How do you celebrate Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa/The Holiday Season

[OreoTheMiniLop]

So, I'm always interested in learning about what different people/culctures do for the holiday(s) they celebrate. If you don't celebrate Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, or Christmas do you still do anything special over the holiday season. (why am I asking this like six months before December??)

I personally as Christian go to church on Christmas eve and have a "candle lit service" for Christmas. As a youth member of our church I dress up as anybody in the Christmas story. (One year I was dressed as Mary and dropped Baby Jesus, a doll. I was so mad because "BABY JESUS JUMPED OUT OF MY HANDS" hahahaha) On Cgristmas we open presents and have my mom's "famous" cinnoman rolls for breakfast. We meet with family and celabrate the rest of the day. Last year I got my bun, Oreo, for Christmas so I was letting her settle in without disturbing her but letting her roam (which I should have just let her acclimate to her cage but I didn't know that. (I was 100% on board with getting the bunny and all I knew was that I was getting a bunny but I didn't know when I would get one.)
So, how do you celebrate Christmas/Hanukka/Kwanzza/The Holiday Season?

 

[Hermelin]

I have one holiday tomorrow we celebrate it nearly as cristmas except the ham and cirstmas tree. We won’t have any strawberrys, so it becomes a bit like cristmas with what kind of food we eat. Here in sweden we celebrate midsummer, high point for me is strawberries, somtimes I go to the maypole and watch the people dance around it. I never join the dancing but did it as a kid where you sing about frogs and jump around, look quite hilarious a few of the dances and songs I don’t remember. It also become quite a lot of drinking and drinking games.

But for christmas it’s just my parents and my little brother, sometimes my oldest big brother and his son can celebrate with us. My mom is Catholic but my dad is atheist, so no curch for us.

I can say 15:00 when donald duck and his friends starts, we start to eat our christmas dinner and have the tele on. The table have different kinds of pickled herring, stockfish, a big ham, meatballs, prince sausage, beetroot sallad, potates, spare ribs and pickled herring pie. We can’t forget the mustard for the ham.

For dessert I often make a panna cotta, it’s easy and I can be lazy. I only need to make the dessert. But sometimes it can be a saffron dessert or cardamom. We always have julmust a special soda that you only drink for christmas and easter but on easter it’s called påskmust. If my oldest brother comes over there will be a lot of drinking and drinking songs which you sing when taking shots.

I don’t like pickled herring and I get it serverd for easter, midsummer and christmas I only eat two small pickled herring for the tradition.

After eating we heat up the mulled wine which I also don’t like and open the chocolate boxes, the tele is still on. We start to open presents. That’s pretty much christmas with my family. I think christmas is a big holiday for my mom, because she can wish for whatever she wants within a reasonable price range. So my dad, little brother and me buy together and give her.

Every christmas it’s always the same donald duck and his friends, the same movies which we always watch. At least the tele won’t be shut down until we go to bed

 

[igorsMistress]

I tend toward paganism although I'm agnostic. Hubs and the kids do christmas but no church. We pick up food from our favorite Chinese restaurant for dinner a la A Christmas Story.

 

[Nancy McClelland]

Happy Saturnalia! Christ was born in the Spring, as that is when the census was being taken. We have a tree, put up lites and have foods galore with a nice Prime Rib as the center piece and exchange gifts. All the usual stuff except both having advanced degrees, we don't buy into the Catholic Church pre-empting all the pagan holidays and centralize themselves as the "only" purveyor of God--some of us study and remember.

 

[OreoTheMiniLop]

I've never heard of Saturnalia. What is it?

 

[Nancy McClelland]

It was a major pagan celebration co-opted by the Catholic Church--Google it to get an explanationof the whole thing. Sheldon on "The Big Bang" expounded on it once or twice. Like so many Pagan Rites and sites taken by Christians so they could force beliefs and "tithes" on the masses.

 

[OreoTheMiniLop]

Oh. I know what it is now that you mention how Sheldon talked about it on The Big Bang.

 

[Spectralmoon]

My tradition is to get together with my girlfriends on the 20-22nd and celebrate the solstice, Yule, and The Quiet Night. It's a light dinner party, candle lighting, intention setting, smudging, drumming, burning small card tags with our intentions on them, and hanging other card tags with our gratitude on a creative mantle piece.

On Christmas Eve my mom and I get together with extended family; it used to be at my grandparents' house but has since moved to my aunt's place instead. Light dinner around the sitting room (people on couches, in the kitchen, at the table, on the floor... all over), presents for the people that came from out of town, and general catching up. Then Christmas Day my mom and I exchange gifts and go out for Chinese food.

There's a lot of driving around to look at holiday lights as well. A few neighborhoods nearby go all out and every house is a scene- the streets are blocked off and the parking is terrible, but it's fun to walk around and get hot chocolate and churros from the family stands out front of the houses.