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My favorite Christmas tradition has always been the decorating the tree on Thanksgiving night. My second favorite tradition is the shopping. Trying to decide on the perfect gift for my friends and loved ones is pure joy.
Christmas traditions. . .
I have 2 major ones. My Dad always reads the Christmas Story from the Bible right before we go to sleep. Now he reads it to my children. <G>
My children and I always pick a family from the town needy list and play Secret Santa. We get together presents & food and leave it on their doorstep. It's teaching us the true meaning is GIVING, not receiving.
We have lots of minor traditions. Like putting up the tree on Thanksgiving afternoon, baking cookies from my great-great grandmother's recipe, visiting friends, candle light service at church, going around town to see all the lights. And the annual trip to the Mall to see Santa.
Apple Heart/Edith (aka EChiong184)
Christmas Traditions/Memories:
There are many but the one that stands out is this: Coming home after Midnight Mass (yearly ritual - we fill up a whole pew in church as Mom & Dad and 9 kids take a lot of space..) and partaking of simple Christmas fare {fruit salad; banana wrapped sweetened rice cake or Cassava cake [made from Yucca tubers]; pancit sotanghon [vermilion or rice noodles sauteed with shrimps, chicken, pork and vegetables], tamales; pork or chicken or fish adobo - something like a stew, but it is cooked with vinegar and soy sauce and garlic with potatoes, but no veggies; and for people who can afford it - lechon de leche [roasted suckling pork, a whole one - one year, we actually had one! It was given to us by one of our friends who raised pigs for fun!! in her backyard in the city and the health department told her to get rid of them OR ELSE!!! <g>] and soda and ginger tea with pearl tapioca} and then crowding around the Christmas tree (not pine, but one of mangrove, wrapped with white or green Japanese paper with x'mas balls and home made decors and lights..) opening our presents and generally having fun and singing carols. Afterwards, we all say a prayer and then the young 'uns are sent off to bed while the parents and the older kids gather the x'mas paper wrappings and ribbons, fold them neatly and set them aside for next year's use. We do almost the same for New Year - mass at midnight, then back home to share a simple repast but instead of x'mas presents, we had envelopes with our names written on the outside [supposedly from Santa, and the $$ in the envelopes depended on how good we were during the old year], hanging in the tree. Then we go to sleep and in the morning, we'd find money under our pillows from the new year baby. Had I been married and with children, I would have continued this tradition. Too bad that my brother in Fort Washington has become too Americanized as to do it the old way...
Going caroling from house to house in the neighborhood for candies, cookies and sometimes money. We usually carry a lighted parol (star shaped lantern made of bamboo and shiny, clear, colored plastic or colored papel de japon (Japanese paper) with a candle inside and tambourine and we sing, on key or off key. Seems like we get more treats when we sing off key though... <ewg>
Christmas traditions either now or in the past or both There are too many. I love everything. I put up 5 trees.
Favorite Christmas Tradition: Watching Vacation Christmas together at sometime during the holidays. Also opening our presents on Christmas Eve
Fave traditions.......When we don't go home for Christmas, we open one gift on Christmas eve and the rest on Christmas morning, we have French toast for breakfast and ham for Christmas dinner. When we go home, we have Christmas eve at my husband's mom's house with the whole family, open all our gifts and have pizza for supper so nobody has to cook. On Christmas morning we are at my parents house. We let my son pass out all the gifts while he wears a Santa hat. Then, we have French toast for breakfast. We've had French toast on Christmas as long as I can remember.
Christmas traditions~on Christmas morning, the whole family meets at my mothers to first eat a traditional ham breakfast, everyone brings something, including sweets, then after breakfast we exchange gifts. We never eat before everyone gets there. It is something i think i would not be able function without, as it has been this way my whole life.
Christmas traditions- Opening one present on Christmas eve.
Christmas Traditions:
Hmm... hard one. Baking is a tradition. And my dad making pancakes and sausage on Christmas morning was a tradition. Oh, and watching old home movies on Christmas Eve was a tradition too. This year, I think I'll make a new tradition and talk to my pal, Sue Noyes, online on Christmas Eve. What do you think?
Christmas breakfast at my parents' house--which I make now a days--pancakes from scratch from my Pop's recipe. Madness. Lots of kids and babies. It's just nice to know, I suppose, that continuity.
Our family Christmas traditions have always included going to church on Christmas Eve. When I was small, it was at this little country church and we had a program that included a nativity. The evening ended with a rousing rendition of Jingle Bells by all of the kids, singing the song over and over, as loud as we could until Santa appeared at the back of the church. We always got this bag of candy that had the same stuff in it year after year. You could always count on it.
After church we would come home and open the gifts that all of the kids had bought for each other. On Christmas morning we opened presents from Mom and Dad, but only after Dad and my brothers had taken care of the chores, that's tending to the livestock for all you city folks. Mom had the habit of always putting the same candy in our stockings each year too.
While not a family tradition, there was one Christmas that was memorable. I got a brother-in-law for Christmas! My sister got married at midnight on Christmas Eve, therefore she married on Christmas Day, fifteen years ago. They had the wedding at my BIL's mother's home with just the immediate family present. Since it was a second marriage for both of them, they wanted to keep it simple. They were married in front of a roaring fire in the fireplace and wrote their own vows, it was really very special. And, I didn't get too bad of a brother-in-law out of it either.
Favorite Tradition: A few years ago a neighbor came up to our house with a wrapped package. It was a Menorah that had been in her family and hidden during the time she grew up in Nazi Germany. No one in her family would say whose it was, but they brought it over to the U.S. with them after the war. She's Lutheran and we were the only Jews she knew. She wanted it to be used for the purpose it was made. It's one of the Menorahs we light every year.
Memory & Tradition
Everyone in our family going to Grandmother's house on Christmas Day for the big Christmas Feast. Then later years keeping the tradition up by going to my Mothers for the Christmas Feast. This will be my first Christmas without my Mother as we lost her in September. Very Sad.
This year everyone will be at my house on Christmas Day for the Big Christmas Feast. Its so wonderful to see the grandkids faces when they are opening their Christmas presents.
Christmas Tradition
We each have a horse ornament which we got at our first Christmas ( my husband has a snoopy) we all put them up on the tree
My favorite Christmas tradition? Oh, no doubts - Christmas wishes on the tree. Every year we write a wish down on paper. The paper is stapled to a large branch of our tree. Then, on New Year's Eve, we burn the branch in the fireplace so all the wishes can go straight to heaven. Some have come true, and we're waiting on others, but I always know they get to the right place.
I really haven't established any traditions as an "adult." But growing up, we did do several things the same way every single Christmas. :-) On Christmas Eve, my mom would always fix oyster stew (I never ate the oysters, but I love the broth); later on, she added chili for those who weren't fans of the stew. We then would attend Christmas Eve service at church. My favorite moment of the service is at the end when the lights would be dimmed, candles would be lit, and we'd all sing Silent Night, Holy Night from memory. Our family then opened Christmas presents on Christmas morning (except for one Christmas ... and you know what? It wasn't the same opening them on Christmas Eve!).
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