house on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. I do my duty, say "Merry Christmas" to everyone, hob-nob for a bit, and then I go to my bedroom to watch whatever happens to be on TV...with my cats.

Mom, Gram and I open presents Christmas Eve after everyone has left. We'll have Italian Sausage and scrambled eggs for breakfast on Christmas Day. And then the cooking starts. Again, I stay out of the way.

[Thianne]

Christmas tradition....that's a difficult question. basically eat a lot (and i mean a LOT!). than there's the ritual "trick-grandma-into-cooking-even-if-she-swore-not-to-give-in-anymore".....and....oh, yes, the decrease, every year, of the number of people. i mean, we're less, year after year after year.....it's kind of depressing now that i think about it.....
Val


ps: i know i should be all sad and stuff, but....i love this banana!

[dark_chylde]

I love Christmas, i really do.... but since I grew up it's kind of stress-related. As a child I could never wait for Christmas Eve to come.... now I wish I had more time for preparations, you know, buying gifts for everybody...

Well, talking traditions, we (my parents and myself) always meet at my sister's on Christmas Eve. Her children, girl (10) and boy (8) are singing in the church choire, so we watch them perform in mass.
Afterwards we have coffee at her place until the children open the presents ( in Germany you traditionally open the presents on the 24th in the evening).

On the 25th the family meets up at my parent's place where we have a rabbit for dinner, which I always look forward to as it is only served twice a year in our family (Easter and Christmas) and it's always delicious.

The 26th is still a Christmas Holiday in Germany but it's thankfully a bit quieter than the days before .... we get to relax and usually play games like monopoly all day.

If I only had all my Christmas presents ready, I'd be a lot calmer .....but I'll hopefully get it all done tomorrow.

I wish all kittens a very merry christmas !

Kathy

[k-prime]

Since I don't have any family nearby, and I am also cursed with working retail, I tend to go to a friend's house for Christmas. We start drinking at about 9 a.m., open presents, (I just take all my stuff over to his house,) and spend the day cooking dinner and visiting with the people in our group that stop by throughout the day.
We also try to be drunk enough to pass out by around 8 p.m., since we both have to work at 4 a.m. the next day. Stupid sales.

[LtSticks]

I don't have much Christmas traditions. This is the first year I'm to spend it whilst not with the family. And that sucks. Stupid work. This year my boss and my friends and work are all spending it together as most of us aren't near our families (mine are 6 hours away) I get to go down before New Year's though which is a little comforting.

Mainly I spend Christmas at home just spending time with the folks, doesn't matter what we do really.

~Emma

[writerfreak]

I like finding random old threads that no one has posted in for a while and posting in them. Especially this one cause I'm mean and I know that there are still people trying to forget last Christmas when the family got too drunk to function and they all passed out in the living room. (Just an example of my own Christmas). However, having Rachel at that time, and being together we decided that we would merge our traditions or incorporate new ones. Our traditions are you get to open one gift on Christmas Eve, just one. And every Christmas morning, we have cinnamon rolls. Those are the ones I brought into the mix. Her family didn't really have many other than they always watch a movie Christmas day. We changed the movie though, to Holiday Wishes. It was even her idea.

writerfreak

[summer fairy]

Oh I like these kind of threads, I especially like christmas, because non of my family get on with each other to well most the year but at christmas we all put are differences aside and just be a family, heck we all have are problems, we don't really hate each other, even if we think we do.. thats just family...

Well we usually have the stockings full of treats at the end of the bed, we also open a pressy on xmas eve, we tend to watch a christams movie to. We open presants first THEN eat breakfast! We don't eat lunch as we usually have a HUGE xmas dinner comming so save room for all that yummy goodness! We also put out milk and carrots for 'Santa and his raindeers' even though we are all old enough t know better we still do it, its become a sort of joke.

[umgaynow]

My best bud and I started a new one last year...we make ourselves a fancy dinner, including a nice bottle of wine and a sinful dessert...then watch classic Christmas cartoons (one of which must be the Grinch although I lobbied for Charlie Brown) on her widescreen hi-def tv and then we open prezzies...also a slumber party cuz of the whole drinking thing

[gorn]

It's Christmas Eve, MKF!! Geeks that we are, Mrs. Gorn & I will be checking out www.noradsanta.org all night until we go to bed. Go Santa!

[Belli Bear]

oooh! what a cute thread! okay well, i come from a traditional Polish family so therefore LOTS of cooking and LOTS of eating ensue every Christmas lol.

We celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve instead of Christmas Day, there's a huge feast which opens with soup and lots of fish as for some unknown religious reason no meat can be comsumed on the eve. So yeah, on christmas eve my family comes round my mum and dads place and they stay the night and end up leaving after the second feast on christmas night. Lots of wine, vodka, pretty old christmas carols, me, my sister and my mum end up cooking for probably three day straight lol as all the dishes and cakes are traditional so they take an age to make from scratch. So after presents are opened on christmas eve we sit around talking, get some sleep, wake up christmas day and cook again, have the biggest most delicious dinner that night and pass the heck out for the next month


Merry Christmas frieeeends x

[CrazyTaraWitch]

This morning my family did Christmas as usual: opened stockings while my mom pretended my 20 year old brother and I still believe in Santa, then we gave our dogs treats. Later we will go to my aunt's parents' house for a buffet dinner and lots of games, like every year as long as I can remember. For my mom and I, though, Christmas started a week ago with our annual viewing of It's A Wonderful Life, which we watched again last night after How The Grinch Stole Christmas.