Sounds like a business opportunity! Us hillbillies loves us some pizza!
(We need a smilie with missing teeth)
No traditions here, kids scattered far & wide.
Sounds like a business opportunity! Us hillbillies loves us some pizza!
(We need a smilie with missing teeth)
No traditions here, kids scattered far & wide.
Oh, that sounds much better than what we have planned.
We open gifts on Christmas Eve in my family, too, although the branch of my family where it started is Scots Irish, and I understand it isn’t a cultural thing but instead resulted from my beloved late Grandfather’s weak will.
Christmas eve… we do cake and presents for my son (as his birthday is Christmas day). Put out some cookies and milk for Santa and he hops to bed.
Once he is truly asleep, I pop in Die Hard and get stuff set up for the morning.
Been pondering adding mass to the mix this year also. It’s been a long time since I’ve been to mas son Christmas eve (or anytime really).
Once we were all old enough, we’d go to Midnight Mass, then go home and open one present.
StG
Choir practice for Midnight Mass, then Midnight Mass itself.
We have Christmas with my husband’s side of the family on Christmas Eve. We used to move it around from year to year, but now it’s always at our house. We do presents with them, but not the ones for our immediate family, since we save those for Christmas day. (We used to have three sets of presents under the tree; one for Christmas Eve, one for Christmas day, and one for the party with my family on the weekend.) The past few years we’ve played Catchphrase or some version of it, for most of the evening. It saves having to talk much. These aren’t exactly people we have a lot in common with.
The only unbreakable traditional not-ever-to-be-stopped part of the evening is the party sub from Subway. You know how they say if you do something three times in a row it becomes a tradition and you have to keep doing it? Yeah.
This year my SIL and her family won’t be able to make it so the group will be small. Could be interesting. I’m considering starting a tradition of picking some Christmas special to watch, just to give everyone something to do.
Birthday party! China twins were born on Christmas Eve, so that’s our party time. Plus, so far, Christmas has been very low key for us since we live in China. Although the Chinese are getting more and more commercial Xmas exposure every year, it’s not nearly the same.
Jigger Irish Whiskey
Coffee
1 tsp. sugar
Homemade Whipped Cream
QED
Christmas Eve? We wake up, get the cameras ready, and start opening gifts from the immediate family. Usually pretty early. We then get our stuff together to go to my maternal grandparents’ house and spend the night. Before we get there, we stop by most of the houses on my dad’s side of the family, and spend an hour or two with each. We get to my grandpa’s around 6 or so, usually eat something fairly small, and start opening the gifts from that side of the family. We “play” with our gifts for a bit, clean up everything, and head to bed. When my grandmother was still alive, she’d hang money on the tree, and say it was from “Santa”, not that we ever believed it. Our parents used to do it, too–they’d sneak gifts under the home tree while we were out in the car going to see everyone else.
Eat until the button on our pants nearly pings across the room.
Open all presents.
(It is the same conversation and meal every year. Last year, to save my sanity of it being the 19th time through Ground Hog’s day, I added alcohol and texting my peeps discreetly, to the mix. It made things much more enjoyable.)
In 1980 I went to a small branch campus of a large university. There I met a friend whose family treated me very well and were gracious enough to include me in their Christmas eve tradition. I have been going to their home every Christmas eve since. From there I head to my mother’s.
As an aside, I have been trading the same birthday card with this friend for 25 years now. I send it to him, he sends it back. It is pretty beat up now, but it still gets through the mail.
I don’t really have old family traditions, but my husband and I wait till the kids are in bed, then pop in *The Ref *and wrap the remaining presents.
This year, I want to try something new. Since we want her to sleep in a bit, I’m thinking of letting our 6yo stay up late. The catch is, if she wants to stay up late, the activity will be watching Star Wars.* I’ve been trying to get her interested in it, but she is pretty neophobic and a live-action movie about space doesn’t appeal to her. If she likes it, it can be a tradition, and if she doesn’t we can try a different movie next year.
*Yes, having my kids like Star Wars is more important to me than what religion they choose.
My daughter’s 18, and I still do this to her. Last year, she started doing it to me.
Our tradition has been to run around like crazy people on Christmas Eve preparing to host Christmas. That tradition sucked, so this year, since we’re not hosting (amen and hallelujah!), we’re starting a new tradition. Sushi and Muppet Christmas specials. Our favorites are A Muppet Family Christmas and The Christmas Toy, which is FINALLY (amen and hallelujah some more!) available on DVD.
Our Christmas Eve tradition was that we three kids could open the gifts we were giving each other. Which worked out well because it took some of the pre-Christmas edge off and also because our own cheap gifts didn’t have to compete with the bigger gifts we got from our parents on Christmas morning.
As a kid, we were never allowed to open any presents on Christmas Eve. Instead, we’d have to wait until after church on Christmas morning to open anything other than our stockings. It was torture! It was usually 11 am or so before we could open our first present, and even then, dad would play referee – he’d hand out one present at a time and we all had to watch and wait while that person opened the present. As a kid, there was nothing worse than seeing all those presents and knowing you had to wait hours before opening any.
But on Christmas Eve, we’d put on our pajamas, and dad would film the ritual. We’d carry out cookies and milk for Santa, and carrots for the reindeer, and then we’d sit beneath the Christmas tree and mom would read “Twas the Night Before Christmas” to us. When we got older, we’d read the poem ourselves.
It started with film, and then when I was a teenager or so, my dad finally got a video camera. But he’s got silent film of us going back to the late sixties, early seventies of our Christmas Eve tradition.
As an adult, I haven’t really established any rituals, although I do let myself open any presents I want to.
My family’s tradition is a New England clam chowder dinner followed by opening one non-Santa gift of the kid’s choosing. The night ends with dad reading “T’was the Night Before Christmas” (from the 3" wide ‘ornament’ book on the tree) then the kids are shuffled off to bed. (I’m still unclear as to why clam chowder was only for Christmas Eve.)
Both of my brothers have maintained that in an amalgamated form with their families. I normally get half-loaded on peppermint sticks then go to a strip club, casino or other no-kids activity. I got married recently so I might have to adjust that ‘tradition’ slightly this year.
We’ve been together for 22 years, and it took me until last year to convince my partner that it’s ok for atheists to have Christmas trees, and to celebrate Christmas and Hanukkah in general. Since we live next door to each other I could have had a tree sooner, but would have jeopardized our “peace on earth.” I also have a menorah.
The funny thing is that not only are we atheists, but that neither of us was even raised Christian. I was raised Jewish and he was raised Muslim. And our tree is way nicer than any of our Christian neighbors’.
We also have a “tradition” of making out by the fire. Fortunately, each of us has two fireplaces.
On Christmas morning we exchange gifts and visit friends.
And I’ve started a new tradition of burning CDs of Holiday songs for our friends/relatives. I will never run out of songs, as long as I live.
Oh, my kids leave out a beer and some snacks for Santa…he works so hard and deserves it!
Mom, Dad, Vynce, and I watch The Santa Clause and we open one present - which is usually pajamas still. This is pretty much exactly what we’ve done my whole life, though the movie has changed through the years (it was Scrooged before The Santa Clause came out, and I don’t remember what it was before then) and given that everyone is an adult we eat treats rather than leave them for Santa. Hey, it makes our parents happy, and I like tradition too.
If either of us has kids, and assuming we don’t move too far from home, I expect we’ll be bringing them to Mom and Dad’s for a couple of hours still. Does anyone else daydream about marrying someone whose parents live close to your own? Vynce’s fiancée’s family lives nearby, so they’ve able to spend time with both families so far. I’d like that too
My mom’s side of the family gets together, and my mom and aunt switch years hosting. It’s just our nuclear family, my aunt’s nuclear family, and grandma. And boy/girlfriends sometimes if they can make it, and we invited my brother’s girlfriend’s mother this year. We eat and drink, open presents (but each nuclear family opens the presents they give each other on Christmas day). Some past meals: lasagna, pizza, sandwich trays. This year: baked ziti and sandwiches. Never a fancy meal, just a yummy one everyone will like. Lots of beer and cheap wine. Just hanging out basically and stuffing our faces. Christmas morning my parents make breakfast, we open presents and then we usually go to my dad’s side of the family’s get together Christmas day.