Posted on 12/05/2017 11:21:22 AM PST by US Navy Vet
What is everyone's Christmas/New Year's Traditions
The only ‘tradition’ I remember was that the tree went up on Christmas Eve & came down on New Year’s Eve. Not particularly festive.
We have “sauerkraut and toadstool sandwiches with arsenic sauce”: reuben with sautéed mushrooms. And french onion soup.
Eat some Sour Cream Lemon Coffee Cake while we open presents, watch the parades on the TV.
We usually watch “A Christmas Story” and “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” every year.
New Year’s Day dinner is a roast loin of pork.
We had house parties with present opening on Christmas Eve so that local people could go home to Christmas dinner with their families. Everyone cooked a dish from their childhood, even if no one else liked it. Mine was bread pudding.
My tree was up by New Year’s Eve since Christmas was always a bit too frantic to get everything done, and stayed up until April on an unheated back porch. Everyone helped with the decorating and there was always conversation about remembered ornaments. My friends were always more traditional with their tree risings and lowerings. One of my favorite ornaments was the CIA ball a friend who contracted to them brought back.
Today all the ornaments fill the bookshelves in the hallway and only need dusting instead of bringing out and putting away.
Sounds wonderful! What fixin’s?
On Christmas Day, we smoke a turkey.
New Years Day is for black eyed peas with ham hocks and corn bread.
We’ve been doing this for the last twenty years.
Tell all friends, relatives, acquaintances and any others who I think MIGHT show up at my house during the holidays that I am taking a slow boat to China!
We lost one of our Christmas traditions this year.
Uncle Steve passed away.
We used to shoot marbles with his glass eye.
Didn’t mean to bring everyone down.
One Christmas, he had a Steelie in his eye socket for two hours until my Mom finally told him.
I was born on Christmas Day. Every year I blow out the same candle that was given to my mom from the students of her Sunday School class.
I’m 56 and it is 2/3 of the way burned down so I blow it out faster every year.
Christmas present opening is always as early as my son wakes up and wakes us up. He’s 15 1/2 now so it is later than it used to be. We listen to Charlie Brown Christmas soundtrack during opening.
Evening dinner begins birthday celebration.
After that, we clean up our wrapping paper and go play with our new toys.
Something about a pole and airing of grievances.
We have the Italian feast of the Seven Fishes on Christmas Eve and at my daughter’s house on Christmas Day we have an English dinner of Roast Beef, Yorkshire pudding, and mashed potatoes. We buy “crackers” from World Market, put our paper crowns on, and read out loud those horrendous jokes that are inside and laugh until we almost fall out of our chairs. We celebrate the Polish side of the family at Easter so no one is left out.
We pack up the van and whatever family can come (all kids are grown) and drive 800 miles to Grandma’s house. Spend a few days there, including Christmas, then drive east 150 miles and spend a few days at my mom’s house, then go home.
One daughter can’t come, so a couple weeks later, we’ll spend a weekend with her.
One of my brother’s and I have been exchanging the same fruitcake back and forth for 26 years. We’ll never eat it but there have been some pretty imaginative wrapping jobs. Concrete, welded in steel boxes, packed in a bin of rocks and glue, embedded in 2 gallons of Plaster of Paris on top of 3 gallons of flour. (fortunately he opened that one outdoors cause there was a huge POOF)
My wife also makes an ornament for each kid for each Christmas. She planned to stop when they turned 18, but they all like the tradition. It’s always commemorating something they accomplished over the past year. One son earned the Trail Life USA Freedom Award (Similar and more difficult than Eagle Scout) this year, so his commemorates that. Another got a job controlling a satellite at NASA, so his is a picture of the Satellite. I can’t remember the other tow this year.
Christmas Eve my parents and I will go to my sister’s place. We’ll have dinner, go to midnight Mass, stay and open presents in the morning. Christmas dinner is always prime rib. New Years will be at my place this year. Dinner is always pork roast and sauerkraut - supposed to be lucky.
saw this today - sad yet possibly interesting as a way to remember those we’ve lost..
http://www.annien.com/Holidays/Christmas/ChristmasStories/christmas_a_small_white_envelope.html
Btt
I find your belief system fascinating.
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