# What Christmas traditions are important to you? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 10, 2019, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-christmas-traditions-are-important-to-you/844669 "2019-12-10T21:06:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![jsc1953](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5daacb/32.png) [@jsc1953](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsc1953)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2019, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-christmas-traditions-are-important-to-you/844669/61 "2019-12-13T14:33:58Z")
Only 18% of celebrants send cards. I had a feeling that this tradition was fading. ---
**Author:** ![jsc1953](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5daacb/32.png) [@jsc1953](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsc1953)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2019, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-christmas-traditions-are-important-to-you/844669/62 "2019-12-13T14:35:11Z")
> [@wolfman](#): > > Vacation days are about the only thing I care about anymore, Bah, Freakin humbug. You get vacation?? Must be nice. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2019, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-christmas-traditions-are-important-to-you/844669/63 "2019-12-13T14:59:48Z")
> [@jsc1953](#): > > Only 18% of celebrants send cards. I had a feeling that this tradition was fading. I did the cards/letters for maybe 4 years and then decided I didn’t want to do it. So I stopped about 20 years ago. I felt a little guilty about it at first, but that didn’t last long. ---
**Author:** ![Ashtura](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ashtura/32/2963_2.png) [@Ashtura](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ashtura)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2019, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-christmas-traditions-are-important-to-you/844669/64 "2019-12-13T16:37:12Z")
We go to my parents house for opening gifts and a meal each year, they do the whole decoration shebang. At our own house we’d be hard pressed to even put up a tree (maybe every other year) ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2019, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-christmas-traditions-are-important-to-you/844669/65 "2019-12-13T18:55:31Z")
> [@jsc1953](#): > > Only 18% of celebrants send cards. I had a feeling that this tradition was fading. Anybody I might want to send a card to I see at least weekly, and thus cards seem pointless. When I lose contact with somebody I don’t do it by halves, so anybody I don’t see at least weekly I don’t think about at all. ---
**Author:** ![Bullitt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bullitt/32/5725_2.png) [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2019, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-christmas-traditions-are-important-to-you/844669/66 "2019-12-14T05:44:59Z")
> [@jsc1953](#): > > We do too! And since we’re both in the Bay Area, we could be prowling the same tree farms and fighting over the same tree. > > (Although this year, it rained so much on the Saturday after Thanksgiving that we opted to just head for a tree lot, grab the first good looking one, and get out of the rain.) Cool. The tradition, not the bad weather this year. That was a stormy weekend! We drove to Oregon and Washington for Thanksgiving weekend, our first Thanksgiving away since like forever, so this year we got our tree the weekend before. We used to go up to the Santa Cruz Mountains but the last two years we’ve been going to Half Moon Bay. How about you guys? ---
**Author:** ![jsc1953](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5daacb/32.png) [@jsc1953](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsc1953)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2019, 6:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-christmas-traditions-are-important-to-you/844669/67 "2019-12-14T06:46:40Z")
Santa Cruz mountains every year, all my life. (We’ve changed farms 3 or 4 times, though) ---
**Author:** ![DorkVader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/73ab20/32.png) [@DorkVader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DorkVader)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2019, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-christmas-traditions-are-important-to-you/844669/68 "2019-12-14T16:00:16Z")
Other, gathering with family/loved ones for a happy time is what’s important to me. I (sort of) don’t mind gift giving to the younger kids but my thinking is that it should be ended by age twelve. This partly stems from how bothersome I find the utter commercialization of holidays generally to be. Yes, I’m the “scrooge” of the family and have been since I was a kid. ---
**Author:** ![Corry\_El](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecae2f/32.png) [@Corry\_El](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corry_El)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2019, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-christmas-traditions-are-important-to-you/844669/69 "2019-12-14T21:17:14Z")
> [@ISiddiqui](#): > > 100% Agreed. I think it’s because it’s Christmas, there is a bit of anti-religious sentiment (well, anti-Christian anyways) in wanting an option that I’m not going to celebrate it because I don’t believe it. > > I wonder if there would be this much pushback if it was “What Sports traditions are important to you” or “What Hanukkah traditions are important to you”. Obviously there wouldn’t be. I’m OK with special anti-Christian sensitivity (due to the religion’s real or perceived negative role in society or in particular individual’s lives in those people’s opinion). That’s how those people feel and are entitled to their feelings. But I do sometimes have to suppress an eye roll when it’s claimed such reactions are not specific high sensitivity about/against Christianity. If you bother to post on a web thread to complain that a poll ‘what Xmas traditions are important to you?’ didn’t include ‘none’ as opposed to letting your lack of any vote signify ‘none’, you’ve pretty much proven you’re particularly sensitive about it. Just like all the people who would raise a similar objection to the sports or Hanukkah traditions polls… basically nobody. 🙂 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-christmas-traditions-are-important-to-you/844669.md?page=3)