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Ok, I know this doesn’t have to do with writing whatsoever… but I love hearing about how other people celebrate Christmas, so I started this topic to share everything Christmas! I’m gonna list out a bunch of questions, and you can answer whatever you desire.
Biggest one: how do you celebrate Christmas Eve/Christmas? (family gatherings, church services, other fun traditions?)
Did your family do Santa Claus (or maybe still, for some of you)?
Favorite Christmas movie
Favorite Christmas food (or any special foods you eat this time of year)
How does your family give gifts? (Does everyone buy things for everyone else, or do you do Secret Santa, or white elephant exchanges?)
When do you open gifts? Christmas Eve, or Christmas morning?
Real or fake tree?
Do you have unique family/cultural traditions?
And feel free to ask your own questions because I probably didn’t ask them all, lol! I’ll give my own response in another post. Now, to tag some people…
@savannah_grace2009 @rae @vinagirl @hybridlore @freedomwriter76 @jonas @highscribeofaetherium @beth-torres @smiley @anyone-else"Real love is for your good, not for your comfort." -Justin Whitmel Earley
- We have a Christmas Eve service.
- No
- Home Alone
- Cookies
- Mom and dad get all of us kids gifts. We kids do a gift exchange where each of us buys for a different person each year.
- Christmas morning as soon as everyone is up…and if someone takes too long, everyone starts singing Joy to the World. (I’ve never needed to be woken up. Except the year we were all sick and my foot was broken.)
- Real!
- No
🏰 Fantasy Writer
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📚 Appreciator of BooksAaaaand since I started this topic, I’ll answer the questions myself!
Starting with Christmas Eve: my family doesn’t usually do much the first part of the day, but our church has Christmas Eve services in the evening, so we’ll often have an earlier meal, and somewhere along the line we started eating shrimp every year, but it’s not usually anything extravagant. When we get back from the Christmas Eve service, we often just relax and put on some Christmas music, sometimes making hot chocolate or something and just enjoying the Christmas tree and all that.
Christmas morning is when we open gifts. My brothers and I used to always come downstairs really early, so my parents let us open our stockings while they’re still getting up. Now that we’re teenagers, we’re getting up about the same time as my parents, but my dad often takes a shower first, so we still have to wait for him. Once we’re all up, we’ll read the Christmas story together and then exchange gifts. We each buy things for each person, but we don’t go overboard spending money, so there will be a few nicer gifts (usually from my parents) and then other smaller stuff like chocolate or snacks or things like that, which my brothers and I give to each other. After we’ve opened all the gifts, we have a nice breakfast. My mom lived in Germany for a few years, so she always makes stollen, a German Christmas bread, and we often have scrambled eggs, bacon, and stuff like that with it. The rest of the day is either spent at home together, or sometimes we have a family gathering.
My parents always told us Santa Claus wasn’t real, right from the start, so I probably would’ve been that kid bursting people’s bubbles by telling them that, lol.
I’ve never been big on movies, so I haven’t seen a lot of Christmas movies. I have seen Home Alone, and I liked that one. I just saw Elf for the first time this year, and I think I saw Polar Express a long time ago. Oh, and last year we watched It’s a Wonderful Life, and I liked that one, too. I don’t know if I’d really say I have a favorite one, though. We always listen to an audio narration of Dicken’s A Christmas Carol the week before Christmas, but that doesn’t count as a movie.
And Christmas food… I could say a lot about the food, lol. I already mentioned stollen, and that’s one of my favorites. On my dad’s side of the family, we have a bit of a strange tradition- my grandma makes spring rolls for one of our Christmas meals (we usually do both lunch and dinner with that side of the family). We’re from German/Swiss descent, so it’s not like a family recipe or anything. A neighbor of my grandma’s gave her the recipe, and she started making them, and we all liked them, so now it’s a tradition. My aunt makes a really good cheese roll, too.
All right, one last one before I post this, because this is getting long, haha! Christmas cookies- my favorite would be either peanut butter blossoms (aka peanut butter kisses), or my aunt’s sugar cookies with browned butter frosting.
Ok I’ve said enough for now XD.
"Real love is for your good, not for your comfort." -Justin Whitmel Earley
Ooh, I should also add that we have a tradition of cinnamon rolls for breakfast on Christmas.
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📚 Appreciator of Books…and if someone takes too long, everyone starts singing Joy to the World.
That strikes me funny for some reason! I don’t think either of my parents would be happy if we woke them up like that, lol.
"Real love is for your good, not for your comfort." -Justin Whitmel Earley
My mom is always up before me, and my dad slightly after. Usually it’s my younger brother that needs to be woken up.
🏰 Fantasy Writer
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📚 Appreciator of BooksGreat topic!!
How do you celebrate Christmas Eve/Christmas? (family gatherings, church services, other fun traditions?)- We usually have all our grandparents over, but since we moved were just by ourselves. And we always watch the “Muppets Christmas Carol” and have Hawaiian pizza (No idea why) .
Did your family do Santa Claus (or maybe still, for some of you)?- We do/did, but a lot of years ago it kind of fizzled out as we got older.
Favorite Christmas movie- “A Christmas Story” That is the best! I love all the others too, like Home Alone, Elf, Polar Express and all the others.
National Lampoons….Oh and Its a Wonderful life is good too! And Muppets Christmas Carol is my #2 fave.Favorite Christmas food (or any special foods you eat this time of year)- Cranberry sauce, I eat it by the spoonful XD
How does your family give gifts? (Does everyone buy things for everyone else, or do you do Secret Santa, or white elephant exchanges?)- We just exchange gifts.
When do you open gifts? Christmas Eve, or Christmas morning?- Always Christmas morning! My brother (Who is 2 years younger than I) Usually jumps on top of me and yells until I wake up. Then we have to wait until 8 am to wake Mom and Dad up (Their rules XD). So when its 7:59 and 45 seconds, he runs into their room and wakes them up.
Real or fake tree?- We had a real tree only once and nah, its been a fake one for every other year.
Do you have unique family/cultural traditions?- Nope!
"Would you kindly...?"
Haha I forgot about the tree! We have a fake one now. We used to get real ones when I was little, but then it started bothering our allergies (especially my dad) so we switched to the fake one. I miss the smell of the real ones, but I like that we can set it up right after Thanksgiving and keep it up until after New Year’s, and it still looks nice.
"Real love is for your good, not for your comfort." -Justin Whitmel Earley
And we always watch the “Muppets Christmas Carol” and have Hawaiian pizza (No idea why) .
I live in mortal dread of the Muppets XD I love Hawaiian pizza, though 😋
Any noun can become a verb if you don't care enough.
Cranberry sauce, I eat it by the spoonful XD
I don’t normally eat cranberry sauce, but we do have a cranberry relish sometimes (most often at Thanksgiving). It’s more like a fruit salad, but I would probably eat cranberry sauce by the spoonful too, haha.
"Real love is for your good, not for your comfort." -Justin Whitmel Earley
Heyy, merry Christmas!!
Christmas wasn’t always a holiday for us, but we started when I was around twelve, and it didn’t even feel too different because we already went to the holiday service, enjoyed the lights, played in the snow, etc.
We still pretend Santa Claus is real because my youngest sibling is six, and most of the others are not much older 😝
By the way, sliding into the next topic, my favorite two versions of Santa Claus are from the movies Rise of the Guardians and Klaus. Highly recommend both. Christmas movies aren’t always my jam but those are great!
My favorite treats are these cookies called sour cream cut-outs. They are so warm and nutmeg-delicious out of the oven… one of my childhood favorite smells, you know?
We do Secret Santa! We take names from a hat, and even the little ones stubbornly keep their mouths shut until Christmas morning 😂 We open presents from other people and expanded family on the Eve, and our own family presents on the morning of.
Everyone says real trees are the best, but we use a fake tree and we love it. The same tree, since the first time we celebrated Christmas, and I can even recognize some of the individual branches.
Unique traditions? My mum is Dutch and sometimes, if she isn’t overworked and tired from preparations, she’ll put our shoes under the tree and we’ll get chocolate coins in the morning. The night before, we all sleep around the Christmas tree. She turns on old radio shows, like OLD old ones from the 1930 something’s, and doze off with the faint static and long-dead caroling people in your head.
And yeah! ❤️
“Everything is a mountain”
Thats cool! I dont eat sugar so we have to make it ourselves and Mom makes it with honey which makes it even better 🙂
The night before, we all sleep around the Christmas tree. She turns on old radio shows, like OLD old ones from the 1930 something’s, and doze off with the faint static and long-dead caroling people in your head.
Thats so awesome! Those vintage shows are the best
"Would you kindly...?"
The night before, we all sleep around the Christmas tree. She turns on old radio shows, like OLD old ones from the 1930 something’s, and doze off with the faint static and long-dead caroling people in your head.
I’ve always wanted to sleep around the tree sometime, but I think if we kept the lights on I wouldn’t be able to sleep.
"Real love is for your good, not for your comfort." -Justin Whitmel Earley
My favorite treats are these cookies called sour cream cut-outs.
I don’t think I’ve ever heard of those. I’ll have to look them up!
"Real love is for your good, not for your comfort." -Justin Whitmel Earley
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