What Are Your Holiday Traditions

[richc46]

When I was much younger my family carried over part of the Italian Tradition. Chrismas Eve was a small meal. Mom made me and my brother home made pizza and for dad shrimp. Gifts were opened Christmas morning under the tree. We would go together to Services at 12PM and then visit my Grandmother who was busy making a traditional homemade Christmas dinner making all the pasta and bread herself.
How I long for those wonderful days but the memories are priceless.

I really would like to learn about yours.

 

[Lorien]

When I was a kid, we'd get up early and first open all the gifts (I usually got quite a lot - a whole pile in fact). This was at our home where my grandparents also lived and usually my great aunt was there (we had a small family). Dinner was more like half-way between lunch and dinner that day and was almost always a Turkey. My grandmother did all of the cooking and it was great. Except for dinner, I pretty much just played with my new toys and the rest of them did whatever they did (I didn't pay much attention - they probably turned on the TV as background and just talked).

For us (my wife and cats) now it is pretty much an ordinary day. We call a few relatives (unlike normal days - and separately - each dealing with our own relatives) and we share a very good home cooked meal (but not the same every year - whatever my wife is in the mood for). We tend to celebrate New Year's (and Halloween) much more.

 

[derekimo]

Our Mom always went all out on Christmas, lots of presents. We went to my Grandparents for the big family meal and get together, all the kids had fun, the grown ups usually had fun with the help of my Grandparents well stocked Bar and Restaurant where we usually had the festivities. Good Times. :D

 

[richc46]

Every Christmas I think about those great times. Magic times filled with love and happiness.

 

[derekimo]

Every Christmas, I think about those great times. Magic times filled with love and happiness.

They were the best times weren't they.

 

[niemiro]

I am half Polish, and we always have a Polish Christmas Eve, and then an English Christmas Day for my father, who really plays very little in my life - it is me, my younger brother, and my mother.

I shall talk about the Polish traditions later - very, very, very, similar to Corrine's Ukrainian Christmas - Russia, Poland, Belarus, Ukraine - all in it together Christmas, languages, traditions, food, all basically the same with tiny tweaks.

First, our Christmas tree has no red and gold baubles on it. What we do is not necessarily Polish, but more of a family tradition. Every time we go on holiday or abroad, we find some sort of decoration to put on the tree. Some people think it is hard to find such a thing in summertime. It isn't. It doesn't have to be officially Christmas related, anything small, beautiful, local, and ideally hanging. Everything has a memory (and these are real examples) - a clay parrot from my mother's trip to Belize, an ornamental hanging from my parent's honeymoon in China, a wooden reindeer from the Christmas markets of Germany, a carved stone heart from a local Kenyan artisan, and so the list goes on. So many decorations - three of four on a branch, but we each know the story behind each one. A tree of happy memories.

I like our tree! I think for my family alone, it is the best tree in the world. Anyone else do a similar thing?

 

[Lorien]

Our tree was man-made and silver and they covered it with ornaments and "icing" and lights (all of different types and colors and whatever - but it's amazing it didn't collapse). Same tree but always a bit different every year. I haven't had a tree of any sort since I was a kid. Perhaps I'll revive the tradition once I inherit the tree and the ornaments (which are stored above my mom's garage) - but it's a lot of work (both up and down), and I'm not really into X-Mas as I once was and it's not like we have a big family get-together, so I don't know.

 

[derekimo]

I am half Polish, and we always have a Polish Christmas Eve, and then an English Christmas Day for my father, who really plays very little in my life - it is me, my younger brother, and my mother.

I shall talk about the Polish traditions later - very, very, very, similar to Corrine's Ukrainian Christmas - Russia, Poland, Belarus, Ukraine - all in it together Christmas, languages, traditions, food, all basically the same with tiny tweaks.

First, our Christmas tree has no red and gold baubles on it. What we do is not necessarily Polish, but more of a family tradition. Every time we go on holiday or abroad, we find some sort of decoration to put on the tree. Some people think it is hard to find such a thing in summertime. It isn't. It doesn't have to be officially Christmas related, anything small, beautiful, local, and ideally hanging. Everything has a memory (and these are real examples) - a clay parrot from my mother's trip to Belize, an ornamental hanging from my parent's honeymoon in China, a wooden reindeer from the Christmas markets of Germany, a carved stone heart from a local Kenyan artisan, and so the list goes on. So many decorations - three of four on a branch, but we each know the story behind each one. A tree of happy memories.

I like our tree! I think for my family alone, it is the best tree in the world. Anyone else do a similar thing?

My ex and her family are Polish, I celebrated a few "Wigilia" with them, interesting tradition.

 

[richc46]

To all the younger members, enjoy and remember the Holidays that you have with loved ones. One day those memories will be among your most treasured possessions

 

[Lorien]

Richard and I are in total agreement there. And now that everyone has cameras (and many have videocams), take lots of pictures and videos (even if it feels like a chore at the time - unless someone else is already doing it). In my youth, we didn't do that very much or take nearly enough and I often wish I had (or they had) more to help me remember and relive those times. If I had children (or there were any children in our family at all or my parents were younger or lived closer or we had any siblings or really any other relatives at all), I suppose things would be quite different - I suspect that's what brings out the traditional responses in us older folks and gets us to do things like put up trees and exchange gifts, and have large family get-togethers, and string up outdoor X-Mas lights and even other yard things like lighted mangers and such.

Even having cameras (though no videocam), I don't believe we have X-Mas pictures going back many, many years (though we do have some for New Year's (not many) and more for Halloween (catching each other in costume seems necessary - and I look pretty good as even more extreme than Blade - see below for him if you never saw the movies, none of me as my camera isn't digital and I haven't converted any of them yet and I'm not sure I'd post them anyway (sort of an excessively maxed-out SWAT member with sword, Beretta, Remington shotgun, self-made STEN sub-machinegun, many knives, bullet-proof armor, bands of extra shotgun shells and spare magazines, shuriken stars and darts, hokachai, vampire-killing "silver" stakes, and whatever else I can fit - not to go out of our yard of course or I'd be immediately arrested, but to answer the door and thrill the kids but scare the bejeepers out of the adults with them - LOL!!)). If there are children and you make a big deal about it, it will become a treasured memory for them no matter what holidays you choose to celebrate - and for most - at least those who celebrate X-Mas at all (and probably for us too if we had kids around) that's X-Mas more than any other. Thinking back, it's really the only holiday of which I have any significant memories.