What old fashioned traditions do you have for Christmas???

[JimWagner]

At our house, decorations go up the week before Christmas and come down New Year's Day. We'll have eggnog on Christmas Day. With a fair amount of Nog in it.

Now that we're the grandparents, family comes for dinner and we cook enough for at least twice as many people as we need to.

 

[scotrace]

Zoinks!

 

[rue]

Okay shaggy

Boy things have changed in a year.... wishing there wasn't a time limit on erasing posts


This year I'm finally back with my family in the same state, so Christmas Eve will be spent at my house and Christmas Day will be spent at my mom's house with my brother and his family, just like it always was until I moved away.

We always open up one present each on Christmas Eve (usually PJs), leaving the rest for Christmas morning and we still put out cookies and milk for Santa, even though my kids are pretty much grown, because I still believe

 

[AtomicEraTom]

Ah, Christmas is my favorite holiday. We have a few traditions. We still get stockings full of goodies for St. Nick on the Sixth. Decorations don't go up at my parents' house or my own until after Thanksgiving. I did mine the day after, this year, because I had the day off of work. Mom always puts an angel on her tree. We always have a big ham dinner on Christmas, too. The tradition always was that Dad's side would take turns hosting Christmas. The rest of the family has decided we live too far away from the Milwaukee area, so we no longer participate.

My tradition, since I started driving, is to put wreaths on the grilles of my vehicles. I've got one on my wagon and on my pick-up right now.

 

[dnjan]

At our house, decorations go up the week before Christmas and come down New Year's Day.

Ours stay up (with tree lit) until after Jan 5 (12th day).

 

[Yeps]

Ours stay up (with tree lit) until after Jan 5 (12th day).

Our tree and such stay up until Epiphany, and then we take town our lights outside at the end of Carnival.

 

[vitanola]

Our tree goes up the day before Christmas Eve, the and comes down after Twelfth Night. As the tree is quite fresh we are then able to use candles with some degree of safety. Of late years we have also been setting up a second small (4 feet tall) feather tree in the reception room. As these wire and feather contraptions are not at all flammable, we set this up for St. Nichlolas' Day so that we may enjoy the tree lighted from time-to-time throughout the season. Our ornament collection has increased to the extent that we may be setting up a third tree next year, in a more modern style, fitted with electric lights and ornaments dating from the 1930's and 1940's, as I have quite a collection of both the Christmas light strings and have recently acquired quite a group of those striped clear glass ornaments which were made during the War.

 

[LocktownDog]

I give in to the germanic superstitions of my forefathers and leave home-cooked food out on the 21st for the elves, gnomes, and wild hunt as a way of hedging my bets for good luck in the upcoming year. When I had an apple tree in the yard, I would pour a mug of wassail on it ... but I don't know where I learned to do that. Probably my grandparents.

 

[Atticus Finch]

Every year about this time, Jackie and I climb into my old Jon boat and we motor up the Trent River gathering Christmas mistletoe. For some reason, mistletoe grows prolifically in the tops of hardwood trees in our river basin. We gather it using a crab net and a turkey-choked 12 gauge. When we see a nice clump high in a tree top, we pull to the bank long enough for me to blast it down with the old Mossberg...then Jackie scoops it out of the water with the crab net. It’s a grand tradition.

AF

 

[LocktownDog]

That's fantastic. :eusa_clap

 

[1961MJS]

Every year about this time, Jackie and I climb into my old Jon boat and we motor up the Trent River gathering Christmas mistletoe. For some reason, mistletoe grows prolifically in the tops of hardwood trees in our river basin. We gather it using a crab net and a turkey-choked 12 gauge. When we see a nice clump high in a tree top, we pull to the bank long enough for me to blast it down with the old Mossberg...then Jackie scoops it out of the water with the crab net. It’s a grand tradition.

AF

Be careful who you tell about that tradition, you'll end up on one of those redneck reality shows. "Shooting your Xmas Decorations with A. Finch"

On a side note, I think those redneck reality shows may be the only ones that aren't scripted. Us necks ain't smart enough to read a script and our "gets along well with others" skills don't usually to apply to TV crews.

later

 

[Str8Jacket]

Traditional Polish Christmas eve (in deference to my beloved wife), complete with hay under the tablecloth, a lovely fish dinner, and the animals eat first (the animals are fed first traditionally in Poland, because the animals in the manger were the first to welcome Christ). Then we pray and share a wafer of oplatek and await the 1st star of the night.

 

[HepKitty]

I borrowed this one for my kids. make Baseler Herzen (Swiss/German xmas cookies), hang them on the tree, and let kids eat them when they're hungry

 

[davidraphael]

In Bavaria we have sausages on Christmas Eve (which is when Germany and a few other countries celebrate Christmas) and a kind of fish pate that has been cooked in the family from the same recipe for more than 100 years.
In England, Christmas proper is on the 25th, of course. The only tradition we have there, that is possibly different to other people, is retaining one last present for after lunch.

 

[Edward]

I don't know that I have any old traditions of my own, though the Christmas routine in my folks' house has only changed in my living memory in that there are far fewer people around. More often than not little brother spends Christmas elsewhere with his own family now, or at his inlaws. As for my own personal traditions, well... I suppose not bothering to decorate my own place at all has become something of a tradition (there seems little point when I leave about the 20th or so every year and am not home until close on New Year). Seeing the Pogues every year just before Christmas has been a tradition for something like six or eight years for me now, but that's gone out the window this year as they're not touring. Nothing to replace that. As I close in on forty, I sure as hell wish I wasn't spending yet another Christmas in a single bed at my parents' house.... not exactly how I'd planned things turning up, but hey. At least it'll all be over with for another year in a couple of weeks' time, so it could be worse.

Re Fairytale of New York, not only is it the finest Christmas song ever written, but it really should be listened to year round. Remember, kids, heartbreak is for life, not just Christmas.

Bah humbug etc.

 

[davidraphael]

Remember, kids, heartbreak is for life, not just Christmas.

Ha, yes. That's the exact same reason that I also listen to Tom Waits' 'Christmas card from a Hooker in Minneapolis' and William S. Burroughs' 'The Junky's Christmas'.

 

[4spurs]

The traditional dinner in Denmark is roasted pork or roasted duck - or both!!!! With red cabbage and sugarbrowned potatoes followed by riceporridge or Rice A'lamande. With one hole almond in. The one who gets the almond, gets a present.
After dinner the candels are lit at the christmastree, we sing and everybody gets presents.
Some goes to church in the afternoon - before dinner and some goes at midnight instead.

The next two days are normally spent with family and friends - and you eat too much. And drink too much.
Very viking like!

That's what we're doing, but this year the family is coming over from Copenhagen and we're doing it here. Pork and duck, aquavit, the works, for days . . .

 

[kyboots]

My wife and I have two children both grown, but still young. On Christmas Eve it is just us. We are with extended family on Thanksgiving and Christmas night,but on Christmas Eve the four of us have a nice dinner in the formal dining room and talk to each other. We look forward to this as much as any holiday, and together on Christmas morning. It is wonderful!---John

 

[Mr Vim]

"Here we come a waselling among the leaves so green, here we come a wondering, so fair to be seen!"

I love to make Wassel during the Christmas season.

 

[Edward]

My wife and I have two children both grown, but still young. On Christmas Eve it is just us. We are with extended family on Thanksgiving and Christmas night,but on Christmas Eve the four of us have a nice dinner in the formal dining room and talk to each other. We look forward to this as much as any holiday, and together on Christmas morning. It is wonderful!---John

)
Reminds me of the year my brother moved out. Christmas morning, the both of us back in the house for a few days..... Tully, my folks' then cat (now several years in kitty heaven, God rest her soul), was a docile old girl, but she got herself so excited with us all there that she threw up her favourite catnip drops. I miss her being at my folks; house.