Holiday Traditions

[wil]

We are beginning the.Christmas season so I'd like to hear your Christmas traditions, now I also know Chanukah got elevated by proxy so those could be added as well.,.

Then thru the course of the year whatever religion, whatever holiday.add your families thing you do.

 

[wil]

Me and mine? The usual american, tree, presents, dinner, stockings. Mom has her little Christmas villages, 4 boxes of decorations get hauled up to get put out (that's 60 years of accumulation) (my ex had more than that in 2 decades, no clue how much it is now!).

All pretty secular adaptation round here... If I were home I'd go to midnight mass at my church and definitely the New Years Eve service.

Bit no 12 days, no yule log, no black Pete, we will hang some stockings and leave out low calorie cookies and almond milk.

 

[Namaste Jesus]

Christmas celebration was quite elaborate when I was a kid. We never had much, but every room still got decorated. Even the bath and stayed up well into February! As time passed and my siblings moved out one by one, the decoration became less and less. Eventually it was just mom and me and we stopped even bothering with a tree. After marrying I started putting one up again, but my mom never did.

My wife and I still put up a tree, but these days it's just a small plug and play fiber optic. That and some fresh flowers and fruit for our Temple. This year the niece and grandnephew will probably pay us a visit as usual and might get around to attending the Corvair Club's annual holiday party, haven't been since my heart issues, but that's about it.

 

[Aussie Thoughts]

Our family's always celebrated 25 December as the conception rather than birth of Jesus, but that aside, Christmas traditions down here are pretty much the same as the states. Decorations, carols, parties, holiday food, gifts. Our local mission puts on a nice little Christmas Eve pageant for native children, so we always decorate one of our stake bodies and run a load of Abby kids on down. They get a big kick out of it and so do we.

 

[StevePame]

I spend Christmas Eve with my family, including a Catholic vigil mass, and then volunteer at a local soup kitchen on Christmas Day. I have a few decorations around my place, but it isn't a big place, so I don't have too much. Tiny fake tree and some snowflakes on the windows.

 

[Cino]

Childhood, various places, German background.

A calendar counting down - or up - the Devember days all the way to Christmas. It had little doors with chocolate behind them, or pictures.

Candles on Advent Sundays, one more every Sunday.

A Hanukkiya, one more candle every day, up to eight.

Chocolate Gelt (coins). Peanuts in their shells, and walnuts. Cookies. Ginger bread. Dreidel. Singing.

Someone dressing up as Father Christmas on the 6th.

The pious among us going to their respective houses or prayer.

A roast goose with red cabbage and potato dumplings, on St. Martin's, at my Grandmother's.

A decorated conifer in the living room, presents, more candles. Waiting for nightfall on the 24th, so we can open presents!

Nowadays:

Candles, cookies, chocolate. Writing cards, making calls. Maybe visit someone or get visited, exchange presents, have a meal together, sing a few songs.

 

[arthra]

Then thru the course of the year whatever religion, whatever holiday.add your families thing you do.

Baha'is have a period of gatherings and gifts around "Ayyam-i-Ha" also known as "Intercalary Days" which is usually four days .. on leap years five days which occur around the end of February. In our family my in-laws share the festive days as we share "Christmas" with them. My son and I made a chicken wire with papier mache camel about three feet high. There's a story called the (Ayyam-i-Ha Camel) and we used to put presents in the pockets of the camel's saddle.

Also see:
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/homa-sabet-tavangar/celebrating-ayyam-i-ha_b_1300698.html