Holiday Traditions...

[Italiahaircolor]

What do you do to celebrate the season outside of gifts?

My family paints! We all get together, in our ugliest Christmas sweaters, at a local paint-your-own pottery place and paint place settings for Christmas Eve. Each year we add to our set...a plate, a mug, a bowl, a platter, whatever the year calls for. It is the best fun! It can be any shape, color...but the rule is, it must be "Christmas themed". On the back of our piece we write the answer to the "question of the year"...sometimes the question is "what are you thankful for"...but sometimes it''s silly like "whats on your Christmas list" or "What is the most memorable even of year in your opinion". We unveil our pieces on Christmas Eve and it''s always a hit! As a new member is introduced to our family, they start on the plate...it''s a tradition to build upon each year. And I have to admit, looking back at past pieces can be really nostalgic and comical.

 

[Skippy123]

Christmas eve we put out luminarias (paper bags with sand and candles) and go look at about a dozen hot air balloons light up at night which I think is beautiful.

Then we go over the the neighbors open house he puts on every year and visit with all the neighbors and take over some wine and baked goodies. My family comes over Christmas day and opens presents and I do the Christmas lunch (I always host the meal).

Another tradition is that we get together over the holidays and make tamales and biscochitos! Tamales are ground up corn dough (masa) and filled with a pork and chile mixture. Bicochitos are a traditional New Mexican cookie with the anise seed and a cinnamon and sugar topping.

Painting pottery sounds like fun; very cool tradition! eta: fun thread Italia; it will be great to hear everyones traditions!

 

[Italiahaircolor]

Date: 11/27/2009 11:49:16 PM
Author: Skippy123

Christmas eve we put out luminarias (paper bags with sand and candles) and go look at about a dozen hot air balloons light up at night which I think is beautiful.

Then we go over the the neighbors open house he puts on every year and visit with all the neighbors and take over some wine and baked goodies. My family comes over Christmas day and opens presents and I do the Christmas lunch (I always host the meal). We use to always open presents on Christmas eve but this changed since getting married so it works.

Another tradition is that we get together over the holidays and make tamales and biscochitos! Tamales are ground up corn dough (masa) and filled with a pork and chile mixture. Bicochitos are a traditional New Mexican cookie with the anise seed and a cinnamon and sugar topping.

Oh how fun! I love hot air balloons and would die to have something like that to look forward to each...sadly by Christmas Eve we usually have ice, sleet and snow instead!

Your neighbor sounds super nice to open his home on Christmas Eve...what a nice sense of community that must give everyone!

 

[Burberrygirl]

On Christmas Eve we always exchange white elephant presents. It''s a very fun tradition

 

[packrat]

Ooo thank you for starting this thread Italia! We''re starting from scratch on this with our kids, so it''s nice to get ideas of things we could start doing with them!

 

[Italiahaircolor]

Date: 11/28/2009 12:33:44 AM
Author: packrat
Ooo thank you for starting this thread Italia! We''re starting from scratch on this with our kids, so it''s nice to get ideas of things we could start doing with them!

Happy I could help!

 

[fieryred33143]

My mom makes us homemade (not packet) hot chocolate and grilled cheese sandwiches while we watch Christmas movies and cartoons. We also have a game of dominoes every year. And my mom cheats every year

.

 

[Italiahaircolor]

Date: 11/28/2009 12:50:09 AM
Author: fiery
My mom makes us homemade (not packet) hot chocolate and grilled cheese sandwiches while we watch Christmas movies and cartoons. We also have a game of dominoes every year. And my mom cheats every year

.

You cannot believe how hard I laughed! Sounds awesome!

 

[Indylady]

Italia, what a lovely idea for a thread!

SO and I hide a pickle ornament in the tree each year, and pick out new ornaments together. We aim for an eclectic tree...we''ve got a dinosaur, a glittery shell, a drawing of our best friend''s puppy, a sea gull, a santa, balls of all colors and finishes, golden hearts, an angel, and all kinds of other little critters. We try to involve all of our friends as well when we put our tree together.

Neither of us are Christian, or raised in Christian households...but interestingly, it is the one ''religious'' holiday that we celebrate together. Perhaps its the neutrality of having a holiday neither of us were raised with, or the fact that Christmas can be easily done in a fairly secular way while still preserving a fair amount of Christmas spirit. It makes it a very exciting experience, and its fun that we''ve been creating our own traditions for the last four Christmases.

 

[Italiahaircolor]

Date: 11/28/2009 1:22:06 AM
Author: szh07
Italia, what a lovely idea for a thread!


SO and I hide a pickle ornament in the tree each year, and pick out new ornaments together. We aim for an eclectic tree...we've got a dinosaur, a glittery shell, a drawing of our best friend's puppy, a sea gull, a santa, balls of all colors and finishes, golden hearts, an angel, and all kinds of other little critters. We try to involve all of our friends as well when we put our tree together.


Neither of us are Christian, or raised in Christian households...but interestingly, it is the one 'religious' holiday that we celebrate together. Perhaps its the neutrality of having a holiday neither of us were raised with, or the fact that Christmas can be easily done in a fairly secular way while still preserving a fair amount of Christmas spirit. It makes it a very exciting experience, and its fun that we've been creating our own traditions for the last four Christmases.

What an absolutely lovely tradition...ornaments are so fun! My DH and I love adding new pieces to our tree each year...each one having a story or meaning. We buy a special ornament to signify every trip we take together throughout the year. Also, because Starbucks has been so pivotal to "us" as a couple we buy their ornaments each year to remember our first date. Every year I look forward to unpacking my box and getting excited all over again at how beautiful our collection is becoming!

It's really special that you and your SO connect over Christmas. I think the holiday has become less secular and more about the spirit of the season for a lot of people for many, many reasons.

 

[zoebartlett]

Italia, I just began a thread about this, but I didn''t see that you had already done one. Oops.

 

[drk]

One of my best childhood memories was the advent calendar my Mom made herself. Big creamy piece of material hung with the top and bottom wrapped around rods, and then hung by red and green yarn. Then there were the 24 pockets on it, each holding an ornament to hang on the green felt Christmas tree. Each ornament had its matching small cue card with a typed note on it about the significance of that ornament or symbol. I think the tree has gigantic sequins on it to hang the light ornaments from. I loved taking turns pulling out the ornament and hanging it on the tree when I was little. Sadly, my brother inherited it when he had kids.

Guess I''ll just have to make my own. It was so much better than the paper-and-chocolate ones.

We always got to pick one gift to open on Christmas Eve. And usually went to midnight mass so we could sing carols. Oh Holy Night is enough to give me goosebumps!

 

[Elmorton]

DH and my holiday tradition just for the two of us stems is our Advent calendar. I bought a wooden one that has doors, and we hide a gift there every day until Xmas. It was a little hard to hide gifts at the same time, so after the first year of madness, we decided to alternate days. It is SO much fun - I think more fun than our real gift exchange. We mostly give each other candy, but there are other stuff that get rotated in - a chapstick, a new song from itunes loaded on to an ipod shuffle, sometimes notes with a hidden gift that didn''t fit in the door, etc.

 

[Indylady]

Date: 11/28/2009 1:28:07 AM
Author: Italiahaircolor

Date: 11/28/2009 1:22:06 AM

Author: szh07

Italia, what a lovely idea for a thread!



SO and I hide a pickle ornament in the tree each year, and pick out new ornaments together. We aim for an eclectic tree...we''ve got a dinosaur, a glittery shell, a drawing of our best friend''s puppy, a sea gull, a santa, balls of all colors and finishes, golden hearts, an angel, and all kinds of other little critters. We try to involve all of our friends as well when we put our tree together.



Neither of us are Christian, or raised in Christian households...but interestingly, it is the one ''religious'' holiday that we celebrate together. Perhaps its the neutrality of having a holiday neither of us were raised with, or the fact that Christmas can be easily done in a fairly secular way while still preserving a fair amount of Christmas spirit. It makes it a very exciting experience, and its fun that we''ve been creating our own traditions for the last four Christmases.

What an absolutely lovely tradition...ornaments are so fun! My DH and I love adding new pieces to our tree each year...each one having a story or meaning. We buy a special ornament to signify every trip we take together throughout the year. Also, because Starbucks has been so pivotal to ''us'' as a couple we buy their ornaments each year to remember our first date. Every year I look forward to unpacking my box and getting excited all over again at how beautiful our collection is becoming!


It''s really special that you and your SO connect over Christmas. I think the holiday has become less secular and more about the spirit of the season for a lot of people for many, many reasons.

Aww, thanks Italia! I love your family''s tradition of painting place settings. We have a Paint-a-Pot in our student union building, so I think that I might take SO and our friends to go out together to paint Christmas mugs!

I''ll be sure to post pictures if we do.

 

[indecisive]

Date: 11/27/2009 11:49:16 PM
Author: Skippy123
Christmas eve we put out luminarias (paper bags with sand and candles) and go look at about a dozen hot air balloons light up at night which I think is beautiful.

Then we go over the the neighbors open house he puts on every year and visit with all the neighbors and take over some wine and baked goodies. My family comes over Christmas day and opens presents and I do the Christmas lunch (I always host the meal).

Another tradition is that we get together over the holidays and make tamales and biscochitos! Tamales are ground up corn dough (masa) and filled with a pork and chile mixture. Bicochitos are a traditional New Mexican cookie with the anise seed and a cinnamon and sugar topping.

Painting pottery sounds like fun; very cool tradition! eta: fun thread Italia; it will be great to hear everyones traditions!

We do luminares, biscochitos, and tamales too but no hot air balloons in Virginia around Christmas. We do pork, chicken, and cheese tamales because of all the picky people in my family but we get our masa and chile sent from New Mexico! I can''t wait for Christmas!!

 

[Skippy123]

Date: 11/28/2009 7:26:47 PM
Author: indecisive


We do luminares, biscochitos, and tamales too but no hot air balloons in Virginia around Christmas. We do pork, chicken, and cheese tamales because of all the picky people in my family but we get our masa and chile sent from New Mexico! I can't wait for Christmas!!

You do? AWESOME to have some of the same traditions!!! Are you from New Mexico or have family here? Do you do posole too? Aren't biscochitos the best; one of my favorite cookies!?!?!

Funny my hubby's family is from VA; I have them send me Smithfield Country ham biscuits; yum! Yay for luminarias; I think they are so beautiful, yet simple and peaceful.

eta: Italia, I agree! We are very blessed to have wonderful neighbors; they are like family for sure, thanks.

 

[indecisive]

Date: 11/28/2009 7:39:16 PM
Author: Skippy123

Date: 11/28/2009 7:26:47 PM

Author: indecisive



We do luminares, biscochitos, and tamales too but no hot air balloons in Virginia around Christmas. We do pork, chicken, and cheese tamales because of all the picky people in my family but we get our masa and chile sent from New Mexico! I can''t wait for Christmas!!

You do? AWESOME to have some of the same traditions!!! Are you from New Mexico or have family here? Do you do posole too? Aren''t biscochitos the best; one of my favorite cookies!?!?!

Funny my hubby''s family is from VA; I have them send me Smithfield Country ham biscuits; yum! Yay for luminarias; I think they are so beautiful, yet simple and peaceful.

eta: Italia, I agree! We are very blessed to have wonderful neighbors; they are like family for sure, thanks.

Yeah, My family is from Albuquerque and Socorro. I love it out there. It is so gorgeous! Va is pretty but you just don''t have views out here like that. We don''t do posole every year but it is my ambition to someday make tortillas as good as my great grandma. How did she get them so round?! I didn''t like biscochitos when I was little but I LOVE them now! Our family sends some and we bake them which means we eat entirely too many! I totally agree at luminarias... they put them all along the roof of the hospital my mom was born at. So pretty! It is so cool to have the same traditions. Everyone at work is begging me to bring in tamales so I am trying to convert other Virginians!

 

[Skippy123]

Date: 11/28/2009 8:17:30 PM
Author: indecisive

Date: 11/28/2009 7:39:16 PM
Author: Skippy123
You do? AWESOME to have some of the same traditions!!! Are you from New Mexico or have family here? Do you do posole too? Aren't biscochitos the best; one of my favorite cookies!?!?!

Funny my hubby's family is from VA; I have them send me Smithfield Country ham biscuits; yum! Yay for luminarias; I think they are so beautiful, yet simple and peaceful.

eta: Italia, I agree! We are very blessed to have wonderful neighbors; they are like family for sure, thanks.

Yeah, My family is from Albuquerque and Socorro. I love it out there. It is so gorgeous! Va is pretty but you just don't have views out here like that. We don't do posole every year but it is my ambition to someday make tortillas as good as my great grandma. How did she get them so round?! I didn't like biscochitos when I was little but I LOVE them now! Our family sends some and we bake them which means we eat entirely too many! I totally agree at luminarias... they put them all along the roof of the hospital my mom was born at. So pretty! It is so cool to have the same traditions. Everyone at work is begging me to bring in tamales so I am trying to convert other Virginians!

Oh that is great; I love NM too!!! I agree with you that the views are great.

VA is beautiful too and so green. hehe Oh tortillas, my mom and grandma made the best!!! I bet your grandma's were fabulous; those grandma's, soooo know how to make them!

I watched my mom make them but she throws all the ingredients together so I could never figure out how she does it and she makes them perfectly round all by hand! I have to use a rolling pin.

Good for you making those tortillas; I need to learn someday! Oh I didn't like biscochitos either as a kid either; I think it is the anise and they are sort of an adult cookie. I love them now; super yummy!!

It was fun chatting w/you on these traditions Indecisive; if you are ever out here let me know and maybe we could do a mini gtg w/the other NM's!! Yay for converting your buddies too!

 

[lulu]

We get together with my brothers and their families about three weeks before Christmas. A cousin and some friends also come to my brother''s house. We spend the day making krusciki-Polish angel wings. We make about a 50 egg batch and the rolling and frying takes all day. We''ve been doing it since my mom died in1994. And the ironic thing is that it takes about 20 of us to do what my mom used to do herself.

I think I love krusciki day more than Christmas itself.

 

[Rachel9]

Nice thread

We do white elephant among adults on Christmas Eve, kids make an ornament, different theme every year.
Close friends rotate and host a wine exchange party on the 15th simple but great opportunity to catch up since some of us have moved from wine country.
*Not from NM, but Definitely a Tortilla-Tamale lover!

 

[Haven]

We get together for Chanukah and make cookies with the kids *all* day long, and then all of the family gets together for a big dinner. We also make latkes with the kids, but I hate them and they stink up my house for WEEKS!

DH and I host a Pizza Throwdown on Christmas Eve. (We''re Jewish, and we got sick of eating Chinese takeout

) It''s super fun, we blind taste all the pizzas, then everyone rates them and we tally up the winners for each category (best overall composition, best sauce, most unique, etc.) You wouldn''t believe how involved a discussion about pizza can become!

My family watches A Christmas Story/i> on repeat starting Christmas Eve, and when we get sick of it we go movie hopping at the theatre together on Christmas Day.

My family used to go downtown to see the Marshall Fields window displays, and then drive through our old neighborhood (Sauganash) to see the unbelievably over-the-top Christmas decorations. Too bad Macy''s killed *that* tradition for us.

 

[charbie]

My family is very very big on tradition, all started by my mom, and I cannot imagine my holidays any other way. The two biggest:
pictures with santa- nevermind the fact that I am 25, married, and have 2 sisters who are 27 and 24. We get our picture taken every year. My mom has a whole display of them that she puts out every year. It is the one thi ng she asks for, and has said we can stop when we have kids of our own. There have been many years my sisters and I moaned and groaned and didn't want to do it, but it is actually amazing to see the collection and how we have changed. One year I was in europe for christmas, and couldn't get the picture, so my sisters took my senior portrait for santa to hold. We have 16 pictured with the same santa...he was the most amazing santa ever!

'Twas the night before christmas: my mom reads us this book every year. Now that we don't live at home, we all get on conference call for her to read it. Ill never forget that christmas in europe when she called to read it to me before I went to bed...I cried so hard since I missed them so much. And one year we lost the book, so we had to play the book on tape. My sisters and I know it by heart, and I can't wait to pass on this tradition as well.

I love everyones traditions!