Christmas traditions

[Victory Sabre]

My main one is when the niece and nephew want to open up presents, I always try to convince them we're not opening them up till next Christmas.

They never believe me.

[DGoddessChardonnay]

My tree is already up (pics will be forthcoming by the weekend) and the living room is finished. Have some of the cards sitting around in there, the rest will go around the doorways as they come pouring in.

Dining room will be finished this week. We have to change the towels on the furniture (just came home from Wally where Mom found some new green towels that we can use year round) and a new Poinsetta to set in the center of our table. I already have the linens changed on the table and the gold charger plates set out, along with the matching placemats and napkins. Just have to change out the towels, put the runners over them that match the table linens and Mom can finish setting out the reindeers/Santas/etc that we usually have out. Then I can set out the Christmas china and stemware (which I'll probably wait until Christmas Day to do since Poodles has a thing about the dining room table.)

Other than that, we really don't have any traditions per say that we do every year. On Christmas Day my brother and I usually go to Dad's and spend the afternoon while Mom stays home and cooks dinner, but seeing as how Mom's not really able to do much of the cooking these days (I cooked everything for Thanksgiving this year and we're all still alive) I may end up doing the same for Christmas and just wait until the weekend to see Dad and stepmom.

And the tv will be on TBS all night Christmas Eve and all day Christmas Day just to drive Mom crazy with "A Christmas Story."

[MoonCat]

I might actually get a tree this year. I love having one but it's tricky when you don't have a car. I really don't want to stand around for an hour and a half waiting for a cab We have a lot of old ornaments that I love to use, including my favorite treasures, the glass beads. The cats love it when we bring in a tree. They sleep under it, and like to hide behind it.

We're still trying to decide on Christmas dinner. I want homemade pierogi!

Cookies? Maybe. I found the cutest recipe online the other day for "Grinch cookies." They're made with a French vanilla cake mix, tinted green with food coloring, and before you bake them you place a red candy heart in the center. I wanna try that.

[fireheart]

Mum used to have a tradition with my sister and I as kids where every year she'd get this lady at a craft fair to personalise a Christmas ornament with our name on it. We still have them somewhere and surprisingly the ones that HAVEN'T been eaten have held up well. One was in the shape of a star with our names and the year on them and the other looks like a "half bauble" with some little "rosettes" around the edge and some sugar stars inside. She stopped this when I was around 11 as she was getting sick of the fairs.

In my family, the Christmas lunch has rotated between a few different family members: the former rotation was my great aunt, my grandparents or my parents, now it's more likely: great aunt, cousin or my grandparents (grandparents house really only accommodates a small get-together nowadays). Traditionally either my mother or my grandmother has done the ham, but my grandmother is the one in the family to do the Christmas pudding (she used to actually make it, but in the last 2-3 years has brought a Lions Christmas Pudding from a lady at her church).

The actual traditions in our family also vary between different sets. For instance, my cousins on my dad's side will give each other a Christmas stocking filled with different "stocking fillers" (chocolates, nail polish, candy canes and the like-all the alive cousins on my dad's side are ladies, with the eldest having a 5-year-old son) while my extended family goes one step further and has a few different family members dress up as "elves" to hand out the Christmas presents to that side of the family. One of my distant cousins got introduced to this tradition as a wee sproglet (he's 5 now, he was around 8-9 months at the time).

Sadly this will be the first Christmas without Mitchell (former furcat) as he passed away sometime before I flew out. We got him around Christmas time some 10 years ago or so and he decided that he wanted to join in the festivities too. So mum got a bit of each of the cold cuts we had on the table (chicken, turkey, lamb, ham, pork and beef) and put it on a plate for him to eat. He happily stopped mewing for it after that.

I also have a new years tradition where either on NYE or New Years Day I'll watch Dinner for One.

[Jester]

I used to have a rather nice tradition of sharing smoked salmon sandwiches and champagne with my mother. Unfortunately my body has decided that it no longer tolerates salmon in any format and I now puke for about 10 hours after

Here's an idea: try a different smoked fish for the sandwiches. The flavor won't be the exact same, of course, but you may enjoy the flavor as much if not more, and of course, your body won't reject it so violently. This is all assuming that it's salmon specifically and not fish in general that is the problem. It also assumes you'll enjoy other smoked fish, which you may or may not. Myself, I love smoked trout, but then, I love all fish. Just a possible way of continuing the tradition, with a small twist.

[crazylegs]

I can chow down on any other fish, it's just salmon. Might give some other fish a go, but it's not just the same

[Dreamstalker]

My aunt usually does most of the cooking; pierogies, fried chicken, stuffed cabbage, my aunt and uncle in CA are shipping some poppyseed/nut rolls. I'll make a mochi cake.

I don't know if we'll do it this year, but for the last few years--everyone is theoretically adults--we've done grab bags. Everyone would get a whole bunch of small/silly stuff, assemble bags and then on Xmas Eve we'd all draw numbers from a shoe. When all the bags were distributed the bartering began! The person being asked had the right to ask for one additional favor in a trade (i.e. "you can have this if you buy me coffee tomorrow"). That's supposed to be limited to one offer/counter, but someone would always find a loophole to continue...I think the record was 10 minutes.