What are your Christmas traditions at your house?

I have always loved celebrating the traditions of Christmas.  We always have a live tree.  Sometimes we go and cut one down ourselves.  I occasionally enjoy a "flocked" tree, my wife prefers green.  Usually after Thanksgiving my thoughts are filled with Christmas cheer, and then we search for a tree.  I don't go overboard, can't afford that.  But do enjoy announcing that my house believes in Christmas!

I enjoy the twinkling lights, manger scenes and all the decorations associated with the Christmas season.  Many movies and songs to choose from.  I enjoy White Christmas.  But my all time favorite movie is the Ten Commandments.  It really speaks to me.  I truly enjoyed the "Left Behind" series.  I have allowed my children when younger to open one present on Christmas Eve.  The rest on Christmas Day.

Gotta have my eggnog and apple cider with cinnamon as well as plenty of Christmas treats!  Though I may celebrate Christmas like a heathen, But I am filled with gratitude and hope!

TR

On Christmas day one of my six kids brings her entire family over for breakfast.  Two other of my kids' small families live her at the original homestead where they were raised.  Now that the kids are a bit older, probably not until around 10:30.  The other families stay home that morning with their own kids.  The breakfast menu is lots of bacon and sausage, mounds of scrambled eggs, at least two coffee cakes, a variety of coffees, hot cider in a crock with  cinnamon sticks, a pile of deeply buttered toast with various jellies, and for a select few who like it, egg nog.  We just sit around and relax.  Sometimes other families come later to visit for a while to snack on nuts, M&Ms, cider, more coffee, and others never leave their own family traditions like refusing to get out of their warm pajamas and slippers.

Gotta' go.  More later probably.

I try for a live tree, love the smell. Always decorate inside and outside the first weekend in December. I have these crazy dancing stuffed animals that I put the batteries in and turn them all on at once ( when the grandkids come over, we all dance goofy to the animals - drives everyone nuts, but great memories).
When the kids were little, they opened 1 gift on Christmas Eve, we always watch “it’s a wonderful life” and “the Christmas story - Ralphy will shoot his eye out”.
Now that the kids are older with families of their own, every other Christmas is dinner at Nanas house with a big spread to certainly over eat and then go for a Christmas walk.
One every other opposite year we went to The Great Wolf Lodge to have Christmas. This year we are heading to visit the creation museum and the Ark, staying in an Air-n-B in Cincinnati for a different adventure.

I always tell my hubby, let’s really enjoy this Christmas, because it’ll be our last one, the next one will be in heaven. Always praying it’s so.... :prayer-hands:

Indeed Tammie, my thoughts exactly!  I have felt for the last three years that each Christmas was our last.  So too for this year.

TR

I would celebrate Christmas all year if I could! For as long as I can remember I have broken out a Christmas album in July and listened to it. The past 15 or so years it has been a CD called Sax Winterlude, which is mostly instrumental.

Decorating usually begins on Black Friday but this year the decorations have already been brought up from the basement because Thanksgiving is late this year and takes a week out of the Christmas season.

Christmas Eve is spent at my folks house. We used to open gifts on Christmas Eve but that has since changed as there are no longer any kids under the age of 19 running around. Now, we all open our gifts at our own homes on Christmas Day.

Two of my nieces are living in NYC right now so they will get to do something I’ve always wanted to do; shop Macy’s!! Yeah, Atlanta has a Macy’s but that’s just not the same thing.

I don’t watch much tv except for college football but I am a sucker for Hallmark Christmas movies even though they are ALL exactly the same plot. Lol.

One of my favorite Christmas experiences was the year I was blessed to visit Nurnberg Germany. The have what they call Christkindlemarkt, which is a huge outdoor Christmas market. If you love Christmas decorations THIS is the place to be! Truly fabulous.

My oldest sister and I are both rather sentimental. We are also very close. The family joke is that when my parents pass away the infighting over their “stuff” will go something like this: “No, YOU should have that.” Until it comes to the star my folks have placed atop of their trees all of our lives. It’s this ratty, half broken, partially melted plastic star that isn’t worth a cent to anyone else....except her and me. THAT is where the fighting will come in! :mdrmdr:

I remember being in the service in Hawaii in the 70's and playing Christmas music in July and praying for snow!  Two large speakers set out on the lanai for all the world to hear.  People thought I was goofy.  My love of Christmas just got the better of me.

TR

My sister and her family have a neat tradition where the kiddos get to open a present on Christmas Eve - it is always a new pair of Christmas pajamas and sometimes slippers. I loved that so much that I started that too once I had kiddos of my own. My husband prefers real trees, but I prefer a fake one, so each year we go purchase a real one! :unsure: :mdrmdr:  We usually start decorating as soon as we stop wobbling around from too much turkey. We keep the outside of the house pretty low-key for now, but I go all out inside: country farm meets a touch of golden glam... subtle, but homey.

Since I have my kiddos every other year, we try to travel somewhere when it is just the two of us if we have room in the budget that year. We normally would stay home with the girls during a year that we have them, but there are a few places we have saved up to visit for Christmas once they get to a certain age. We always make time to see family - that is a must! And I love Christmas movies so those get played all the time along with music! Yohanan, I totally get the Hallmark movie thing - but at least they are decent with just that one plot! :mdrmdr:

Hoping for a snowy Christmas this year...

Oh I’m really enjoying this thread!  I can relate to so many of you and your family traditions!   Thanks for sharing your fond memories. :yes:

While growing up in the early years we had a fake Christmas tree and then from 1990’s on we had real ones. I’ve always loved decorating the tree while listening to the Andy Williams classic record “Its the most wonderful time of the year” “Do you hear what I hear?” etc.  Then after we got saved we just turned on the local Christian radio station owned by Harold Camping, yep Harold Camping lol and would listen to the Christian carols.  I also like Karen Carpenter’s Christmas music CD and broadway singer, Linda Eder, “Christmas stays the same” CD.

I have fond memories of baking cookies with my older sister and mom and having my brothers and dad always coming into the kitchen when they just came out of the oven and them taking handfuls and going back to the living room to watch tv.  My favorite homemade cookies are the spritz (aka gun cookies I used to call them), chocolate crinkle and gingerbread.  Also  homemade Italian struffoli, zeppole and moist fruit cake processed in some type of wine.   When I was a kid, I couldn’t wait for the Sears toy catalog to arrive so I could look through it and jot down all the toys I wanted.  I made a long list and would hang it on the basement paneling wall for “Santa”.  My siblings were much older than me so I was the only one at that time who still believed in him.  My parents would drive to this one big discount store called Rockaway Sales every Saturday night for 3 weeks straight in December.  On the way there we saw a Santa by the curbside waving.  I was so excited but when I saw another Santa a few blocks away I started questioning  how did he get there so quickly when he was on such and such street?  My mother had to come up with excuses and said “well, he is magic”.  Then I noticed another Santa and this one was much fatter that the other two and she said “he ate too many cookies and gained weight.”  Looking back my mom must have been relieved when we finally reached that toy store.  The toys were discounted so this place was mobbed.  The main level floor was a donut/coffee/cigarette/cigar shop that allowed smoking and had a few TV sets on so all the men would hang out there where it was relatively calm.  Meanwhile the basement floor was chaotic scene with the loud Christmas music, the screaming kids running around while mothers were shopping for bargains ... and Santa was on the premises to have your picture taken.  I was always afraid of him and refused to have a picture taken.   My siblings were told to distract me while my mom was quickly buying our toys.

We took turns at which house to have Christmas dinner at.  My grandparents, my aunt or ours.  If it was at our house, my cousins were notorious for always breaking a window, back sliding glass door or ripping the wooden accordion door off track that separated the basement from the front entrance hallway.  We had a pool table and somehow a ball always went flying off the table bounced on the tile floor and kept rolling mighty fast like a bowling ball and made a beeline for the glass sliding door and ended up shattering it.  Or they would be wrestling or doing some serious judo moves knocking each other into doors or the window.  Someone’s elbow broke the glass window.   There was always a loud crash and then their dad would come running down the steps to investigate.  He was forever apologizing and willing to pay for the damage. lol   Before our big meal .... all the cousins and my siblings would relax and watch “March of the Wooden Soldiers”.

One year in the mid 1990’s my brother and his wife treated us to see the Handel’s Messiah at Carnegie Hall.  We parked on the NJ side and took the subway.   We spent the day walking the sidewalks visiting the famous sights ... Rockefeller Center, the ice skating rink and lighted Christmas tree.  We were amazed how tiny the ice rink really is.  I kept buying vendor hot pretzels as we walked around.  We ate at really good restaurant and then visited Macy’s department store and FAO Schwarz toy store.  I didn’t buy anything but it was fun just to walk through.  Everything is cheaper on the NJ side - no taxes on clothes or shoes.  But my sister-in-law went crazy and bought a lot of things at Macy’s and my poor brother got stuck carrying all the bags and had to carry them into the concert hall.  Their seats were uncomfortable because the concert hall was sold out so they had to place all the bags either on the floor by their feet or in their laps for a couple of hours.  It got awkward during the hallelujah part when everyone was required to stand up. :mdrmdr:

My favorite Christmas tv programs growing up were ...The Little Drummer Boy, Charlie Brown Christmas, Rudolph and Frosty.  Added to that list now are Home Alone 1 and 2, The Christmas Story and Chevy Chase Christmas Vacation.  I used to love to watch all those Hallmark Christmas programs too, but I no longer have tv service.

Then when we moved to Vermont in 1999 ... the gatherings were for 3 weeks of non stop entertaining 20 something people.  There was enough room between my parent’s house and my brother’s vacation home (on the same street 3 houses away).  My mom was a real trooper with cooking most of the meals.  We gave her a few breaks with having pizza nights, sub sandwiches or going out for a few meals.  We baked lots of cookies, played card games late at night, watched DVD’s or would go into town to see a movie.  One time my brother-in-law called to say don’t bother cooking we will get some pizza and they decided to see and there was static on the line so my mom only heard “museum”.  She relayed the message they are going to visit a museum and was wondering what museum would still be open that late at night.   But the movie they went to see was called “night at the museum”.  We got a good laugh at that miscommunication.  During the day they would either go sled riding, ski or snowboard while I went to work.  On the weekends we would go out shopping to the malls together and then church on Sunday.  My sister’s kids all play the violin as well as my brother and mom. So they would play a Christmas song at church.

Just good memories ... I miss those fun times.

Yohanan, I can relate totally with being sentimental with the old Christmas tree plastic star!   I still have the one from childhood and pulled it out of the box 2 days ago and was admiring it.  My siblings make fun that I haven’t thrown it away.  Just wondering if yours is similar to this?

One of the highlights we always looked forward to was going downtown (Atlanta) to Macy's to ride the Pink Pig. They brought it back a few years ago but its absolutely nothing like it was when we were kids. Back then it was a monorail type system that was suspended. Now, it runs on tracks on the ground and the entire car is different. Yaaawwwnn! They are just trying to capitalize on our sentiments.  But all I have to do to get my oldest sister to smile is say those two words "pink pig" and she lights up like, well, a Christmas tree!