Haven’t seen this come up for this year - and ours started yesterday.
The kid gets an advent calendar, which involved a bit of running about for me, because I’d forgotten completely until the afternoon. I ended up with the very last one from my local grocery store.
The kid was just happy to have chocolate when she got home from school.
Normally we’d have put the tree up yesterday, after prepping through the weekend. As it is (see above, *completely *forgot) I’ve just brought the tree in from the garage (fake tree, natch) after bug spraying it on the lawn this morning. The lights and decorations are still sitting outside after a good old spray, waiting for any crawlies to crawl out and die. It only struck me this morning that my Christmas begins by laying down a thick layer of poison on the pretties.
I’ll have the lights on the tree when the kid gets home and we’ll put on the decorations together, remembering when we got this one, who gave us that one etc. That’s when the Christmas season truly beings for us as a family. We’ll take the decorations down again on the 5th Jan (12th day).
We’ll go sing some carols at some point and probably tour the houses with the more spectacular light shows.
Sometime during the month, the kid will clean out her room and we’ll donate any unwanted, good quality games and books to one of the various charities.
Christmas morning, Mum and Dad will come over, I’ll make pancakes while we all open pressies ($10 limit for adults, anything does for the kid). We’ll stop in and visit friends and family as we make our way to the family bach (holiday home) out in the countryside, where we’ll have buffet food all afternoon and gin and tonics in the shade.
Hmmm, my family’s Christmas traditions include an advent calendar/advent candles. The fun days were those where you forgot a couple days and therefore got to eat two or three candies at once! We would also do the Christmas decoration tour of homes deal. Rudolph, Grinch, Will Vinton’s Claymation Christmas Celebration, and National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation have been the required movies for many years now. On Christmas Eve, the grandparents come by and we go to church for Candlelight Worship, after which we have a large Mexican dinner complete with neverending margaritas. Then, before grandma gets too sloshed, we turn off the lights in the house and take turns lighting candles (one giant candle per person, when your candle no longer lights, supposedly you die or something). Then grandma gives the first presents of the season, always a box of cordial cherries. The night gets finished listening to Christmas carols and finishing off the margaritas. We extinguish the lights, say our goodbyes, and roll grandma out the door.
no advent calendar as orthodox types have more than 24 days in advent. strangely i had just discussed this with my cousin. i had an advent tree for quite a while as a youth. fake of course, and in the wee tree stand were tiny little drawers containing even tinier ornaments to put on the tree. some drawers had doubles in them so there would be one for every day.
house decorations go up on beethoven’s birthday. i put on some of my fav. beethoven pieces and decorate.
stockings get filled on st. nicholas day (dec. 19th) and i will open anything anyone gives me before christmas, but will keep it under the tree in a basket until christmas (jan. 7th).
the tree and decorations stay up until jan. 19th (theophany).
christmas caroling will go on all through the season.
i will watch die hard and a christmas story a few times between now and dec. 25th.
We have a wooden advent calendar, but I may get some chocolate ones, too, in the next day or so.
There are usually various concerts to attend–choir at church and the kids’ orchestra concerts.
On Christmas eve we go to the family mass. “Midnight” service is too late for me, but the kids are starting to want to go, so my husband will probably take them. I do any last minute wrapping before my bedtime.
On Christmas morning we open stocking presents and maybe one big one each for the kids. We might go to church again, depending on what day it falls on. Later in the day we go up to my parent’s house and have lunch/dinner and open some more stockings and the main presents for the kids and the rest of us. Dinner is usually beef roast and Yorksire pudding.
Our nuclear family tradition is to continue giving a modest present a day (often a book) to the kids until Epiphany (Jan 6).
My favourite Christmas tradition is waking up, putting on my new Christmas jammies, spending the morning with my husband, opening presents, and then the rest of the day is spent lounging. Most of the time I don’t bother to get dressed. The jammies are just that fabulous, and our house is just that cozy.
We have no kids or pesky relatives. As a matter of personal policy, I refuse to travel on Christmas, even to see my family. I will go any other time of the year, but I insist on spending a quiet holiday at home. That means our house.
(gosh, it sounds like I am a bit of a Scrooge and don’t like Christmas, but that is certainly not so!)
I haven’t seen *Emmet Otter’s Jug Band Christmas *since I was a teenager. I may have to look for the DVD.
As a non-religious Jew who always had a Christmas tree and stockings (and a menorah!), my favorite tradition was our annual Christmas Eve party. Big, roaring fire, egg nog, and of course, lots of take-out Chinese food.
We always go out to a movie on Christmas Day, all of us. It’s been a tradition since we moved to the US. Last year we went to that one with Amy Adams as the fairytale princess dumped in the middle of new york.
We were going to show it as part of our Holiday Film Festival at the library, but we don’t have public performance rights. So we’re showing Muppet Christmas Carol instead.
I suppose I could be talked into hosting a Dopefest/Otterfest …
My father’s white and Jewish, my mother’s black and Christian, so my Christmas tradition until I became an adult was to be very confused in December. I’m much better now.
My SO’s Panamanian and Catholic, and so, usually, for the month of December, the house smells constantly of carimañolas, empanadas, flan de carmelo, seviche (yuck), and chicheme (which looks like throwup), while members of her extended and extensive family drop by in an unending series of death by a thousand cuts visits, culminating in her family’s traditional New Year’s Eve party at some overpriced joint in New York I usually end up footing the bill for.
Last year I hosted a holiday get-together and invited her work friends. It was great. This year I’m out of luck and the house already has the heavy aroma of tamales Panameños, and pastelitos.
Ours are kind of flexible, but the two that don’t change: (so far)
On Christmas Eve we celebrate with my husband’s family. For that we always order a Subway party sub. I tried to do something different a couple of times, but I got outshouted by the kids. And the sub has to be big enough that there are leftovers for breakfast. Again, I tried to do something a little more festive or special for Christmas breakfast, but that was a non-starter. (I guess we’ll see what happens when we have to make adjustments next year. My SIL is planning a move to downstate Indiana and we’ll be in Milwaukee by that time.)
The other one is the annual Myfamily Christmas Party. We all get together on the Saturday after Christmas, at the church where we all went as kids. We do potluck dinner and spend the afternoon and evening snacking and talking and playing games. It’s one of the two events most of the cousins really try to do every year, which is good to see. Nice to have the kids carry on the family stuff.
Lesse… decorations go up when I feel like. Somewhere past December 1, but a week or two before Christmas.
Plotting with my Dad when we will go for a visit (often just after Christmas).
Lots of baking.
Christmas eve is a birthday party. Presents, cake, favourite dinner, so Velociraptor doesn’t get lost in the shuffle.
After Velociraptor is in bed, dig out all the presents and stick them under the tree and do any putting together while watching Die Hard.
Christmas morning is open presents, make breakfast (this is actually backwards to when I was a kid… we usually spent it at Grandma’s and Grandpa was diabetic so we’d have breakfast first THEN open presents, though we could sneak our stocking whenever we woke up).
Afternoon go to my aunt’s for more presents and supper then homewards.
Boxing day, if I’m not travelling, go to the yarn store sale. If I am travelling then travel and settle in with family for more presents and food.
Spend a couple days there, then come home and take down decorations.
Rothenburg ob der Tauber’s Christkindl Markt, Glühwein mit Schuss, die Kirchen Glocken, der Schnee, die Kinder und eine gesegnete Stille Nacht… Heilige Nacht…
I’m a Christmas fan, but more of a fan of an at home in Germany Christmas than here in the US.
Anyone who has ever experienced a true European Christmas will agree with me that the USA has taken this holiday made it thinner…“like butter spread over too much bread”, as Bilbo Baggins said.
Sorry, but when people trample and shoot each other for the sake of Christmas, I would rather celebrate it in rememberance of my youth.
Haven’t had a Euro Christmas, but we’re definitely aiming more for a family-centric event this year. I think our worst year was when we tried for a trad Scots Christmas cooked dinner in 31[sup]o[/sup]C! The chicken kept roasting on the table.
The tree is up and decorated - we even did the traditional ‘kid loses interest halfway through and watches cartoons instead’ thing. Good times. Tomorrow I will do the traditional ‘Drip feed the power bill’ thing to buy some more pressies.
The two we do which seem to be specific to our family: Christmas night, the kids get to open one present. The present is always pajamas. (It took me an embarrassing number of years as a kid to realize that it would always be pajamas).
The other is that on December 24th, everyone in our family competes to be the first to say “Merry Christmas Eve!” to each other. Supposedly if you say it to someone else first, they have to buy you another present, but we never actually follow through on that part. We take “getting” each other in this manner very seriously. For instance, I’ll be answering the phones at work with that phrase to prevent ambush.
