What do you do for Christmas?

[The Bard Babe]

With so many different people on this site, I figure there must be a whole heap of different ways of celebrating Christmas represented between all of us.

 

What do you eat? What do you do? When does Christmas start for you?

 

I ask because it's finally turned December, so my dad will finally let me and my mum go Christmas crazy. That means I'm currently pumping out Christmas songs from our surround sound while we start thinking about decorating.

 

I've had the same awesome wooden advent calendar for a few years now and it's out now, right next to where the Christmas tree is going to go. Because we have a rather large family and we always try to outdo each other with present sizes, our Christmas tree and everything underneath it gets more ridiculous each year. All of my brothers and their wives and often their girlfriends come over on Christmas Eve and we watch a Christmas film and play games and chat and generally have an awesome time having all of us in the one spot. When I was little, we used to leave out mince pies and milk for Santa and carrots for the reindeer, and I always left him a little letter on Christmas Eve, and then in the morning, he'd filled up our sacks with presents. Presents always came in our sacks when I was little, but once I stopped believing in Santa, seeing as I was the youngest, everything ended up under the tree.

 

Almost every year, someone in the family has to work Christmas morning and we don't have any little children, so we never worry about waking up too early anymore. XD    A Christmas tradition for our family for some reason, is eating Coco Pops for breakfast on Christmas morning. For those of you who aren't Australian, those are little rice bubble things covered in chocolate, and they're glorious.    :p

 

Then we each get one of those Christmas chocolate stocking things and we snack on them until everyone's home, always with Christmas songs on in the background, of course. Once everyone's home, we all clump around the Christmas tree. For whatever reason, it's always been my job to hand out presents, and we always open them one at a time, taking turns in age order until everyone's run out and there are no more presents left to open. I love doing it that way, because it makes each present more thoughtful and  everyone has to remember to wrap the presents nicely ;p

 

We usually sit outside for a bit because Aussie Christmases are boiling hot, but we always have the roast turkey and brussel sprouts and the rest of the classic British Christmas Dinner despite the heat.    

 

Anyway, I'm done for now, what do all of you do?

 

 

[BridMorgan]

Sounds absolutely lovely BB!! 

 

Well, I already have my tree up and decorated.  Now that I have a wee one, it makes it all so much more fun!  I am slowly putting the rest of the decorations up and will hopefully be done by the weekend. 

 

For Christmas Eve, we go to my Aunt's house and see family that we don't see that much throughout the rest of the year.  This year we're going to have to make it a quick one so DJ and I can get home and put together one of the wee one's pressies.  It's going to take us a bit!  LOL 

 

Christmas morning is going to be awesome this year because the wee one is old enough for it to be fun.  I can't wait to see his little face in the morning.  I'll probably be up waiting for him to wake up!  For the rest of Christmas day, we go to my mother's house in the morningish and open presents with my parents, sister and her husband, and my three nephews.  Then they go to her in-laws for dinner while I stay at my parent's house and eat prime rib, mashed potatoes, gravy, asparagus, corn and sooooo many desserts.  My mother used to own a bakery.....  Then, for the first time, my mother is going to have the Christmas day family gathering which one of my other Aunts used to do, but she moved into an apartment so there's no room for a large gathering.  We'll see how that goes.  I will go home between lunch and the evening gathering for a nap.  LOL  And we'll need to call DJ's family since we won't be able to see them this year. 

 

I love Christmas time!  I still get excited and have a hard time going to sleep the night before and I"m always the first one up in the morning.  Even at my age.  LOL  I'm usually rummaging through my stocking waiting for everyone to wake up.

[Nyanna al'Meara]

Yaaaaay :D

 

Well, till now, it's always been summer in NZ so we never properly got into Christmas spirit till like a week before. Then mom and my brothers and I'd decorate one of the trees in our inner yard - sometimes, pinch a small pine tree from the neighbour's plantation but they'd go brown quite quickly. We used to bake lots of cookies, but again - melt. (We got rid of a proper civilized fridge and have cool stores instead). The only place that was safe from heat that time of the year was a cellar-like concrete foundation under our house.

HAHAHA and there was the time, this is back when we were pretty little, that one of my bros - Matty here on DM - went missing. We went round the farm looking for him, then a while later I saw him emerging from said cellar thingy with a very chocolatey mouth.

 

After that, I think Mom kinda gave up on baking cookies en masse.... :p

 

Back on topic, so we usually have some family friends over, and our "semi-grandpa" and old Englishman who lived down the valley and visited on weekends and kinda became our replacement Gramps. Either Dad roasted a pig (YES A WHOLE ONE), or we had a (admittedly, tiny) bonfire outside to BBQ things on.

 

We have this random German/kiwi mix up of traditions. So, Heiligabend (Christmas Eve) is still the day we get to open the presents on. We'd wait by the fire spitting bit apples on sticks to roast - great fun  and absoballylutely delish - while we waited for the Christkind to lay its presents under the "tree". Then Mom would call us inside and she'd play a few Christmas songs on the piano to which we tried to sing - tried, partly because we can't really sing (Dad especially loves to, but seriously. Cannot hold a note. But I luvs him for it.) and partly because we're always too excited to stand still and not run out into the inneryard :p

Anyhoo then would come The Stampede and The Great Unwrapping!

Boxing Day's pretty much a laid back day of stuffing oneself with food. I'd ride my horses down into the valley and go swimming with my friend sometimes.

 

 

Dunno what's going to happen this year - my Omi, who I live with doesn't seem to want to celebrate it much, which surprises me cos I think she's religious... but then again, maybe she doesn't wanna make a big deal of it now that Opi isn't here and my uncle doesn't live with her anymore. But I'm doing my best to spread a bit of cheer

I'm going to spend three or four days before with my other grandparents, who are a bit more lively concerning Christmas spirit and will hopefully make a bit of a fuss and get Christmassy silly with their totally-not-grownup-granddaughter.

Boxing Day isn't really a German thing, maybe have a family dinner, but yeah I won't be here for that cos I have plans :p

 

BUT.


SNOW!!!!!!!!!! We've had some already, and there will me more! I hope! WHITE CRISTMAS AMG!!!!!

 

And on that note

 

 

 

^^What I've been shuffling around to while baking today XD

(that is, if I could shuffle)

 

[NeverTame]

In Finland, the day of presents and Christmas dinners and that stuff is actually the Christmas Eve, as in 24th. We usually gather the whole family at my parents' house (it's the biggest and the most central), we have traditional Finnish Christmas food and listen to Christmas songs and drink "glögi" which is like mulled wine except that made out of juice instead of wine. My dad usually mixes red wine into it, but that's optional; the "default" stuff is non-alcoholic.

 

In the evening (or pretty much whenever after it gets dark, which is pretty early up there) we visit the cemeteries to light candles on people's graves. Cemeteries in general look absolutely amazing at that time because it's really dark and there are hundreds of candles.

 

As for when Christmas "begins", we usually bring the Christmas tree in on the 23rd, the other decorations a bit before that, so it's not a thing that goes on for the whole of December. We probably started with the decorations earlier back when some of us were kids - the youngest of my siblings is 20 now and none of us lives with our parents anymore and neither of the parents themselves is a huge Christmas enthusiast. Actually we all prefer to see Christmas as a calm, warm thing rather than a huge party occasion, and the least stress and fuss that it can be managed with, the better.

[Cass]

What an interesting thread!

 

Finnish Christmas sounds lovely - and so does a white christmas/snow! I've only had one white Christmas - when I was a teenager on exchange to Switzerland. I love love loved it!

 

Another 'Aussie' Christmas for me and my family.

 

Growing up we lived in a little country town, decorations/tree got put up sometime throughout December, and we occasionally had an advent calendar to count-down to the big event.

 

We lived in a house with a big verandah and pretty mountain views, and my Aunty lived in the house directly behind us/moved a few streets away, so all the extended family Christmases I remember there were either at our house or hers, or both (Lunch would take place at one of our houses, dinner would be at the other). Grandparents and other cousins/aunts and uncles would join us and the adults would sit up on the verandah talking and eating, enjoying the breeze and occasionally playing with us kids on request. We kids alternated between running riot around the backyard, playing under the hose/with our newly acquired toys/games and stuffing our face with chocolate and food.

 

Gifts were given out individually as everyone arrived, whenever that happened to be. Nuclear family present opening would occur 'first thing' in the morning of the 25th. I say 'first thing' because Mum and Dad made a family rule that my sister and I were not allowed to wake them up/open presents before 7am... I'm guessing this probably stemmed from one too many 5am wake-ups   (hey, it gets bright early over here in Summer!).

 

No traditional baked Christmas food for us, generally lunch would be a big spread of salads, BBQ steak/sausages, cold meats/seafood (chicken/ham/prawns) and fruit - especially cherries. Lots and lots of cherries.

 

As we've got older the tradition is much the same, except we've all moved closer to the city, and we adults have limited presents to a secret santa (kids still get presents each, from everyone).

 

Now I have my own little nuclear family and the in-laws to factor in as well. So far we're pretty slack with decorations (eg. they're still not up in our house at the moment - I kind of dread the toddler pulling everything off the tree). We don't have an advent calander but I'm starting a tradition of something similar with Christmas Bedtime Stories. The books are Christmas themed and wrapped like presents and every night one is chosen, unwrapped and read before bed. The morning of the 25th is reserved for hubby, bub and I - we get up, exchange gifts, take lots of photos and then we alternate between lunch/dinner with each of our extended families - lunch with family A, dinner with family B one year, vice-versa the next.

 

Hubby's extended family generally gather at his parents house and set up tables etc in the carport, they DO have a turkey and other traditional foods, as well as the typical salads/cold meats/prawns and fruit.

 

On both sides there are always leftovers of everything - no cooking or grocery shopping is required for days.

 

In short, Christmas for us is all about family gathering, staying as cool as possible, and stuffing our face with food... 

[The Bard Babe]

I hear the staying as cool as possible part XD

 

This is amazing! There's such variation between us yet so many similarities! More people!! Tell us things!

[Nyanna al'Meara]

LA LA LA DECORATING CHRISTMAS TREEEEEEE !!!!!!

 

It's finally hit! The excitement and Christmas spirit! I've been sending parcels like crazy, wrote my last 3 cards and decorated a glass thing pretty for my Omi this morning, but I'm staying with my other grandparents till Tuesday and they're sooooooo into the whole Christmas thing, there are cookies and Lebkuchen and NOMNOMNOM SHINIES and we have a cuuuute little tree and *delighted cackle*

Ahem, and on the 24th I'mma take my Omi to the Christmas event (Mass or what its called?) and then we'll have a nice quiet evening with presents and chocolate and then at midnight I have to go places XD

[MattheHat]

Wow, going over and under over there aye? O.O

 

We're quite relaxed really... planning on having spearribs today and a nice roast on the grill tomorrow. Listening to Rock all day. Pretty much it lol