Do you have specific Christmas Traditions/A Typical Christmas Day?

[Flashy]

So, what traditions do you have? Or what is your typical day like?



When we were kids we used to wake up in the morning and take our stockings into my parents room and open them. Then everyone would get washed and dressed and we would go downstairs and open the prezzies under the tree (which would be for me and my brother). Then breakfast. Then open the rest of the prezzies under the tree and also exchange presents (us to our parents, each parent to the other, to grandparents, etc). It's different now I won't have any presents for me, all my prezzies go to my buns, but I love giving prezzies, that's the best part of the day.

We'd have a huge traditional Christmas lunch (all the typical things, I think) unless we had no family over, in which case we would probably have a home cooked chinese or steak or something.

Normally my mum's parents come down on Christmas Eve (they don't have anyone else to celebrate Christmas with since my mum's little sister died), and stay straight through Christmas, my birthday, new years and go home maybe the 3rd Jan. My Dad's parents come down for an afternoon (unless my grandad is being the tit that he is, and then they will come down and invariably go home when he throws a strop, last year that was during Christmas lunch).

We have a family gathering that doubles up as a way to share Christmas prezzies, and used to be a way for people to wish me a happy birthday (I don't celebrate my birthday anymore so now it is just to exchange presents). That's great because my family are hilarious, lol.

Until we all went off to uni me and my friends would all get together on Christmas Eve and spend the day together, cinema, lunch, whatever we felt like. That was my favourite tradition of all. Sadly, but not unexpectedly, it lapsed.

So, what are your Christmas's like?

 

[SnowyShiloh]

I love Christmas!

My family has always ordered pizza for dinner on Christmas Eve and gone out together to see a movie at the theater. When we were younger, before we went to bed my mom would get my brother and I all dressed up and we'd break the wishbone from my grandma's Thanksgiving turkey, then he'd open the present I got him and I'd open the present he got me. Then my mom would give each of us the cross stitched ornament she'd made. We both have 18 of them because she made one every year, so our tree is full of them! My parents would open the little presents in their stockings. We'd read Christmas stories after that (even now I love kids' Christmas books and read our whole collection every year :embarrassed.

The next morning, we'd wake up early (usually be told to go back to sleep at least once because it was 3 am), then go downstairs and open our stockings and play with the presents Santa left (usually a book, a toy and whatever toy we'd wanted the most like a sled or a doll). Then we'd open the other presents, have a nice brunch, and lounge around for a couple hours.

In the times we've lived close to my mom's sister and parents, they would come over for Christmas dinner and we'd open presents to each other then. That was always a lot of fun because I love my cousins! Thanksgiving is always at my aunt's house and Christmas at ours. My family always has prime rib, salad, rolls and baked potatoes for Christmas dinner, then a fancy dessert (I've been the one to make it since I was about 15) like Cranberry White Chocolate Cheesecake or Italian Cream Cake. I personally don't care for prime rib and don't eat it. After my parents got divorced when I was 16, the times I've had Christmas at my dad's house I have baked a big holiday ham with the pineapple rings and cherries on it. I like that much better and plan to make it every year when I have my own family.

The day after Christmas, my brother and cousins usually go ice skating together and maybe shopping to get the great deals on gifts for next year!

This year will be weird. I'm going to be with my dad (have only been twice in 6 years at Christmas) and he just got married in October and. They live way far away in Louisiana. Her family isn't very welcoming and my dad seems to have been absorbed by them, so I don't think it will be terribly pleasant. Since Linda moved in with my dad's house, they made one of the guest rooms her daughter's room (she's 20 and has a bedroom at her dad's house a couple miles away as well as an apartment her parents are paying for), so I'll be staying in the other room. It's at the back of the house and I've never been able to sleep well in it, the highway is 50 feet away and the big semis driving by at night make the creepiest, most forlorn sound. I'm a light sleeper and I've had bad dreams every night I've stayed in that room! Also, for some reason my dad arranged my flights so I will be there for THREE WEEKS and at my mom's house (where I consider home to be) for one before coming back to Alaska. I won't even get to my mom's house until January 5th so Christmas will be over and all the decorations put away.

I'm not looking forward to Christmas a whole lot this year, but I'll make the best of it and at least pretend to enjoy myself for my dad's benefit. At least I get to play with his cat and dog! Also, sorry for the whining!

 

[Bassetluv]

Flashy, don't you love thinking back to the days of being a kid, being so excited about getting up on Christmas morning and opening all the presents? (btw, I was going to post a thread onthis very same topic, but ya beat me to it! You know what they say about great minds...)

When I was little my sister and I used to share the same bedroom (even the same bed for a few years...that's something I don't miss...lol), and so getting to sleep on Christmas eve was next to impossible. However, we did always manage to finally drift off...and in the morning we'd wake up - usually around 4:30 am or so - and open our stockings. Our stockings, btw, were actually our leotards rather than real Xmas stockings, and our two older brothers used a knit sock for theirs, so they were always upset that we got more than them (two legs vs. one shorter sock, and the legs stretched at that! ). After opening our stockings we'd sneak into the living room and start sorting out presents and feeling them, shaking them...whatever we could to try and figure out what was inside. Then our dad would eventually come downstairs, around 8:30 or so (oh, the agony of having to wait for him to wake up!) and he'd go to make some coffee. Then we'd finally gather around, open presents, and then it was back to business as usual...clean up the giftwrap, get dressed, then start preparing our Christmas dinner, peeling and cutting veggies, making stuffing, cranberry sauce, stuffing the turkey, etc.

Around lunchtime our dad would drive over to Halifax and pick up our grandmother and her friend, Millie. To us, Millie seemed to be around 150 years old (in actuality she was probably in her mid-90s) and she couldn't hear a thing. She wore this terrible hearing aid that did absolutely nothing for her, but the feedback noise it made every few moments was excruciating to ears that could hear. We'd be in the kitchen getting things prepared while Millie and Nanny sat in the living room, and we'd hear *eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!* (not unlike a screaming bunny sound), and we'd just nod and say, "There goes Millie again". Poor Millie wasn't even aware that she was emitting signals from her person, but anyone unfortunate enough to be seated next to her wound up with watery eyes and temporary hearing loss of their own.And you know, it wouldn't surprise me one bit if NASA was picking up the feedback on their systemsand sending search teams out, determined to find the foreign invader.

At dinner time we would all sit at the table and enjoy the feast. I must admit, even though my sister and I were in our very early (barely pre-) teens, the dinner didn't wind up too badly. We'd lost our mom when I was 10 and my sis was 6, so we had to wing a lot of things. Our dad did give us some guidance on how to do the turkey and the stuffing, and still it turned out good! Oh, and Nanny always brought with her some plum pudding and rum sauce for dessert. I hated plum pudding with a passion (as did my other siblings too), but we always asked for dessert, as that rum sauce was heavenly!! Nanny was a bit heavy-handed with the measurement of rum that went into it, but oddly, no one complained.

As rough as my childhood got at times, I've always loved Christmas. One of the most favorite things in the whole world that I used to do was to sit quietly, alone in the living room, late in the evening. I'd have the radio on, playing Christmas carols, and all the lights off, but the Christmas tree lights would be illuminated...and if it was snowing I'd have the curtains open so I could watch the snow softly falling to the ground. To me, that was just a little slice of heaven, those moments.

 

[Flashy]

Bassetluv wrote:

Flashy, don't you love thinking back to the days of being a kid, being so excited about getting up on Christmas morning and opening all the presents? (btw, I was going to post a thread onthis very same topic, but ya beat me to it! You know what they say about great minds...)

:highfive:

I love Christmas. I love thinkign about Christmas and learning about other's Christmases. It only holds pain for me now, but thinking about it from a distance still makes it feel magical.

 

[XxMontanaxX]

Don't go to bed

Wait 'till from any time from 1-3

Go down stairs, get stockings, run upstairs

Explore stockings for an hour and eat candy

Go to sleep for like...2 hours.

Wake up, and get parents up.

Open presents

Play with Presents

Get together with whole family and eat.

Then pouts because we waited so long for Christams to get here, and now its over.

 

[tundrakatiebean]

My brother and I always wake up at about 6am and scurry downstairs to open christmas stockings which we are allowed to do no matter who is up, but we aren't allowed to open presents until everyone is up. So once Greg and I have gone through our stockings Mom usually wakes up and comes downstairs THEN the fun starts. We all want Dad to wake up so we can open presents so we very subtley make as much noise as possible things like Mom taking a shower, which is normal, us running up and down the stairs etc. Then once we succeed in waking him up we all open presents and then wander off to play with our new toys

 

[EileenH]

Wow my day is boring compared to yours.

It's just me & my husband Tom. We don't have kids.
But what we do is, on Christmas Eve we go to midnight mass. Then in the morning - I sleep late - we open presents when I wake up while we watch the Band-Aid "Do They Know It's Christmas" video. Then my mom comes over (used to be my parents but my dad passed away last year) and we eat. (She's going to be moving in with us when she sells her house, so she'll be here from now on).

Then, at night we watch Love, Actually - it's a really sweet Christmas movie.

My favorite part of Christmas is actually weeks before. We spend a Sunday afternoon getting all the decorations out, and decorate the tree. The cats are crazy getting caught in the lights and chasing the red bows, and we havesome wine while we decorate the tree. This year I have to add a pen around the tree because of the new addition of Gulliver to the family. I think he'd be OK with the tree, but no doubt in my mind he's going to pee all over the presents under it, if not eat them as well.

 

[missyscove]

I usually spend the day part of Christmas eve with my dad where we have a big meal cooked by our close family friend who is also a chef, Claude. Then we may or may not exchange gifts. My dad doesn't usually get us gifts, because, as he says, he "gets us whatever we want all year long."
December 25 also happens to be my mom's birthday, so we're a bit less traditional. Usually, I wake up and go sing happy birthday to my mom and we sleep in until about 8 or so. Then we go and open presents and do stockings and such. Afterward, we shower and eat before heading over to my grandma's house which is where my aunt, uncle and three cousins stay around christmas (along with my cousins' respective spouses and children, now).
There we usually visit for awhile then exchange presents again and then eat a big dinner. After dinner we have birthday pie for my mom and my cousin Becky whose birthday is on the 28th and give them birthday cards/gifts.

This year will be a bit different because I've been asked to altar serve at the midnight mass. It's somewhat of an honor and I expect to have a more important role (for example, thurifer) because I'm a senior now and this will be my last Christmas as an altar server. I'll either be working a nap in on the 24th or sleeping later on the 25th to make up for that.

 

[undergunfire]

Nothng special anymore. Christmas was awesome when I lived back in New York (2 years ago). I really don't have any contact with family anymore....not that I had barely any contact before, though.


This is my first Christmas spending it completely at Ryan's (or, mine too, now...lol) house. I am guessing his mom will make us breakfast and we will open whatever presents we got each other. Then shower and get ready....then head over to the next town to visit my dad and open a couple gifts there.....then dinner with Dad and his wife....then back home for more dinner & desert.


Hrm, Christmas seems like no fun when you are getting "older" . Maybe it will be different when Ryan and I have our own house, and our own family.

 

[TinysMom]

For many years Art worked a rotating schedule of 2 days on and 2 days off. I think out of 8 years he had 2 Christmases off....the other 6 years he always had to work.

So we sorta celebrated Christmas on whatever day worked for us....if he was off Christmas Eve - that was Christmas. If the closest he was off was the 23rd...that was our Christmas.

I know - nontraditional. But so is our family.

We also used to HIDE the Christmas presents and the kids had to find them. Beats me why we did this....the kids suggested it one year. (One year I hid them so well it took us two days to find the last present).

We also didn't put names on the presents some years - we put numbers on them (and I had the code sheet).

So the kids would go hunt for the gifts...(which were under the tree until shortly before we hid them...so they had plenty of time to shake them)...then put them all in a pile and we'd find out whose was whose. One year it was numbers (odd were boys...even were girls)...another year it was by the wrapping paper (and they never guessed!).

We frequently (but not always) order pizza on Christmas Eve - that started the year the kids were born and I was too wiped out to make supper that night 'cause they were 4 months old and had kept me busy....and then have ham or roast beef or something on Christmas day (whatever we decide we're in the mood for).

As crazy as our "traditions" sound....I really wonder what's going to happen when my kids get married and start their own traditions....heaven help us...they'll probably open their gifts on 12/15 or something!

Peg

 

[bat42072]

I miss christmas as a child... my dad would wake us up at 2:00 am let us see play with what we got and then send us back to bed... it was so hard to go back to sleep

 

[NZminilops]

I was just talking about this to Spring yesterday ...and argh the smileys aren't working for me today, to bear with me on this blank looking post!

Normally my partner and I will sleep in till maybe 6:30ish, then get up and I'll make us a yummy breakfast of our favourite things. We'll swap gifts, then sit around eating chocolates and other junk while playing the Snoopys' Christmas CD. Then we'll play some more Christmas themed songs and call people to say merry Christmas.

Then comes the arguing about who's families house we'll be going to this year. Normally we go to my grandmas first then off to his parents.

Everyone in the family usually goes to my grandmas for a big Christmas lunch. Christmas here is in summer, so it's all outside, with everyone in shorts and t-shirts and jandels (flip-flops/thongs?) or barefoot (me - I hate shoes). My great grandma who is on her late 80's will complain she doesn't like the sun and isn't hungry. I get all the Christmas crackers and take the 'banging' bit out of them and group them in bunches, yank them behind peoples heads and make them scream in terror.

I'll sneak my ham to the dogs as I don't like it.

After lunch we sit around drinking beer or wine and listen to the Snoopys' Christmas CD again, as someone inevitably brings it with them.

At around 3pm people start heading off, sometimes we go to the beach and swim and have a picnic dinner of the lunch leftovers. Drink yet more beer, get sunburnt, and try to eat as much chocolates and junk food as you can.

Christmas evening isn't really a big deal, I think we normally just sit around feeling sick from all the food.