What are your family holiday traditions?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

Eonwe, the word you’re looking for is æbleskiver, Danish for “apple slices”. I don’t know how that particular pastry got that name, though; maybe once upon a time there were apple bits inside?

As for our traditions… Sometime before I was born, my father took a sheet of plywood and nailed some loops of model railway track onto it. Our Christmas tree was always placed in the middle of that sheet when I was little. Then we just had to hook up the transformer, get out a locomotive and some cars, and away went the train! Now we at Casaflodnak don’t have a model railway… yet… but we do have flodjr’s wooden Brio railway! So we build it around the tree… every year we add a piece or two… and by now we have several loops, a village with shops and a railway station, a turntable, two sheds… you get the idea.

The tree and other decorations never go up until the third Sunday of Advent. We have an Advent wreath, with three purple and one pink candle, and a calendar for flodjr. I suppose we’ll need to do something for totnak this year as well. Advent calendars are fun and can be as cheap or spendy, and as simple or complicated, as you want them to be. The habit of doing a little something every day, even if it’s just opening a “door” to find the little picture, serves as a reminder to slow down and enjoy the season. It also gives kids something to look forward to, to help them get through the long long looooooong days before Christmas.

We bake cookies - a lot of cookies, because I love baking. Norwegian tradition demands seven kinds, but doesn’t say which seven. There are four that we make every year, and then we just decide on the other three. Actually sometimes we’ve had more than seven. Buying cookies, or using mixes or ready-made dough, is not cheating.

Running out of time now, I can write more later…

22

Thanksgiving is no big deal for us. We spend the day with his sister and mom and do the turkey thing.

Birthdays usually involve cards and a cake whenever the family can get together.

New Years, we just stay up until midnight, have a kiss, then go to bed.

Now, Christmas, that’s different!!! We have Christmas with my dad and step-mom the weekend before Christmas. Then, Christmas Eve starts early at my mom’s house–about 2pm for us. We get together, have a lavish banquet of coldcuts, veggies and dip, crackers and cheese, pickles and relishes–lots of yummy stuff. Then we open presents for an hour or so. There are many, many people in our family, so it definitely takes a while. Then we help the kids with their toys, and play with them, and pick at the leftover banquet stuff.

On Christmas morning, we go to my husband’s sister’s house and have Christmas with sister, brother-in-law, their kids, and his mom. We usually do a barbequed rib and chicken dinner, since it’s only been a month since we did turkey (and keep in mind this is Florida. It’s seldom cold on Christmas). Then later, we try to go see grandparents and his dad’s widow.

This year, we are also having a party for our friends, which is something we like to do every couple of years. It’s a lot of work and kind of expensive, which is the only reason we don’t do it every year. It’s a really casual beer-and-bonfire type party where everyone brings snacks to share we talk, dance and have a good time.

I love the Christmas holiday!!!

23

There were seven children in our family. These used to be the traditions around our house-

Late on Christmas eve our parents would place our stockings (these were made from white cotton tube socks with our names embroidered in red yarn and they had a little bell attatched to the toe) on the end of each of our beds.

Our stockings were always stuffed with a combination of the usual candy, fruit, and weird stuff. One year I had a can of tuna fish and a jar of cocktail onions stuffed in mine. I remember one brother got some kind of deer scent that was supposed to attract bucks. Someone else got a free dancing lesson from the local Arthur Murray Dance Studio.

All the kids would gather in my oldest sister’s room and pile on her bed to rifle through our stockings and laugh like hyenas at our loot. This usually occured between 4:00-5:00 AM on Christmas morning. Our parents considered themselves lucky if they got to sleep past 6:00.

We’d always have the same Christmas breakfast which consisted of halved grapefruit and sticky buns. Afterward, we’d adjourn to the living room and that was a major treat. To see the decorated tree surrounded by what seemed to be a huge mountain of presents was a jaw dropping moment. Mom would pass out the gifts and dad would ‘Ooo’ and ‘Aah’ as we brought over stuff for his inspection.

Then we’d get dressed in our finest and tool off to chruch to nod dowsily during the sermon and sing some beautiful music.

Now It is all meaningless to me. Christmas is fucked. My Mother died unexpectedly at that time. My Dad follwed a year later on the same day. Traditions are cool until them become painful.

24

Most of my family’s are pretty…traditional. The only one I can think of that I haven’t seen here…
On Christmas morning, the youngest available (usually myself) passes out the gifts from under the tree to whomever they’re for. A certain amount of guessing goes on because of tags fallen off, illegible handwriting, etc.
Fortunately, over the years I’ve gotten pretty good at it. After all, I can’t open my presents until I’m done!

25

These are great! Keep them coming!

26

Christmas in my parents’ house was so good that I’ve appropriated some of the traditions to my own-and since it’s just me and my wife, some of them get changed, but slightly.

Stockings get weird and amusing stuff, but must contain at least one of the following:

paddle-ball (flyback) which inevitably is used as an offensive weapon to knock stuff off the tables/annoy the cats and generally broken the day after

Silly Putty, which must at one point be stretched out and worn on one’s face like Silence of the Lambsand scaring the pets

Underwear, the skimpier, sparklier, and more ridiculous the better. Thongs for men and Frederick’s stuff are encouraged.

Meat products. Jerky, Slim-Jims, salami and summer sausage.
Women may get candy instead, but each stocking must contain one kind of meat and a box of the cheapest chocolate-covered cherries available.

Presents are opened after people have staggered downstairs and fortified themselves with either coffee or Bloody Marys.
Someone is designated “trashcan bitch” and must go to the garage and get a full-sized trashcan for the wrappings. This came about the Christmas I was nine and found a old Swedish custom of disguising presents with layers of wrapping paper and wadded-up newspaper. I got a CD to the size of an ottoman one year.
Additionally, the adhesive bows MUST be affixed to the dogs’ heads, then your own. Said bows are then placed back in the damn bag of bows that we’ve had since 1976.

Christmas dinner is generally on Xmas Day, although we’ve had it on the Eve before. Dinner always consists of prime rib or goose, and the side dishes vary, but there must be creamed spinach and two kinds of pie. Lots of wine with.
During Xmas Day, someone will make the suggestion of going shooting or to a movie.

On New Year’s, we have an appetizer/Dim Sum party, and the tree must be undecorated by then, so that it can be thrown onto the New Year’s bonfire at the stroke of midnight. During said bonfire, the menfolk stand around randomly popping off shots at the stars, or at empty bottles and the like. Regulation fireworks are also exploded. (Did I mention we live in the country?)

27

First day of school, I make muffins from scratch for breakfast. It can be any kind of muffin.

Every time we go on vacation, we buy one tree ornament. The point (which I have to keep explaining to the Better Half,) is that the ornament should somehow show something about the vacation – for example, we have a pink flamingo from Key West, a little Santa playing baseball from Cooperstown, a double decker bus from London, etc.

In my hometown, there’s a park that has a sculpture of a group of animals. It’s been around forever, and it’s pretty popular to let your kids sit on the animals and take pictures. We have photos of just about all of my mom’s and dad’s families sitting on these things, and pictures of all of us kids, and now we’re sure to take photos of my cousins’ kids as well. It’s a hoot to look at them all together and see the different clothing and hair styles.

We have tons and tons of traditions, I tried to share the ones that seem the most unusual. I’m sure I’ll think of more as soon as I hit submit.