Family Christmas Traditions...

[Cbarton]

Now that Christmas is only 7 days away, I thought it would be fun (for those to celebrate) to share any fun family traditions you have. Here are a few of ours:

(1) Saw "The Nutcracker" as performed by the Cincinnati Ballet Friday night

(2) Went to the Kentucky Horse Park for "Southern Lights," an outdoor Christmas light display, with model trains and local crafts on displays inside, along with a nice exotic animal petting zoo.

(3) Our version of the 12 days of Christmas: instead of massively unwrapping everything at once on Christmas Day, on the 12 days leading up to Chrsitmas, we hid one gift in the house each day for the kids to find. This way they play with everything and we avoid the "what's next to unwrap and ignore" syndrome. Sometimes, it's attached to a length of braided yarn and they have to follow that yarm all over the house, winding all over the place until they reach the gift at the end.

Those are some of the fun ones we do. What do y'all do?

 

[Cavum]

I haven't had so many traditions, but it becomes more and more for each year.

Some of the things are:

01. Decorate gingerbread house
02. Decorate the christmas tree
03. Put up x-mas lights in the windows (not coloured)
04. Eat alot of clementines
05. Have a "christmas calender" with chocholate! 😀
06. Have a "find the almond in the rice-porridge" contest.
07. Eat alot of candy of course. 😉
08. Watch the Disney Christmas show (it's a tradision on TV here in Norway)
09. And then of course the traditional christmas food. Christmas rib, christmas sausage, potatoes, brown gravy etc etc.
10. First time this year....decorate my girlfriend the same way as the gingerbread house! Check out the picture! :laughing:

 

[BigNorm]

well, right after thanksgiving, we put up all decorations over a 2 day period. we get to open a gift on christmas eve night. we also still leave "santa" wine and cookies (since my mother's lactose intolerant) then we wake up, first one up doesn't wake others up until 10 am. my mother still leaves us presents on the couch like santa used too. then at 10, we wake my mother up and open the rest of the gifts under the tree. spend the rest of the day at 3 other locations, my grandparent's on my dad's side, grandparents on my mom's side, and a friends house. we don't get home until midnight.

i got $200 or so last year from my mother, which she put them all in $1 bills in a cheap kiddie pool, since my dream was to swim in money like in the old Duck Tales cartoon. i managed to fit it all in my largest wallet, until it it split it's seems and fell all out onto the ground at a friends house.

 

[Ignatz]

One family tradition which I will miss this year involves my brother and me forging snowy footprints on the living room carpet. One of us put on his work boots and went step by step from the hearth to the Christmas tree. At each step, the other sprinkled baking soda on and around his boot. I don't remember where we got the idea and technique, but if any of you have wee ones in your family, you might want to try it. My youngest niece is finally too old to believe in Santa, so I guess we're done with this one until another generation comes along.
*Tip* When the kiddos ask you why the snow didn't melt, tell them it's magical North Pole snow. (Baking soda, of course, doesn't harm your carpet and will disappear into the pile as the morning wears on. Any remaining traces will vacuum right up.)

 

[coloman]

These are my family Christmas traditions
1. I go over to my sister and brother-in laws house on Christmas Eve and we have dinner and some years we open our gifts too. My nephew and his girlfriend always come too.
2. On Christmas Day I go over to my sisters house again in the morning and we have breakfast and open our gifts if we didn't on Christmas Eve.
3. Later on Christmas Day I call my parents who are retired and live in Florida and wish them a Merry Christmas and thank them for the gifts they sent me. I also call my sister in Illinois and wish her a Merry Christmas along with my niece and nephew who always spend the Christmas Holidays at her house. I thank them for the gifts they sent me too.
4. This year I will also watch football on TV after I come home from my sisters house.
5. Some years I go back over to my sisters house after they spend the day with my brother-in-laws family on the other side of town.
6. I always bring a center piece for the table, some beer for my brother-in-law and nephew and a little something extra for my sister.

Note: This was my first year to perform with my Barbershop Chrous at our Annual Christmas Show but that will now be part of my Christmas tradition for many years to come.

 

[HOLLYWOOD]

being jewish the hollywood brother do noth ave any xmas traditions but the one thing the hollywood brother do look forward to on christmas day is a day off work in the retial industry before the day after xmas hell

 

[Hungarian21]

I haven't had so many traditions, but it becomes more and more for each year.

Some of the things are:

01. Decorate gingerbread house
02. Decorate the christmas tree
03. Put up x-mas lights in the windows (not coloured)
04. Eat alot of clementines
05. Have a "christmas calender" with chocholate! 😀
06. Have a "find the almond in the rice-porridge" contest.
07. Eat alot of candy of course. 😉
08. Watch the Disney Christmas show (it's a tradision on TV here in Norway)
09. And then of course the traditional christmas food. Christmas rib, christmas sausage, potatoes, brown gravy etc etc.
10. First time this year....decorate my girlfriend the same way as the gingerbread house! Check out the picture! :laughing:

Makes u just wanna eat her, huh? 😉

 

[Cavum]

Makes u just wanna eat her, huh? 😉

hehehe!

 

[BigNorm]

this year, i'm also going to spend christmas eve over my g/f Jenny's parent's house. her dad's pretty cool, he was in Desert Storm, so we really hit it off. and her mother can really cook, she makes an awesome sweet potato caserole.