What holiday traditions does your family have? Either that your parents passed on to you or that you and your family has started. One thing that my family does every year is the Friday after Thanksgiving we go out and pick a Christmas tree for the local tree farm and then we come home and we turn on Christmas music and decorate the tree and our house and we make Christmas cookies that day too. We don't have really any Christmas eve traditions which makes me sad. And we don't go caroling.
So what does your family do? And what are your favorite Xmas treat recipes?
Thanks and everyone enjoy the holidays!
2007-11-18 16:08:17 · 179 answers · asked by Pony 2 in Society & Culture ➔ Holidays ➔ Other - Holidays
I love your holiday tradition. It sounds so comforting and wonderful. Don't feel sad about Christmas Eve - it is yours for the making. If you like, you can borrow one of our favorite traditions from that day:
The family gathers over platters of sandwiches (hot or cold), party mix, hot punch and each one opens a single gift of their choosing. (We save the big exchange for Christmas morning.) After we visit for awhile, then we meet at a church (we don't necessarily go to our own - we like to visit a different church each year) for a Christmas Eve candelight communion service. (Service times can vary, so please call ahead to find out for sure.) If we're really fortunate, we find a church that has special music that night (a children's choir or handbells, etc). It's a marvelous way to celebrate - we don't feel like it's Christmas without that.
Favorite Christmas treat: It's very simple, but it makes our home smell wonderful and is something very soothing and comforting to have on hand: the hot apple cider I mentioned earlier. You can't go wrong with this combination of ingredients, and there's no real formula - this is a flexible recipe and the amounts can vary depending on your personal taste:
Take 1 gallon of apple juice, 6-8 ounces of cinnamon red hots, and anywhere from a splash up to half a gallon of orange juice, combine in a crockpot and heat until the cinnamon hots are melted. You can keep this simmering in your crockpot all day if you like, and it's so nice to set this out with a cheese-ball and crackers or some ready made shortbread cookies - it doesn't have to be elaborate. It's just a nice place to nibble in between visits and meals.
Hope you have a wonderful holiday too!
2007-11-20 23:50:42 · answer #1 · answered by CassandraM 6 · 14⤊ 1⤋
Normally, on Thanksgiving night we put up the Christmas Tree and decorate it of course. Another tradition we do is open our presents on Christmas Eve night. I'd have to say that ever since my parents got divorced, it was around Christmas about 8 years ago, and so Christmas has never really been a good time of year for us. It just brings back bad memories. Hopefully when I have my family someday, I can continue these traditions and it will be a nice memory like it was for me.
2007-11-21 07:12:55 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 4⤋
Thanksgiving
- The Thanksgiving traditions don't vary much from most people's, except that I like to eat the turkey giblets.
- My mom has a very unique (and good) type of turkey gravy
- Black Friday shopping
- My dad bakes a few types of pies
Christmas
- Along with a standard Christmas dinner, we also make some fish like Buccoli (don't know how to spell it), as part of the Italian side of my family's traditions
- Opening gifts on Christmas Eve night instead of Christmas morning (except when I was a kid, I'd also get gifts from "Santa" for Christmas morning, because I got more gifts that way, I pretended to believe in Santa well into my teens).
- We invite the entire family over and they usually show up
- About a week or so before Christmas, I do my "Grand Finale Workout" of weightlifting, and then take off for the entire winter until the very end of March.
- We decorate late but leave stuff up late
- We celebrate both regular Christmas (Dec 25) and Russian Christmas (January 7), but regular Christmas takes priority
- Sometimes we drive downtown to see how they decorated that year for Christmas
New Year's
- A New Year's dinner that consists of sauerkraut, beans, hot dogs, pork, dumplings, and mashed potatoes.
- Staying up on New Year's Eve to watch the ball drop
Actually from how it sounds, you do have Christmas traditions. It's just you don't think much of them because they're your own. People usually don't think much of their own traditions.
2007-11-20 18:46:51 · answer #3 · answered by Matthew V 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
We put the tree up on the first of December. Sometimes we put lights up. On christmas eve when my parents were still together we would bake cookies and take them around to our friends' houses. Then we would come home and read the nativity story before watching the christmas carols on television. The younger kids would have to go to bed after the kids' performers had been on, then I would stay up with my parents until it was over.
Christmas morning we aren't allowed to open the presents until everyone is up. First we give each other gifts, then we get to open what 'Santa' has given us. Then mum makes French Toast with berries. Christmas Lunch this year we are going to a community lunch, where less-fortunate members of the community have a nice christmas lunch. There are homeless people there, and people who have no families or little money, and my family is volunteering to help serve them lunch.
Christmas Dinner we have all the trimmings, lots of champagne, and roast vegies. Then for dessert we have christmas cake, pudding, and pavlova. And more champagne.
Because my parents have recently seperated and dad wasn't very into christmas, we are starting new traditions. I want to celebrate the 12 days of Christmas (they start on Christmas day and runs into January, I always thought it was before Christmas, but it's actually after). I also want to bake millions of cookies and decorate the whole house, and make all sorts of little christmas crafts. And i'm dying to put lights up on the house this year.
Merry Christmas everyone!
2007-11-20 11:29:25 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
The weekend after Thanksgiving we go to get a tree (a live one). Every year we each get a new oranment. On Christmas Eve we eat our big Christmas dinner and always have Virgina ham. On Christmas Day everyone must wake up before we start to open presents(even if it is my aunt's over who sleeps untill 10:00 am).
Oh and my dad's old tradition of nothing Christmas-ish before the end of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade still stands.
2007-11-21 06:24:53 · answer #5 · answered by Madelin N 1 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Well, for Thanksgiving every year, we put up our Christmas Tree. Every year on Christmas we can't go downstairs to open our presents until music is on. On Christmas day, we always have a breakfast "feast." Which contain the usuals: biscuits, sausage, eggs, bacon, et cetera. The only Christmas Eve traditions that we have are we always read the "Night before Christmas" story. Oh yea, and we always get new pajamas on Christmas Eve. Happy holidays! And a great New Year!
2007-11-21 03:07:44 · answer #6 · answered by Katt 3 · 1⤊ 0⤋
For As long as I've known we've had a Christmas party at my Grandma's house on my dad's side. And we do A kris kringle. With 17 grandchildren it's a fun event. We always get a different name and it's impossible to find who has you. The house is decked out with personal stockings and a nice big tree. Also Right after Christmas maybe a day or two most of us head up to Vermont. Unfortunately due to bad health my grandma hasn't made the 5 hour ride in a while. But we all go up. Just skiing and snowboarding and play lots of scatagories!! We tend to merge a holidays. Into one big super big family. It's been around as long as I've known. And it's really great. It will most likely get passed down to our kids. Cause we'll always get together every year. That's a promise. The Saturday after 4th of July and the one before Christmas. Without a doubt.
2007-11-20 09:03:01 · answer #7 · answered by Momo70707 5 · 3⤊ 0⤋
In my family since we are catholics we have a little glass version of the stable where Mary and Joseph were staying when baby Jesus was born so every Christmas Eve at midnight we would always rock the little glass manger where the baby was sleeping. After that we open the gifts everyone brought for everyone.But thats at Christmas.On christmas day santa claus comes and we get more presents.By the way i am from mexico.
In January we celebrate a holiday called the three kings day it on january fifth we also get presents but this timewe get two big bowls and we fill one with water and the other with hay because they say the three kings come on animals and for presents we give them the food and water in exchange.
2007-11-21 05:02:32 · answer #8 · answered by sweet_niblets92 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
We have several. Some of them, my husband of over 26 years, and I brought together from our families, and others we have made up over the years.
We too, go out and get our tree the weekend after Thanksgiving. That is a tradition he brought into the marriage. Each child gets to open one present Christmas Eve, that is a tradition that I brought in to the marriage. And the one that we made up and we still do with the grandchildren is, every Christmas Eve, we drive around looking at all of the decorations. Some years, like this one, we have a pickup truck that we load with hay, cover up in blankets and put on our heaviest jackets. Then we play Christmas music as loud as we can, sing to the top of our lungs and ride around in the back of the pickup looking at all the lights and decorations. Then we all go back to my house, open one gift each while drinking hot chocolate, and then we go to bed and wait for Santa.
2007-11-21 03:05:43 · answer #9 · answered by nana4dakids 7 · 3⤊ 0⤋
Hi...
Well, I live in Mexico, so maybe we have some different traditions than you...
We have the "Posadas" that are 9 traditional parties from December 16th to December 24th, these are made in commemoration of the journey that Mary and Joseph made before they found the place where Jesus was born. There are a lot of candles, candies, piñatas, food, and punch.
Besides the Christmas Tree, we put figures of the Nativity, they can be made with wood, porcelain, plastic, almost anything can be used to make a Nativity. Check this link:
http://www.pernel.com/Zocolo-nativity.jpg
We join around it and we sing a lullaby for Jesus as a child... we hug each other and exchange some presents, as we make a toast. We eat turkey, romeritos (They are special and delicious herbs) with mole and shrimps, apple salad, and cake.
At December 25th, Santa visits our homes, leaving toys for our children. The family join again for the "Recalentado", which means we eat what we didn't eat the night before, haha!!!
Merci!!!
2007-11-20 10:52:23 · answer #10 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
We have typical and untypical traditions. On that we laugh about is to who gets a Christmas card first. This means that we mail out our Christmas cards the day after Thanksgiving to see who gets one first.
More typical traditions are checking out the Christmas lighted houses during the month up until Christmas, putting up a Christmas tree and decorating throughout the inside of our homes. We also have a Christmas play at our church, and invite all we know.
First Baptist Church of Allen is having their Christmas program on the 8th and 9th of December at 7:00 PM, and anyone who wants to come is invited.
We also go carolling, exchange gifts on Christmas and sometimes the day before, and have individul parties through our church groups at someone's house or a reserved location.
2007-11-20 02:48:57 · answer #11 · answered by Harold Sink 5 · 2⤊ 0⤋