Your Holiday Traditions?

So what are your family's holiday traditions? Anyone have an unusual one or two?

we cook EVERYTHING. we don't buy anything ready made really. we have lots of little things to make and prepare (noticing it this year as mum's off duty from her elbow and i have to do most of it!)

-shortbread

-peppermint creams

-puff pastry nibbles we eat at around 11am- parma ham crescents, cheese straws, anchovy twists

-canapes to have before dinner- bruchetta, smoked salmon on oatcakes, olives and sundried tomatoes

-all the puddings for dinner- mince pies, christmas puddings, a trifle, various jellies, ice cream (yes, we make that too!), nuts and cheese board

-ham for boxing day and christmas day night

and of course the actual meal for christmas day!

the run up to christmas is usually filled with lots of little cooking tasks like these. i couldn't imagine sitting down on christmas day and eating something that wasn't homemade. that's always been our tradition, and it's good because everyone has to be involved, everyone does their own little bit.

My traditions with my family when were younger was that the first day of December we would put the tree up and decorate it and then through out the time in between we'd decorate the inside and the outside of the house and then Id sorta help my mom cook and then on christmas eve we'd all open up one present and then christmas morning we'd all get up open our presents and then have christmas dinner with family.

Oh how I miss those days.....

Originally Posted by sweetnsexy6953 /img/forum/go_quote.gif My traditions with my family when were younger was that the first day of December we would put the tree up and decorate it and then through out the time in between we'd decorate the inside and the outside of the house and then Id sorta help my mom cook and then on christmas eve we'd all open up one present and then christmas morning we'd all get up open our presents and then have christmas dinner with family.
Oh how I miss those days.....

That sounds almost identical to how ours were as well. Same here, I do miss them very much myself.

we always have a christmas lunch picnic! because it's summer, we go to the beach or a park and put out a picnic mat, sometimes we play frisbee or whatever...

in the mornings we always have croissants and then open our presents on the floor, the rabbit gives us a hand with the wrapping paper and stuff.

And we have a huge traditional English Christmas dinner!

Nothing unusual except that we do everything on christmas eve (open presents late at night) and eat leftovers on christmas day.

I dont think we have any besides Christmas Eve dinner and then presents in the morning. Thats basically it.

On Christmas Eve, we drive around looking at Christmas lights, open our stockings, and watch the A Christmas Story marathon on TV.

Christmas day, we have a breakfast of eggs, bacon, cinnamon rolls, and coffee. Then we open presents. Afterwards, we all get dressed and go to Busch Gardens for the day. lol.

Originally Posted by emily_3383 /img/forum/go_quote.gif I dont think we have any besides Christmas Eve dinner and then presents in the morning. Thats basically it. Us too lol. I prefer to eat leftovers on Christmas, so I don't have to cook and can just enjoy the day.

Same here, we usually celebrate on Christmas Eve, and eat the leftovers on the actual Christmas day.

We cook, we may buy a few things here and there but we cook everything. We also like to set up the table with Christmas decorations and our nice set of plates and cutlery.

The tree is usually set up at St Nicholas, it's a job we used to do all together when i was young, now it's my mother's task. She also offers us a chocolate St Nicholas or Santa on that day, as we celebrate more St Nicholas rather than the modern Santa Claus. It's a family joke that also remind us that Christmas is near.

Each year i also buy some Christmas tea, and i bake some traditional cakes.

we dont have any unusual tradition i can think of but like lucy we make everything ourselves, no one in our house is feeling festive at all this year lol

Last night we did our Annual Christmas movie night. Watched the Polar Express.

On Christmas Eve through out the day we'll play our favorite Christmas movies: "A Christmas Story", "Elf", "National Lampoon's: Christmas Vacation" and the original "Christmas Carol". We spend most of the day preparing food. Go to mass at night. And on the way home we'll look at all the decorated houses. And when we get home we'll bake cookies, and then we'll open presents. And on Christmas we have guests over, and have a relaxing day.

We always fly to our grandma house in uk.....

We just have family over on christmas eve and have lots of appies and drinks! Then on christmas day we go to my aunts house and have a huge dinner.. which was sooooo good this year!