Your Christmas Traditions

[HS Mom in NC]

I was just curious about which are common and which aren't.  Also, tell me about any you have that aren't on the list.  What country do you live in?  Which state or region if you're in the US?

Edited December 24, 2015 by Homeschool Mom in AZ

[bolt.]

Joining up / eating with local family and friends.

 

Giving wrapped gifts to one another.

 

Giving unwrapped "Santa" gifts.

 

Playing Santa (kids know it's pretend)

 

Outdoor winter activities (skating, sledding, skiing)

 

(Canada)

[happi duck]

I said no to *Christmas* stockings, we do stockings for St. Nick's Day (Dec.6).

 

We also have the same special breakfast on Christmas and give each kid a special ornament each year.

 

Eta: we also go for a hike on Christmas every year

 

 

.

Edited December 24, 2015 by happi duck

[Liz CA]

West Coast of U.S BUT a lot of my traditions come from Scandinavia / Eastern Europe and dh has been going along with it.

 

We have an advent wreath with four candles

When ds was little we had an advent calendar

Traditional Christmas baking - a variety of recipes, new ones always welcome!

Lots of beeswax candles everywhere

Moderate outdoor decorations - one wreath on every outside door, some years, icicle lights

Real Christmas tree (but this may the last year before we get an artificial one)

Some years we go to Christmas performances, others we don't.

Special Christmas Eve Dinner after which presents are opened - main celebratory event is Christmas Eve

Dh inisited on stockings, so we incorporated this tradition as well

Visiting relatives on Christmas Day with goodies, baked or otherwise

Edited December 24, 2015 by Liz CA

[nd293]

Christmas crackers aren't quite described right - think toilet roll inner tube wrapped in paper and ties at each end. They usually contain a paper hat, joke or riddle and a small gift. Most importantly they have a strip of paper inside which gives a POP! when pulled apart (something like a firecracker). The commercial ones usually have silly plastic gifts in - I made my own from a kit. I realise this description isn't great, so here's a link:

 

They're an expected part of the Christmas dinner table setting in both South Africa and Australia.

 

We read the Christmas story here, but not from the bible - something like Jotham's Journey.

Edited December 24, 2015 by nd293

[Mergath]

We do the standard traditions- Santa, gifts, stockings, tree, etc. I always make homemade hot cocoa on Christmas Eve (except this year, because dh forgot the chocolate when he went to the store and didn't tell me until now, so I'm doing homemade eggnog instead) and we usually eat lutefisk on Christmas Day. 

 

Lutefisk, for those not in the know, is dried cod soaked in lye and then cooked and eaten with melted butter. It's a Scandinavian thing. It's not too bad, honestly, mainly because anything is edible if you dip it in enough melted butter. ;)

[Sherry in OH]

Ohio

 

We have an artificial tree

Send cards

Fill stockings

Children participate in recitals, they also carol with the scouts

Some years we travel

Spiral trees outdoors

Years we stay home - something nice for Christmas Eve dinner, easy meals on Christmas Day

Years we travel – we eat what our hosts prepare

Advent calendar with readings at home

Advent wreath is part of December church services

Happy Birthday is sung at the children’s service on Christmas Eve morning, party follows service

Reading Bible passages at home – part of advent readings

Reading Bible passages at church – part of church service, we listen

Baking/cooking – lots of cookies and candies, special breads and other treats

Watching movies, plays, etc. – both secular and non-secular, as many live performances as we can manage (this year we attended three - A Christmas Carol, a charity concert, and Messiah), movies are whichever the children want to watch.

 

Other traditions – we decorate a gingerbread house every year.  We also make homemade ornaments to add to our tree.  We go to the zoo for Wildlights.  

[Mom22ns]

Missouri

We have a cut tree, but we don't do the cutting. I think we are pretty typical in our traditions, gift exchange, santa, stockings. We go to my in-laws on Christmas Eve. I make and we eat a lot of Christmas candy and treats, but we don't necessarily do a big traditional meal, although we probably have more times than we haven't. This year, we're having fondue as suggested here :)

[Slache]

Presents, Bible reading, pancakes, hike, The Nativity Story.

 

Christmas is a great day for a hike.

[MEmama]

Maine:

 

Real tree

Stockings/Santa

Advent calendar

Fresh wreath on door, no outdoor lights

Candles in the window

Lots of twinkly lights indoors

Russian tea cakes often the only baking

Christmas Eve and day hiking/skiing/snowshoeing

Christmas Eve gifts (a game, new Jammies, treats from far away grandparents)

No traveling

Chinese take out for dinner

 

Totally 100% secular

[mom31257]

I would have chosen special church service if we were home and could go to our church's service, but we are normally in Ohio with dh's family. Their church doesn't have a service that we attend.

 

 

Edited December 24, 2015 by mom31257

[MomtoCandJ]

Michigan

- decorate artificial tree (we don't the mess of a real tree)

- have real wreath on front door that we order from dd1's school

- only one outdoor decoration (a wooden sign)

- stockings/Santa

- open 2 gifts Christmas Eve (pjs and a book, right now I'm able to get matching pjs for the girls at Carter's but I probably won't be able to do that much longer. As a child we opened one gift that was usually pjs)

- Christmas morning rule is the kids must wait for me to have a cup of coffee in my hand and they take turns

- where Christmas dinner happens tends to change, this year is our house.

Edited December 24, 2015 by MomtoCandJ

[PeacefulChaos]

Artificial Tree

Stockings

Outside lights (sometimes)

Nativity

Making Candy (really big in my family)

Christmas Eve traditions - soup for dinner, kids open one gift (pjs), watch a movie (any new one)

Monkey Bread for Breakfast Christmas Morning

 

That's about it.  We get together with DH's family for Christmas, often on Christmas day in the afternoon, and we eat finger foods; we have different ones each year, his parents always do a country ham.  

[GailV]

In addition to ones I checked off above:

 

Treasure hunt for the "major" Christmas gift,

Watch Star Wars movies on Christmas Day (have been doing so for years; this year we're suddenly trendy),

Use special Christmas dishes throughout the advent season,

Help youth community theater group put on a musical (4 performances for a total audience of over 1500 people).

 

NEW THIS YEAR:

 

Dh and I went to a used book/video/record/etc store at separate times with separate kids. We both had a $20 budget. Whatever we got is our present to each other. We were trying for a mainly 2nd-hand-or-homemade Christmas, and this was a fun way to accomplish that.

 

Both kids are once again in a community theater show at the beginning of January -- this happened last year, too. So we may have a new tradition of building set pieces in the garage on Christmas evening.

[Carrie12345]

I grew up going out to cut down a tree, and we used to do it here, too.  We had some real bad luck keeping real trees up and well watered a few years in a row and switched to artificial "temporarily".  We revisit our options every year, but the fake one has gone up probably 7 out of 8 years now.

 

Oh, and evergreens give me a rash. I still miss them.

Edited December 25, 2015 by Carrie12345

[HS Mom in NC]

Oops.  Forgot to include Santa in the poll. We don't do Santa but we don't think doing Santa is a bad thing.

This year we have adopted the Icelandic tradition of Christmas Book Flood (Jolabokaflod.)  People exchange books sometime before Christmas and on Christmas Eve go to bed reading a new book and eating chocolates.  Yes, this tradition was made for me and my family-not just the Scandinavian side.

Last year half of my side of the family was traveling elsewhere for Christmas which made it dramatically different than all they years before.  So  we decided to make it very different and instead of Mexican food (our usual) we would have "Chinese Turkey" inspired by the movie A Christmas Story and order Chinese take out of all types.  Then to add in new merriment, we set off all kinds of fireworks.  There will now always be fireworks even in years when we're all together because.....fireworks!  It's been years since fireworks were legal here and now that they are, we're taking full advantage of it. 

We sing Happy Birthday and have a birthday cake for Jesus and the kids blow out the candles for Him. 

Some years we get a permit and travel up north to cut a Christmas tree and play in the snow. It helps with forest management (we have annual wildfires from lightening strikes and dumb people) if a certain number of trees are cut each year.

Those are my favorites. 

A non-Catholic, non-Orthodox friend of mine had a series of dinners at her house for Advent (St. Nicholas' Day, Saint Lucy's Day, etc.) several weeks in a row.  I found them very meaningful.  I'll be adopting them or something like them next year.  Well done, Catholic and Orthodox friends!

[sbgrace]

Most of what we do is pretty typical. But I always have one gift for each child hidden with a series of clues to find it. Some day, maybe soon, they are going to be too old to find it fun anymore. I'm going to feel sad! It's one of my favorite parts.

[ScoutTN]

We get a real tree, but don't go cut it down. We get ours from the Christmas tree recycle lot when other people take their trees down early to go out of town!

[Alessandra]

Just about everything on the list except the birthday and fireworks. Real tree, but someone else cuts it. East coast, British traditions, Anglo Catholic, but I add ideas and food from various cultures.

 

Waiting now to go to midnight mass....

Edited December 25, 2015 by Alessandra

[Junie]

Here's an interesting tradition from my hometown.  We didn't go often (because downtown at midnight is not always smart), but it's fun now that they put it online.

 

http://www.ydr.com/story/news/local/2015/12/12/christmas-whistle-noise-york-pa/77203028/

[Momofeat]

In addition to the things on the list, we always go somewhere to look at Christmas lights. 

 

When the kids were younger, we always went to Christmas parades.

 

We pack shoe boxes for Operation Christmas Child, and family members who are old enough volunteer for a shift at the OCC processing center.

[The Girls' Mom]

We live in the south-eastern US.  We do stockings, an artificial tree (a real tree would put a couple of people in this house in the hospital for Christmas), decorate the inside of the house, and we have a nice Christmas dinner with my in-laws.  We also do Christmas Eve at their house and always do appetizers.  We open gifts Christmas morning, and stockings are filled Christmas Eve night.  Santa no longer visits, but when we did that, he left unwrapped gifts under the tree to be found Christmas morning.  Oh and I usually make monkey bread for breakfast Christmas morning, but this year we are stepping it up a notch with Pioneer Woman cinnamon rolls.  We don't play a lot of Christmas music because most of it grates on my last nerve.

 

We actually celebrate Christmas rather secularly, even though we are Christians.  The celebration of Christ is kind of a year-round thing to me, with Christmas being a special time to spoil our kids a little.  I would have loved to include more of an advent-type celebration as a tradition, but our family became Christians rather late in the game...and it proved to be kind of hard to start something like that for us.  

Edited December 25, 2015 by The Girls' Mom

[maize]

I would add singing Christmas songs/going caroling.

 

Fun topic!

[mamiof5]

We are in AZ. We have a live Christmas tree, but don't cut it ourselves. In addition to most of the ones you mentioned we have an Advent wreath, volunteer at a Christmas shop,go caroling with friends, go to different places to look at Christmas lights, have a party/gift exchange with some friends. Man! No wonder I'm tired :)

[pehp]

I checked almost everything!  (No artificial tree, no bonfire, no birthday cake/candles.....)

 

I am a fool for traditions!

[Lawyer&Mom]

A birthday cake for Jesus? I've never heard of that. Always fun to learn about new things!

 

Growing up we had a strong tradition of Christmas Eve caroling followed by the annual reading of "The Christmas Strangers" by Marjorie Thayer.

 

This is our second Christmas as our own little family. So far our family tradition is Christmas vomiting... Last year it was me and morning sickness, this year Dd 2 has some kind of stomach bug... Let's just say our Christmas Eve didn't go exactly as planned...

[SKL]

We've done most of those things, but some of them not at home.  The birthday cake for Jesus is a thing my kids' school/church does, and we attend because it's right after their nativity play.

 

Some things we do, but not every year.  It depends what else is going on.  Usually I pull out our collection of Christmas books and read some of them together, and I set up two or three Nativity scenes, and we watch classic Christmas movies together.  This year I was too buried in work, so I just told the kids they were free to watch movies all week, as long as they were Christmas movies.  I also told them they had to play only Christmas music on the piano.  :P

 

I love the idea of a real (live) Christmas tree, but it doesn't work for us.  Same with a fancy holiday meal.  Usually we go to my parents' house to experience those phenomena, but this year my folks are sick and probably won't have either.  :(

 

We travel over the holidays, so we've experienced Christmas and New Year in different countries.

[waa510]

I'm from the NorthEast, Dh is from South FL..this year is a little funky as we can't do some of our previous church traditions..

 

Stockings and presents Christmas Day

 

Cheapo paper Advent calendars for days up to 25th 

 

Making a couple batches of cookies (I'm a horrible baker so keep this to a minimum)

 

Fake Xmas tree every year

 

Always purchase a present or two for an Angel Tree or something similar in our area

 

We let the kids pick out and purchase one ornament every year. Since my cat loves to climb the tree and break all the ornaments we never end up with a ton anyway

 

Making salt dough ornaments for gifts for friends/family from kids (easy and cute)

 

Watching Christmas movies all month and driving around at night looking at Christmas lights while drinking hot cocoa in the car

 

Things we can't/didn't do this year:

 

Play something in the church Christmas play, Go to church Christmas events all month (movie night, craft night, etc), visit family and/or go to Mickey's Very Merry Christmas party with the in-laws

Edited December 25, 2015 by waa510

[rebcoola]

We do a lot of these no outdoor lights, no fireworks, MIL does crackers but it hasn't caught on here.    Fake tree now that we live in the desert but I always loved going out to cut our tree as a kid.  The Birthday Jesus cake is the best we make it Christmas eve sing the birthday song  and than we leave out once slice for St. Nick so he can celebrate to.

[foxbridgeacademy]

We go to visit family but not on Christmas day.  We stay home for the morning then go out for Chinese for dinner.  We do stocking but we get those on Christmas eve (something leftover from DH's family).  We watch secular movies and might even sing songs.  We do a live tree but get it from the local hardware place. I always make cookies and this year I made candy.

We're atheist/agnostic so no religious stuff. We're from Southern Indiana.

Edited December 25, 2015 by foxbridgeacademy

[Tap]

We buy a live tree  and put up an artificial one too some years.

We travel to have Christmas Pizza with dh's family

We have Santa, stockings and usually open presents on Christmas morning. But sometimes, it is on Christmas Eve. 

We sometimes do lights, sometimes don't

We have a normal, nice dinner on Christmas Day with just the 5 of us.

We have a big breakfast in a restaurant on Christmas morning with a few family members.

Edited December 25, 2015 by Tap

[happi duck]

We do the standard traditions- Santa, gifts, stockings, tree, etc. I always make homemade hot cocoa on Christmas Eve (except this year, because dh forgot the chocolate when he went to the store and didn't tell me until now, so I'm doing homemade eggnog instead) and we usually eat lutefisk on Christmas Day.

 

Lutefisk, for those not in the know, is dried cod soaked in lye and then cooked and eaten with melted butter. It's a Scandinavian thing. It's not too bad, honestly, mainly because anything is edible if you dip it in enough melted butter. ;)

Lutefisk! Dd and I want to try this sometime. I tried to find a local lutefisk dinner but struck out. My only experience with this as a kid involved no one eating it...not even the cat!

 

Is it hard to prepare well if I can find it?

 

I also want to learn to make lefse (not sure if I'm spelling that right).

[happi duck]

It's past 3am...another tradition! Dh and I always end up staying up late getting ready.

 

We also leave the outdoor lights and tree lights on all night on Xmas eve. We sometime put out luminaries but usually the weather makes it difficult.

 

Our town has a bonfire closer to St Nick's day.

[happi duck]

Oh...

I love singing Silent Night with everyone holding a candle. It's so pretty and is a vivid memory of my late mom. <3

[Dmmetler]

We do stockings and a tree at home, make candy/cookies, and travel. For various reasons, we actually do not see family on Christmas Day itself most years, and usually spend it doing something fun with just us-this year, it's doing a behind the scenes tour of SeaWorld's sea turtle and manatee rescue and rehab.

[Wheres Toto]

We used to cut down a live tree until we discovered that ds is allergic, now we set up a fake tree.

We set up stockings and a Nativity, although this year it's a light-up porcelain Mary, Joseph and Jesus Precious Moments figurine.   New puppy means we kept things simpler.

Some years we do outside lights but this year we just put out a Christmas flag.

The kids started doing the Christmas pageant last year and since they are in choir they also sing at the Christmas Eve family service.  Before that we never went to church on Christmas Eve.

 

I put yes for travel but it's by car.  In-laws live about 200 miles away and we usually travel to their house Christmas Day but we're heading down tomorrow this year.

 

Dh starts watching the million goofy Christmas movies that are from the Hallmark-type channels before Thanksgiving.  It always cracks me up because he refuses to do any other Christmas stuff that early.

 

[zoobie]

Deep South Bible Belt, but we do secular Christmas with Santa-y and family traditions.

[IsabelC]

Non Christian family.

Our Christmas traditions are:
Bring live potted tree inside and decorate it one or two days before Christmas

Set up nativity scene
Read or tell the Christmas story

Attend carol service

Put on Christmas concert at nursing home (this is something the girls do for Guides, and I help with accompaniment, rehearsals, programming, etc) 

Christmas giving (the kids don't get a present, but they are allocated some money to donate and we discuss what they want to use it for, usually some items from the UNICEF catalogue)
Drive around the neighborhood looking at the Christmas lights on Christmas Eve

[Violet Crown]

Central Texas

 

Besides things from the list:

-Advent wreath lit in the evening with collect of the week and "O Antiphons" (source of the verses for "O Come, O Come Emmanuel) sung

-Jesse Tree (children do this)

-Christmas Eve fast and then meatless dinner

-Trail of Lights! One of this city's most awesome things. http://austintrailoflights.org

-Twelfthnight: why stop the party?

-Candlemas: okay eventually the party must stop. With a groundhog.

 

If we can, we go to the big park in the city center and watch recycled Christmas trees fed into the giant woodchipper. I can'tt ell you how pleasing this is

[Mergath]

Lutefisk! Dd and I want to try this sometime. I tried to find a local lutefisk dinner but struck out. My only experience with this as a kid involved no one eating it...not even the cat!

 

Is it hard to prepare well if I can find it?

 

I also want to learn to make lefse (not sure if I'm spelling that right).

 

It's actually really easy to make. I just cook it in the oven. This page has several cooking methods if you want to give it a go: http://www.olsenfish.com/recipes.cfm  Around here, every grocery store has it in the meat department during the holidays. Along with pickled herring, which my dh loves. I'll eat it, but it's not my favorite thing in the world.

 

The trick is to not overcook the lutefisk, and to eat it right away with a ton of melted butter. If you let it sit on the table for half an hour until other dishes are ready, it's going to be nasty. 

 

I can't help you with the lefse. I live three blocks away from Jacob's Lefse Bakeri, so if I want some I buy it there. It's kind of a pain to make, as far as I know. You need a potato ricer and a special rolling pin to do it right. 

[happi duck]

It's actually really easy to make. I just cook it in the oven. This page has several cooking methods if you want to give it a go: http://www.olsenfish.com/recipes.cfm Around here, every grocery store has it in the meat department during the holidays. Along with pickled herring, which my dh loves. I'll eat it, but it's not my favorite thing in the world.

 

The trick is to not overcook the lutefisk, and to eat it right away with a ton of melted butter. If you let it sit on the table for half an hour until other dishes are ready, it's going to be nasty.

 

I can't help you with the lefse. I live three blocks away from Jacob's Lefse Bakeri, so if I want some I buy it there. It's kind of a pain to make, as far as I know. You need a potato ricer and a special rolling pin to do it right.

Thanks!

[Denise in Florida]

Both DH and I originally from the SouthWest now in the South (North Florida)

 

We did many more of the items on the list when the girls were younger (Christmas plays, nativity sets, etc)

 

We still do a lot of them (Tree, stockings, favorite movies, special meal)

 

We stopped traveling home for Christmas after our children were born, traveling with infants at the holidays is too stressful. And I wanted our family to have our own traditions and memories. We would see extended family around Thanksgiving or New Year.

 

Only two 'strongish' feelings about the list. 

 

1) Christmas tree up no later than one week before Christmas and usually on Christmas Eve and stays up until Epiphany (otherwise it is an Advent Tree) :)

 

2) No birthday cake or happy birthday singing. Christmas celebrates Christ's birth but it is not his birthday. This one I felt strongly enough about to instruct my children not to sing Happy Birthday as part of the children's or youth program when they were young.  "Be polite but no..."  Fortunately our church does not do the birthday party thing, so I don't think it came up or was a big deal. 

 

 

 

[Denise in Florida]

Oh...

I love singing Silent Night with everyone holding a candle. It's so pretty and is a vivid memory of my late mom. <3

 

Yes, I have many happy memories of Midnight Christmas Eve candle services and Silent Night.  I always found it so moving especially with young children.

[freeindeed]

I do almost all of them. I live in Alabama. I'm Catholic. The only things I don't do are a birthday cake or party for Jesus, Christmas crackers or a live tree, although I am considering a live tree for next Christmas. :)

Edited December 26, 2015 by freeindeed

[TianXiaXueXiao]

We do much of what you listed,excluding fake tree, birthday celebration, crackers, and bonfire.

 

We also do a Jesse Tree during the 40 day Advent fast. We also receive three small gifts from St. Nicholas on his feast day. We celebrate the 12 days of Christmas starting on the feast of the Nativity and we continue to give a small gift for each day. We close out the 12 day festal period with the feast of Theophany which often includes jumping into freezing cold water! We live in the PNW.

[TianXiaXueXiao]

We are also on the Julian calendar liturgically which means we still have until Jan 6 and 7 before we celebrate Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. For us today is December 13th, so we are still very much in preparation mode which feels odd when everyone else had already celebrated the Nativity. Not all Orthodox Christians are on the Julian Calendar but many are, especially in the Middle East and Eastern Europe.

[againstthegrain]

My husband brought his traditions:

Stockings, Santa Claus, sweets, Christmas tree, lights, wrapped presents underneath

 

I brought mine:

Wreath on the door, nativity set, bible readings, special church service

 

And every year we do potluck dinners with family. I love the potluck because we're vegan and everyone else in our family are big on consuming animal products...so potluck means I can eat something ;)

 

Edit: we are in Iowa, both in our early 30s.

Edited December 27, 2015 by againstthegrain

[IsabelC]

 

Only two 'strongish' feelings about the list. 

 

1) Christmas tree up no later than one week before Christmas and usually on Christmas Eve and stays up until Epiphany (otherwise it is an Advent Tree) :)

 

2) No birthday cake or happy birthday singing. Christmas celebrates Christ's birth but it is not his birthday. This one I felt strongly enough about to instruct my children not to sing Happy Birthday as part of the children's or youth program when they were young.  "Be polite but no..."  Fortunately our church does not do the birthday party thing, so I don't think it came up or was a big deal. 

 

Just out of curiosity, and if you don't mind sharing, what do you find objectionable about the singing happy birthday?

Is it the fact that Christ wasn't actually born on that date? Or maybe that you want Christmas to be different from and more special than 'ordinary' birthdays? Or something else?

[linders]

- We don't cut our own tree, but we buy a live tree and decorate (DH would like to go fake tree, he will have to divorce me first)

- Reading the children's Christmas books we've collected (good practice for the teens in not rolling eyes) - my faves are The Christmas Miracle of Jonathon Toomey and The Year of the Perfect Tree

- Going to the luminaria downtown

- Going somewhere to see Christmas lights (we have a gardens here that does a million lights)

- Setting up my collection of Santas

- Stringing popcorn and putting outside for birds

 

[TianXiaXueXiao]

Just out of curiosity, and if you don't mind sharing, what do you find objectionable about the singing happy birthday?

Is it the fact that Christ wasn't actually born on that date? Or maybe that you want Christmas to be different from and more special than 'ordinary' birthdays? Or something else?

I'm not Denise in Florida, but I wouldn't celebrate the Nativity and Incarnation of God as man the same way I would celebrate a created human's birthday. They are simply not the same thing. The Incarnation is truly a mystery that mere mortals cannot begin to really understand. I am not worthy to bake a cake for my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The best I can do is welcome Him and the gift of the Nativity into my heart and change to be more like Him as a result.