How About Your Family's Holiday Traditions?

[MarianJack]

In my family, ever since 1971, on New Year's Eve we would go to the movies then come home to a big cold cut feast and tell dirty jokes until the ball dropped.

My father, step-mother, brother, sister and I started doing this when I was 16. of course, when they were little, my brother & sister were in bed by the time the dirty jokes started.

When ChicaAzul & I got together, I presented this idea to her and she loved it.

How about your family?

[JVS]

1. Lutefisk!

[MarianJack]

4. Details Please?

I confess that I don't know what Lutefisk is.

Does that mean that I get a big :spank: ?

[tinfoilinfor2005]

2. Other than the usual stuff, when my kids were little we used to get

a lot of Christmas cards and because they were so pretty but sort of got lost with all the rest of the Christmas hoopla, I would tell the kids to check out each card as they arrived, and decide which one they liked the best, and on Christmas Eve we would vote for our favorites. They could vote for two: one serious and one funny. Then I would put the winners away with the decorations and put them back up the next year. I was trying to teach them to appreciate not just the beauty and the expense involved in each card, but also the care and thought expressed by each sender.

[MarianJack]

5. That's a Nice Way...

...to get them to appreciate the thought of a Christmas Card.

I see so many people (including a lot of adults) look to see if there's anything in the card and pay almost NO attention to the message.

Nice tradition!

[AlCzervik]

3. Nana's cheese dip, it's not Christmas eve without it.

1 jar kraft roka blue cheese
1 jar kraft old english
1 8 oz package cream cheese
1/4 finely minced onions
1 tsp of worcestershire sauce

let all the cheeses come to room temperature and then mix all the ingredients together, refrigerate overnight* and then serve with whatever crackers you like, carr's water crackers or very good with this.




* must be overnight otherwise it's not nearly as good.

[MarianJack]

6. Sounds Delicious!

ChicaAzul said that we were definitely going to try this!

Thanks!

[Jamastiene]

7. Food. We cook a nice meal and pig out, then

we watch movies and eat some more.

[MarianJack]

8. Is There Room...

...for antacids, too? :toast:

[tjwmason]

9. My older sister and I walk back from church together

This started way back when she smoked and was still hiding it from my parents (who obviously did know). As this was her only opportunity to get away from the rest of the family during the day, she would drag me off to keep her company.

She no longer smokes, but we still walk home together - nobody else is allowed along (not even her husband). A tad odd I know, but it's a very strong family tradition.

[MarianJack]

10. The Ties That Bind!

I don't think that this is odd at all. I'd venture to guess that neither does her husband. Siblings need time to get together, just them.

[yellowdogintexas]

11. we used to have a big extended family dinner

on the Sunday night nearest to Christmas Day, with my Dad's family. Everybody brought certain dishes and we ate until we were about to burst.

My mom's family had one of those big dinners too, the date would float depending on if/when my uncles were going to be there. Those dinners involved lots of food, but more of it prepared by my grandmother who was a whale of a cook and loved to do big dinners. My mom and I usually made the cakes. But we would eat a ton of food and then sit around the table and talk for hours (my political genes were from that side of the family!)

Now we go to Christmas Eve Candlelight services, usually at 7 pm although I have gone to the 11 oclock one a couple of times.

We quite often try to see as many new movies on Christmas Day as we can squeeze in, too.

New Year's Eve, if we can get the family together, we order pizza and play Shanghai Rummy or watch movies. One year my SIL came over and we played RISK! and watched all the original Star WArs movies in a row.

When I lived in Tennessee and Indiana, we always went to Mammoth Cave and Celebrated New Years Eve with our caving friends, usually underground.

[MarianJack]

14. YUMSKI!

Big family dinners!

[Merrick]

12. We're starting a new one this year - getting the hell out of the USA

yup, my mom, dad and I are fleeing the xmas battleground and going down to Ensenada to drink the holiday away. My mom's idea. She said, "The hell with this, let's go get ossified at the long bar." I'm proud of her.

[MarianJack]

13. Oe of our family's best Christmas holidays...

...was when we went to Puerto Rico in 2000.

2 fun things were getting sunburn on Christmas Day and forgetting for 6 days that the election was stolen and we, as a country, were seriously FUCKED!

[mitchum]

15. Drunkenness and recriminations

I kid! I kid! :)

[MarianJack]

16. Not all families are kidding...

...when they say that.

I hated Christmas for years because my mother always spent the day feeling MASSIVELY and obscenely sorry for herself. I'd go to the movies as soon as the first theatre opened.

It sounds cold, but it wasn't my fault that my father and sister were shits. I sure paid for their actions, though.

However, a grandson changes everything!

Sorry for being gloomy in my own post which was supposed to be joyful. Thanks for responding!

[mitchum]

18. It occured to me (past the deletion deadline) that my noirish little...

crack could actually be a painful truth for some people.
I'm the one who should apologise.
Sometimes dark humor isn't so humorous.

[MarianJack]

24. Dark Humor!

What would life be without it? :hi:

[Dangerously Amused]

17. My Crazy Family.

On Christmas Eve, after dinner, we let the kids rip into their gifts all at once. Then the adults take turns opening gifts. So my sister started this tradition years ago. One year she gave my Mom some cheap and truly hideous... thing for Christmas. I don't even remember what it was. My sister wrapped it up like a regular present, BUT... she put MY name in the "from" line.

So it's my Mom's turn and she's opening this gift that she thinks is from me. She gets it open and she's all like WTF?!? And I'm thinking, "WHAT the hell is THAT?!" But of course Mom is waaay too polite to ever say anything indelicate. So she thanks me for the hideous gift and I just said, "No, I didn't give that to you." So Mom gets the tag and checks it again and says "Yes, it's from you." And I'm like, what?!? So I sez, "Um, no it's NOT." And we just sat there looking at each other until we figured out what was going on and then everybody burst out laughing. I guess I thought that was the end of it, but thankfully it was not to be. The next year my sister fooled me the same way, in a gift from my "Mom." That was the beginning of the Great Christmas Joke Gift Wars.

The unwritten "rules" evolved to these:

1. The more bizarre, useless, gross, dumb, tacky, grotesque or disgusting (within limits as children are present and they always want to check it out), the better. Any item combining any of those attributes scores bonus points. You know you've found the right "gift" when it takes your breath away because it's just so... so... heinous. And yes, we buy most of these wonderful gifts at garage sales or thrift shops. In fact, it's evolved to such a competition to find the best bad gift that now we keep a lookout all year long for the perfect Christmas Joke Gift.

2. It can't cost more than a buck or two.

3. You can give only one joke gift to each individual. Nobody wants to end up with more joke gifts than real ones.

4. You still score bonus points if you can fool the person as to the giver (make them think they are opening a real gift from someone else) until they've opened it up.


Yep, that's my family. Nutty as fruitcakes at Christmas. But we have fun.

[SaveElmer]

19. The Albert Finney Scrooge musical...

Every Christmas Eve we would go see that in the theater.

I love that movie!!! Great Music!

[flamingyouth]

20. We celebrate on Christmas Eve

My mom makes traditional Swedish food (minus the hideous lutefisk) and we have angel chimes on the table during dinner. Then we open our packages after dinner. On Christmas Day I lay around like a slug because I'm so freaking exhausted after working so hard all month.

[RFKHumphreyObama]

26. So do we

We’ve celebrated on Christmas Eve for as long as I can remember. We’ll gather around at the house of a relative and we’ll have a traditional Christmas dinner with turkey and Christmas pudding with brandy butter –but also sometimes with some Italian dishes or Asian food thrown into the mix. Then we’ll sit around talking and sometimes singing Christmas carols until midnight and we’ll subsequently open the presents

On Christmas relatives generally drop in so we still celebrate but Christmas Eve is usually the intimate family celebration

This year we’re away from our relatives so we’re having a big party of friends and my BIL’s family on Christmas Eve followed by Church on Christmas Day

[purji]

21. We BBQ steaks on new years day

We just shovel the snow away from the grill and cook up some yummy steaks.
Of course you cant have steaks with out salad and baked potatoes with sour cream.
I'm looking forward to it already.

[Terran]

22. Lasagne

We always would have lasagne the night we decorated our tree. And for New Year's Eve, it was cheese fondue and minestrone soup, all homemade, every year I was a kid.

[u4ic]

23. Spend as LITTLE time together

during the holidays. :rofl:

[Dangerously Amused]

25. KICK because I want to hear more DUer holiday traditions!