NationStates Jolt Archive

I figure now that my December break has officially begun, I might as well try to get into the spirit of things. What are some holiday traditions that you or your family have for this time of the year?

Date: December 25, "Christmas Day", 5:00am. By all likelihood all persons under the age of 18 are now up and about, feverishly staring at the gifts under the Christmas tree. Once the matron has been roused unwillingly from her slumber, presents are opened one at a time to savor the moment: gifts first, stockings second. The day goes on afterwards rather smoothly, until everyone gets dressed to head to their grandmother's house for an Italian style dinner and even more presents.

...Boring, huh? Yeah, that's what I said. Rather...underwhelming. So I'm hoping that your traditions are more...intresting.

Begin!

Before my parents got divorced, we'd celebrate Christmas on the evening of the 24th and then again on the morning of the 25th, unwrapping presents both times.

you have a matron?! do you live in a castle too? with a butler and stuff?

christmas traditon for me involves as much booze as possible combined with tearing of wrapping paper, surveying of gifts, more booze, food, any gifts left opened, more booze, pudding, ignoring family strifes, more booze, more booze, resisting the 'customary' afternoon walk, more booze, cup of tea, more booze, mince pies, more booze, coffee (with fancy booze), more booze, sleep..... clean up (with booze).

Dinner at parents place. Doing nothing ad infinitum until the second day of christmas is almost ending. Then I go to the pub to drink ad fundum :D

Presents, lots of food, alcohol. The usual.

you have a matron?! do you live in a castle too? with a butler and stuff?

Yes Revvy...I also have a fine tapestry made entirely of vowels, a moat filled with ill-tempered crocodiles, and a death ray designed by Carl Jung and manufactured by Verizon...

Yes Revvy...I also have a fine tapestry made entirely of vowels, a moat filled with ill-tempered crocodiles, and a death ray designed by Carl Jung and manufactured by Verizon...
:eek: ... jealous... steals... :p

we celebrate already on christmas eve... we (except Dad) go to the mass (always go and not drive, no matter what the weather is), after mass wish everyone we know merry christmas, go home, nervously wait in the kitchen until a bell is heard. That bell means Christ* was there to bring the presents. Then we go to the living room and open the presents. We sit together, then somewhen we have supper.

On the 25th, the family visits my mother's mother. A lot of relatives come on that day and we talk, argue and eat a lot. in the evening, those who did not go home sing together. No christmas carols, but the music, which is often sung in our family (mostly traditional songs, even though most of them are not... polite of forum appropriate). That is the best tradition of christmas IMHO.

*yes, not Santa. I grew up believing Santa only brings presents to atheists (no really, that is was what my parents told me).

On Christmas Eve we go out and look at Christmas lights, then come back home so me and my sister can open some gifts (which are usually pajamas... :p). On Christmas Day we wake up early and open the presents. Then we go over to a family friend's house and have Christmas dinner with a birthday cake for Jesus. :p

And totally off-topic, two more weeks till I'm 15!

And totally off-topic, two more weeks till I'm 15!

Congrats! going for your learner's?

Congrats! going for your learner's?

Can't. My mom won't let me since I'm failing geometry :rolleyes:

Though she doesn't wan me to take it anyway, I think she got the idea from readign this ADD pamphlet when I had a doctor's appointment...

Can't. My mom won't let me since I'm failing geometry :rolleyes:

Though she doesn't wan me to take it anyway, I think she got the idea from readign this ADD pamphlet when I had a doctor's appointment...

Too bad...

What are you doing in geometry, just out of curiosity?

I read that as "failing geography", to which I thought "Who cares? Almost all Americans I know do!"

Too bad...

What are you doing in geometry, just out of curiosity?

I read that as "failing geography", to which I thought "Who cares? Almost all Americans I know do!"

We're on to slope and stuff now :(

And no, I never failed geography, I could never fail geography :eek:

We're on to slope and stuff now :(

And no, I never failed geography, I could never fail geography :eek:

SLOPE=rise/run=y/x
y=mx+b
m=slope, b= y-int

y-y1=m(x-x1)

[/nerdery]

SLOPE=rise/run=y/x
y=mx+b
m=slope, b= y-int

y-y1=m(x-x1)

[/nerdery]

:mad: You officially suck. :(

:mad: You officially suck. :(

*Is offended and goes crying in a corner.*

:( :( :( :( :( :( :(

*Is offended and goes crying in a corner.*

:( :( :( :( :( :( :(

Twas only joking. :(

:fluffle:

Presents, food, and lotsa awesome shtuff!

Twas only joking. :(

:fluffle:
It worked. *smiles devilishly*
Oh, OK. :D

:fluffle: :fluffle: :fluffle: :fluffle:

Dec. 23 is my birthday, which means party (if I'm not lazy). Dec. 24 is relaxing day, and then Christmas Eve is another party (parents friends). Christmas morning is family time, then Christmas afternoon is party (my friends). Then 26-30 we spend cooking and relaxing, and then we host a traditional Japanese New Years style sleepover party. So basically its party time.
*parties*
*dances*
:)

Dec. 23 is my birthday, which means party (if I'm not lazy). Dec. 24 is relaxing day, and then Christmas Eve is another party (parents friends). Christmas morning is family time, then Christmas afternoon is party (my friends). Then 26-30 we spend cooking and relaxing, and then we host a traditional Japanese New Years style sleepover party. So basically its party time.
*parties*
*dances*
:)

Nice. I'm usually bored out of my mind, since all I do is stay around the house and do pretty much nothing during the holidays.

Nice. I'm usually bored out of my mind, since all I do is stay around the house and do pretty much nothing during the holidays.

And get 4000 posts. :) I find my system is a good amount of alone time and socializing time.

And get 4000 posts. :) I find my system is a good amount of alone time and socializing time.

Yeah, well some of us aren't in such great situations. Consider yourself lucky. :p

My family is quite weird, on Christmas Eve and Christmas day we play a game, the point of the game is to rack up gifts, the way you get them is by saying "Christmas Eve Gift!" (or "Christmas Gift" on Christmas) before they can say it to you, if you 'win' the person you beat to it has to give you a gift (usually something for 1-2 dollars) you can re-gift things you have recieved to others who "beat" you to the greeting. As you can imagine it's quite competitive meaning that we all answer the phone that way, the door that way, when you walk into someone's house you yell it to get as many people as you can, the trick is a sneak attack.........catch them off guard. The first year hubby and I were married everyone assumed he didn't know the game so they cut him some slack, only I had already prepped him so he got a good 45-50 gifts on Christmas Eve alone. (btw I have no clue as to the origin of this game but if anyone knows I would be very interested)

My little family (hubby, me and the kids) have our own traditions, on Christmas Eve we eat cake and read the Christmas story from Luke by candle light, when we get ready for bed we write a note of something we are thankful for and put it in a stocking. On Christmas morning we all eat breakfast (more cake) and then the kids open up their stockings, and after that we divvy up the presents and each person opens all their presents in turn.

After all the presents are opened we read what everyone was thankful for out of "the stocking" and go play with all our new toys until lunch, we eat ham for lunch and watch all the Die Hard movies all afternoon.

We take our Christmas tree down on Christmas day and before we pack everything away we write a note about things we want to do next year, when we get the Christmas tree out the next year we all read the notes.

Dec. 23 is my birthday, which means party (if I'm not lazy). Dec. 24 is relaxing day, and then Christmas Eve is another party (parents friends). Christmas morning is family time, then Christmas afternoon is party (my friends). Then 26-30 we spend cooking and relaxing, and then we host a traditional Japanese New Years style sleepover party. So basically its party time.
*parties*
*dances*
:)
happy almost birthday!!!!!!!

Christmas open what you are given
Boxing day eat till you are sick
On both day's i try not to kill someone in the Family

Usually, my family of five goes to my maternal grandmothers home, where our two uncles, aunts, four cousins, two great aunts(and hubbys), two second cousins, one third cousin, and various other relatives of my mother I can't remember, stay for the four days surrounding Christmas, eat, the adults drink, Grama, her two sisters, and all their adult daughters play poker and rummikub, all do the present thing on Christmas day, and then we go to my Fathers' family. One set of paternal grandparents, five uncles, four aunts, seventeen cousins, five cats, three dogs, and many hours later, my family goes home. We give our cat some catnip and sit around watching it go crazy for two hours. Then we sleep.

*yes, not Santa. I grew up believing Santa only brings presents to atheists (no really, that is was what my parents told me).Santa or the Christmasman? I remember Santa coming the night of the sixth and filling our shoes.

Open presents at 5:30-6:00am, rejoice and fiddle around with everything the whole day.

Mom's parent's Christmas potluck brunch on the 23rd. Always crazy-delicious.

Dad's parent's Christmas Eve Supper on the 24th. Traditional and crazy-delicious.

Church-stuff on the 24th evening, followed by a drive around the NC to look at Christmas lights.

After the light looking (which get's increasingly short, as per the fact that as the NC has become more affluent, people's lights have become more uniform and more lame) we have the opening of personalized gifts amongst the family. Usually give my mom a wood carving and my dad get's my holiday brew. Sister's will get cookies, or chocolate or something.

Morning of the 25th is "Santa Gifts", which is a tradition for my parent's sake. I may be 21, and my sisters are 19 and 17, but we tolerate the delay of presents. Following that, we feast on whatever is to be found in the fridge and stalk the tree to find the pickle. Winner gets twenty bucks and a chocolate orange. Then we wallow in our most recent acquisitions of largesse and enjoy.

On Christmas I'm having something that starts with an "f" and ends in an "uck"















Fried Peking Duck

Okay, so it goes alike so:

December 24th: My sister's birthday. A few bits of personal celebration occur off and on throughout the day, though my sister usually has a party one or two weeks before her actual birthday, for obvious reasons. During the day, my Aunt Linda shows up. At some point after dinner, usually around 9:00 P.M., we merry seven pile into the minivan and go around looking at the Christmas displays people have put up around the area. (This used to be a much longer trip when we lived in suburban and urban areas. Now it's just a brief trip.) Then we return home, where we have hot chocolate and my dad or someone else presumeably reads from the Bible. It's what we used to do anyway; since I technically celebrate Newtonmas rather than Christmas, I depart the celebrations at this point.

After my siblings have gone to bed, my parents--and probably Aunt Linda too--spend time putting presents under the tree, candy in stockings, ect. Since my little brother STILL believes in Santa(He's almost thirteen for fuck's sake!) we have to maintain the illusion. I have spent the last couple of years attempting to join in helping with this, and will do so again this year, though I don't know how successful I will be.

December 25th: I and my siblings awake at some point and venture into the living room and snatch our stockings to munch on candies. We await everyone else's awakening to begin to open gifts, which is usually done in a sequential order.

The day is spent perusing our new gifts, doing random stuff, eating candy, and fixing the holiday dinner, which usually features ham as the main dish. It is consumed that night.

There may be differences, however. Our athiestic Jewish neighbor Marjorie plans on joining us; what this will change, I do not know. I also know that Aunt Linda will bring her new dog Kai, and of course there's our still somewhat new kitten Sokkwi to consider. (I foresee lots of chasing of wrapping paper.)

My grandpa and his wife come over Christmas morning, then I go to my other grand parents house and have turkey.

The good ol' Christmas Day pogrom, right before Mass.

Going to see a movie avec ma famille.

Before my parents got divorced, we'd celebrate Christmas on the evening of the 24th and then again on the morning of the 25th, unwrapping presents both times.

We do everything the 24th

MY mom workes as a nurse ... it has always been easier to get the 24th off