I want your Christmas traditions! (page 2)

rebel8

I build up to it by doing an Advent calendar (which morphed into a daily treasure hunt since I used tiny gifts instead of chocolates, and they wouldn't fit into the calendar) and/or by choosing gifts out of our stockings daily for a week before xmas.

I put a wreath on the door and decorate the house. All my decorations are nature-related.

I listen to lots of xmas music for about a month. (Though a radio station here started it today!)

I do a small dinner party on xmas eve. Elegant entrees, house fancied up, the whole 9.

There are some seasonal things I do in the community too.

nugget

Last year was our first Christmas and I made large felt stockings for each of them. They put an old sock at the end of the bed on christmas Eve and in the morning it is transformed into the felt stocking stuffed with gifts. Each year I will add a new decoration to the stocking. Each year we also buy a special tree decoration and put it on the tree on Christmas day.

Last time the children didn't realise there were stockings at the end of their beds but now they know to look for them. It just sets a fun tone for the day.

Each year it is live and learn as we feel our way through and learn how to celebrate together.

JRK

Eating at Chinese restaurants.

JK

mrsjones5

Eggnog and Khalua on the rocks, everyday until New Year's.

Watching a vintage Christmas Carol movie, preferably one made before 1960, on Christmas Eve.

Apple pancakes with powdered sugar and whipped cream for breakfast Christmas morning.

Diest

Well we certainly enjoy gathering around and showing off our feats of strength, namely by wrestling and seeing who can pin the other person. After that there is the airing of the grievances, where we tell the other people how they have failed us during the past year. We end by eating a Pepperidge Farms cake that has been decorated with M&Ms.

Jewel

I made an advent tree out of 3/4 in plywood...simple pine tree shape about 2 ft high. We stained the top part green and the trunk brown. I pounded in 25 brads scattered across the tree part with one at the top. We put it up on December 1 and hang a little ornament everday until Christmas Day when a shiny brass snowflake gets hung on the top one. My kids loved this when they were little and kept scrupulous track of whose turn it was to put on the day's ornament. They still make sure we get it out.

We fill the stockings on Christmas Eve, but we don't open any stocking stuff until New Years morning. There is a TON of stuff for Christmas morning so holding off on the stocking things stretches things out a bit and made New Year's fun for them even when they were too young to make it to midnight.

We found a tiny song sparrow nest and put a glittery bird ornament in it, a glass pickle and a walnut that we decorated with glitter. Each of the kids hangs one of these on the tree at the very end and the rest of us look for it...there are traditional stories associated with each of these.

My husband reads Clement Moore's "Night Before Christmas" every Christmas Eve. Last year they were 22, 20 and 18 and when I asked, they said they still wanted Dad to do it. This year my oldest will have her own place and I'm giving her a copy of the book as a housewarming present.

Everybody gets new jammies on Chrismas Eve. They get wrapped an put under the tree early in the season so there are presents under the tree for decoration. Each child had a Christmas collection from the time they were little, too. The girls get a new piece for their Christmas villlages and my son collects nutcrackers so he gets one of those. They go under the tree and are opened on Christmas Eve, too.

We put the tree up and decorate it the day after Thanksgiving.

We make it a point to watch Christmas Vacation and Love Actually sometime during the season...a little non-traditional!

Band on the Run

I developed several. Repeating some briefly from another recent thread:

1. NYC - store displays on Fifth Avenue.

2. Rockefeller Center Tree - 1 and 2 are from my toddler to adult years in a JW family. We always toured and just received a lecture about how Christmas was wrong.

3. Christmas Tree - This was the first big no no when I left the Witnesses. Over the years, I've spent thousands on ornaments. Everyting from $1 to hundreds of dollars. It allows me to have some sort of delayed childhood experience. Many of the ornaments I made through sewing or crafting. Friends of friends flock to see my tree.

4. Christmas Services- Much better when I could attend city churches with marvelous organs and professional choirs.

5. Messiah Concerts. Professional - Lincoln Center.

6. Meeting with friends and family.

7. Volunteering in special Christmas ministries. Hard to obtain an opening. Others have the same idea. This is th emost important one.

8. Giving gifts and baking Christmas cookies -- Rather than give a big gift, I now give a nominal gift and donate the rest to Heifer Int'l. They have a catalogue. It is a nondenominational Christian org, heavily audited, that donates pairs of livestock. $30 -can give a third world family a hive of bees. A hive of bees does not sound so sexy so I send cards with 1/5 of a cow or sheep. People love the gift. Their faces light up.

I endeavor to not get caught up in commercialism.

Jewel

My son keeps bees (2 hives). I showed him that we could set a family up with a beehive in his name for one of his gifts. His response, "Are you CRAZY! I want stuff." Sigh...sometimes my kids are wonderful human beings. Sometimes they're just teenagers.

Jewel-who might ask for this for Christmas myself, instead.

straightshooter

I have always spent xmas with the family. This is a great time to get together with relatives.

Quendi

I suppose I began marking Christmas some years ago with watching the movie The Lion In Winter on Christmas Eve. It is a Christmas story, but not at all the kind one associates with the holiday and its usual traditions. But I have always loved it, and this year will be no different. What will make this year special is that I will celebrate both Christmas and Boxing Day (26 December) with lots of feasting. I am very excited about the prospect of having lots of good holiday food to eat and enjoy.

I have been put in charge of preparing the feast for the American Thanksgiving Day in my new home. We won't have an entire turkey to eat since only four of us will be together, but large turkey breasts and many of the traditional side dishes will definitely be featured. I'm already deep into the planning and really looking forward to this.

After more than thirty-five years of holiday abstinence, I am definitely planning to make up for lost time this year. No, I won't be getting drunk or engaging in "licentious" behavior, but I do plan to do lots of merrymaking, feasting, rejoicing and revelry. That is what holidays are for, and there is absolutely no reason why I can't celebrate my life, my blessings and the company of friends, family and loved ones. If Jehovah's Witnesses and others want to deny themselves, they can certainly do so, but I am rejoining the human race in grand style. HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!

Quendi

I want your Christmas traditions!

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