Do you have a favorite Holiday tradition?

One of my favorite Holiday traditions is every year my husband and I get a plain glass bulb ornament and he paints our names and the year on it. We have one for each Christmas that we have been together which is 5 years now. It is so much more personal than going out and buying a new one each year, and it's fun too.

Would you like to share you Holiday traditions?





Kyttin

We always give Chrismas socks to each other every year....

The next Christmas we wear the pair we got last year....

silly huh!

My family always has oyster stew for dinner on Christmas Eve. Now even hubby is checking on the prices of oysters so I can try my hand at it this year.

One tradition that we used to have (until Mom's passing - it was her thing!) was getting underwear for Christmas. When we were little, Mom would go out and get us undies that matched our Christmas dresses. Talk about a silly tradition!!

Being from an Italian, Roman Catholic family, our biggest Christmas tradition would have to be the 7 fishes for dinner.

Originally posted by Jeff24Girl
Being from an Italian, Roman Catholic family, our biggest Christmas tradition would have to be the 7 fishes for dinner.

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Each person ate 7 fishes???

or

The meal was 7 fishes???

I have my own private little tradition. I go out and feed feral kitties that eat from dumpsters that might have nothing in them on Christmas. Like around closed fast food places and such.
Neither of us have family that we are in touch with, so we just spend a quiet day watching movies, sometimes cooking, sometimes just grazing.

I grew up w/ the 7 fishes for Christmas Eve dinner tradition also. Since I've had my own kids though, we stay home now on Christmas eve, and I haven't kept up with that tradition. My mom and dad still do it though at their house.


Our tradition though is letting the kids open up their gifts on Christmas Eve, so on Christmas morning they can just play play play!! We take them out to see the lights in the town, and voila, when we get home Santa Clause has already stopped at our house!! I love this tradition, and I hope that my kids continue it with their own kids later in life. Last year was great, Christmas morning was not stressful, they played with all their new stuff while I was able to cook Christmas dinner for my entire family. It works out great!

Lhezzza...the meal consists of at least 7 different kinds of fish ( or seafood), along with other stuff.

We usually have shrimp, steamed clams, baked cod, steamed salmon, smelts, fried flounder and crab cakes.

My Grandmother used to say that stuff like shrimp and clams was cheating, as it is supposed to be "fish", and she NEVER served stuff like that. Just various types of fish. So I guess the rules have been bent a little over the years, but I haven't gotten any calls from the Pope yet condemning our meal, so I guess we're OK! :tounge2:

Originally posted by krazy kat2
I have my own private little tradition. I go out and feed feral kitties that eat from dumpsters that might have nothing in them on Christmas. Like around closed fast food places and such.
Neither of us have family that we are in touch with, so we just spend a quiet day watching movies, sometimes cooking, sometimes just grazing.

Click to expand...

That is SO sweet of you!!!!!!!!

Originally posted by Jeff24Girl
Lhezzza...the meal consists of at least 7 different kinds of fish ( or seafood), along with other stuff.

We usually have shrimp, steamed clams, baked cod, steamed salmon, smelts, fried flounder and crab cakes.

My Grandmother used to say that stuff like shrimp and clams was cheating, as it is supposed to be "fish", and she NEVER served stuff like that. Just various types of fish. So I guess the rules have been bent a little over the years, but I haven't gotten any calls from the Pope yet condemning our meal, so I guess we're OK! :tounge2:

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Carla,
I have never heard of this tradition, since I am not Catholic, but after hearing the menu, I would really like to be invited this year!!!

The only tradition I can think of that we have, is after we get the tree, and my step-kids come over, we have hot chocolate and popcorn and decorate it together!! I also have one favorite tree decoration that is so very special to me....I am always scared I will break it...it is a big red ball (larger than your average Christmas tree ball decoration) that has my name and the year 1969, done in silver glitter on it. I was only 4 years old then, but my Sunday School teacher made us each one, and I still have it!

We do the Catholic Christmas Eve dinner. C. Eve is always a non-meat day (like Good Friday and Ash Wednesday), something to do with fasting I think. Although I'm no longer religous I do love the evening. It's a time when all bad feeling and arguments that happen throughout the year are put to one side and everyone has a great time.

We always start with the breaking of blessed communion wafer to signify peace and goodwill and then move straight onto the neat ice-cold vodkas with rollmop herrings! We don't do the 7 fishes, but the meal consists of about 8-10 courses (small ones). My Aunt and Mother used to take turns hosting the dinner on alternate years but my poor old Aunt is now getting to frail to manage this so my Mum does it each year.

It's great coz we get 3 Christmases - one on C. Eve, one on C. Day (Ken and I usually splash out on a nice restaurant) and one of Boxing Day when Kens kids and Mum come to us.

So I guess my tradition would be the 3 days with each day being spent in such a different way.

Every Christmas morning I have always said 'Happy Birthday Jesus'. I'm not really religious, but it's someting I'll always do.

Every year I buy my kitties a christmas ornament that looks like each one. Every year I decorate 3 trees. One at home, one for my parents, and one at the office. On Christmas Eve my family has seafood. We are not Catholic though.We open our presents on Christmas Eve before we go to a Candlelite service. New Years Day we have a big German feast with saurkraut and corned beef, potatoe pancakes with sourcream, german slaw, and a big German Chocolate Cake!

krazy Kat2 - I love your tradition!

The only thing my family does consistently each year is Christmas Tree ornaments. Ever since we were little kids, each year my mum gives us three kids a Christmas Tree ornament with our initials and year on it somewhere. Now that we're all adults, we all give each other (and mum) Christmas Tree ornaments. When my mom and dad got married, they had no Christmas Tree ornaments and didn't have the money to buy enough to fill the whole tree... and she didn't want that to happen to any of us kids. So she got us collecting Tree ornaments from a very early age in the hopes that we would have a head start on having a "full" tree of ornaments when we moved into our first home and had our first tree!

Funny thing is... I live in an R.V., so my ornaments sit in storage. We get a few out to hang around the house - but it isn't quite the same.

I grew up with little traditions like on Christmas Eve everyone got to open one present, and everyone got a new pair of pajamas too! That way come Christmas morning everyone came downstairs in their new pjs to open presents and have breakfast! Now I just go out and buy myself new pjs sometime before Christmas!