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Post by stefdarlin on Dec 7, 2007 16:54:38 GMT -5
I was just wondering what kind of things everyone does traditionally for Christmas? I wonder, do you do a special thing every year? Several things? Or is there something new you are doing this year....say if you are away from home or are embracing another family for the first time? Since my husband and I married it has taken us a few years to adopt traditions that incorporate both of our families. Especially since I rather have a LOT of relatives. ;D We have a party with my dad's family 2 Sundays before Christmas. No presents, just a get together to enjoy everyones company. Then the Sunday before Christmas we go to my Aunt's to exchange gifts with my mom's family. On Christmas Eve we usually go to my mother's house and on Christmas Day we have brunch with my dad, step mom and sister and then have Christmas dinner with my husbands family. It sounds like a lot but we manage. Oh, and there is one tradition I have sort of adopted....my husbands family likes to watch the movie A Christmas Story on TNT for the 24 hours which it plays. LOL! So now we have a running joke with a box my father-in-law created to give my husband a christmas gift in one year. It has a bunch of different quotes from the movie on it and has a giant FRAGILE written on it as well. Each year the holder of the box gives the other an odd gift in it. If you haven't seen that movie, it is great. Makes me smile every time. tee hee! So what do you think? Is this a good topic? Cheers! Stef =o)
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Post by OSUSprinks on Dec 7, 2007 23:48:57 GMT -5
That sounds like an awful lot. My family does more with Thanksgiving than Christmas. We don't really do big gifts or anything like that. We do always go the midnight mass (we call it that, even though we are Disciples of Christ and don't call any other service of the year mass) on Christmas Eve. I love when we turn down all the lights just past midnight and sing Silent Night, raising our candles up. It really is an awesome thing.
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Post by dmf1984 on Dec 11, 2007 8:37:31 GMT -5
Midnight Mass is probably my favorite service (yep, I'm Catholic) of all time. The best hymn is "O holy night" especially when accompanied by a violin. I cry like a baby, it's that beautiful (plus happy memories of my grandparents).
Tradition-wise, it's funny, but my family celebrates Christmas from the weekend before through Jan 2nd or 3rd (or some years, 6th; the Epiphany). Reason being, my bro is a firefighter/paramedic and is sometimes on duty Christmas Day. We're used to flexible work-schedules though, since my grandfather was a projectionist at a big movie complex up until 1985 or so. We would go to afternoon movies pretty much every Thanksgiving and Christmas, bringing a plate and dessert for his boss (who was a good friend of the family).
With Jimmy, I never know if his dumba** dad will want a visit (doesn't happen often), so I try to keep that schedule open as well.
Anyway, I don't "decorate" until fall term is over and done with! I post final grades by this Friday so maybe we can get out the tree and manger this weekend (Jimmy has his own manger from Fisher-Price...it's really cute).
TTFN, Di
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Post by Smaug on Dec 12, 2007 2:51:50 GMT -5
Awww! Our Christmas tradition is 50p presents, as well as actual presents for each other me, my parents and my sister all get each other a present worth nothing more than 50p (50p=$1). The point being to try to find something they would really like and for it to not just to be about how much money we've spent. We open these presents on Christmas Eve after tea. And it's really nice And I always get candles because I like them.
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Post by pinkie on Dec 12, 2007 7:09:44 GMT -5
No church for us, not presents, but two get-togethers with our families. Christmas Day, we go to my parents, where we'll have ludicrous amounts of food and talk and have fun with my parents and my sister's little family. The day after that (called second christmas day in my country), we go to my man's family and have an easy Christmas meal - we tablegrill... not my idea of christmas, but they love it, so why nag?
Usually we tape some Christmas specials from the Beeb (like Dr Who) and enjoy each other's company!
I never liked New Year's, i am easily suprised/shocked, so i hate fireworks - this year we are going to some friends for the first time and will experience an US-style New Years... i suppose champagne will be involved, like it is here - but what else i can expect, i have no idea!
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Post by mmadlyinlove on Dec 13, 2007 14:11:08 GMT -5
Christmas is a big deal for my family. Christmas Eve, we gather here, at my mom's house. There is usually me, mom, my step dad Mike, my sisters (Tiffany and Nikki), their boyfriends Craig and Shaun, my grandma, and my two nieces (Alona and Leah), So that's not really many by comparison. We make pies, I make noodles, and we laugh about anything and everything.
Christmas day is much more hectic because in the morning we are woken up bright and early to open up like a million preasents. We start out with one person opening a preasent and then that person hands out the next one. Eventually, we are all opening gifts and going crazy. Then we eat breakfast and get dressed in our clothes before the rest of the family gets there. One by one and slowly all the reletives get there, including all our friends and reletives by birth, reletives by marriage, and any ex husbands or boyfriends we manage to pick up. (We have a hard time getting rid of friends, even if they are our ex's).
When everyone is there, we say grace (usually ending in Uncle Jim saying "And thank God for making Jim a stinking angel"... If he's not there, someone will... Just out of habit... He's a freak). Then we eat and everybody has to fight each other for the food they want, even though we all know there's enough for all fifty or sixty of us and then some... We usually have food enough for every branch of the American military. We then have to stop Uncle Jim from taking the noodles I so painstakingly made the night before to his car and keeping them from the rest of us.
We then sit anywhere we can find a spot and catch up on gossip. I usually move from group to group and yet somehow never miss a beat in each convo. Also, we usually play a game or two, though it is usually SPUD! If you don't know the game, it's really fun and involves a group of us and a small tennis ball (or any ball that doesn't hurt when you hit someone with it).
My grandma continuously yaps about politics and I am convinced after twenty years of listening to her that she is Hitler incarnate and in woman form... She is racist... Well fascist is more like it. She hates Mexicans, which is stupid cuz five of her grandkids are half Mexican and one (Tiffany) is half Puerto Rican. She even told me that if I learned Spanish, my IQ will drop 10 points.
Then people will slowly drift back to their own homes and no matter how many plates mom sends home with them, we have enough food to last through New Year's.
And that is that! New Years is usually spent with my best friends. We always find something to do and have not spent a New Year's apart in six years. Well last year it was just me and Christy, but we were still together. The year before that we went to the midnight showing of Rocky Horror Picture Show. It was awesomeness!!!!!!
If I forget anything, I'll be sure to mention it later.
~mmadlyinlove~
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Post by morethanacrush on Dec 17, 2007 11:57:27 GMT -5
Wow, I love this thread!! lol. I shall post for both me and Crys for obvious reasons lol. Our family always gears Christmas to making the kids (we ALWAYS have kids) in our family have the best time of their lives. Every year. lol. On Christmas Eve we always usually go to my house because my house is the biggest. When everyone comes up (all my aunts and uncles, and their kids and my grandparents) we set up a few games for all the little ones. We have hide and go seek, SPUD!! lol, a few clapping games, and some movies for the ones that don't want to do anything. We play those until everyone arrives, and then we start to make things! we make Christmas cards, we make decorations, the whole shebang. Then it's usually dinnertime, were we have a pretty big dinner. After dinner we usually go outside and build snowmen, snowforts, and have snow ball fights. Once the adults are finished wrapping some last minute gifts, my boy, my twin, my twin's boy and I walk down to the hopsital that's a few blocks away, and drop off some gifts for the Pediactric ward (my dad's really big on donating), while the kids get ready for bed. When we get back, we always watch How the Grinch Stole Christmas the old one first, then the Jim Carey one, and then Eloise at Christmastime, and then the old Grinch movie again while the kids fall asleep. Then we wake up, and open presents!! but the kids have to sleep in until atleast 6:00am. So everyone's usually up and opening presents at 6:05. lol. For New Years, it's usually spent with all of our friends, it's not really a family thing. We usually go skating and then have a snowball fight, and then watch the boys set themselves on fire or blow things up with firecrackers. It's actually really amusing. lol and that's it! Like I said, our Christmas is really revolved around kids... which is how I think it should be lol.
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Post by OSUSprinks on Dec 18, 2007 1:17:13 GMT -5
I love the Eloise movies. Adam's mom loves Peanuts, so we got her the Christmas one along with a box set of 6 or so classic Christmas movies. I have a feeling that is what we will be doing Christmas day.
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