Christmas Eve Tradition

What do you and your family do for Christmas Eve?

Going back to when Mom was a baby, they whole family would meet at matriarch's house for the feast of 7 fishes. Nana continued the tradition at our house when Pop-pop died. Nana passed almost 5 years ago but Mom is still keeping it alive.

So every Christmas Eve the family gathers at our house for fish, wine, & cheer. hehe

No Eve special (other then church) but on Christmas morning its tradition for DH to make "made to order" omelets as you get up

We just hang out together with family..nothing much special. Just spending time together. When the kids go to bed, we get all the pressies out and put them under the tree...awwwwwwwwwww I can't wait!

We reserve Christmas Eve for just the three of us (DH, DS, and me). We have a quiet dinner and watch Muppet Christmas Carol. Christmas Day is spent shuttling from family to family.

We have lots of snack everybodies favourites. watch christmas shows with the kids, the get to choose one present, and open it. hang the stockings, when the kids are sleeping, we get to work, Christmas morning, the kids open stockings, while Dh makes waffles, with strawberries and whipped cream, after we get some food in them then we turn on Christmas music and open presents,

Back when I was a kid (I say that like it was SOOOO long ago... ) My mother would make oyster stew every Christmas Eve. My brother and I thought it was revolting and so the deal was, eat one oyster, open one present that night.

When we got older and could help cook we began a tradition of making a different food type every year (one year would be all Italian food, the next Chinese, the next Mexican, etc.). (And we still got to open one gift early )

Then Christmas day we'd spend the morning with just our family and then go join my grandparents/aunt for Christmas over there.

Nowadays, nada, but if I'm home for Christmas Eve, Mummy wants to make Italian food again.

Christmas Eve is when my whole family gets together and has a big dinner, plus we celebrate my sister and I's birthday (mine is the 20th and her's is the 26th) We usually exchange maybe one gift too

Katie! We share a birthday.

Christmas Eve as long as I can remember has been church and then ONE prezzie before bed. Christmas Day was the gathering of the clan with stockings, multo food, the tree, etc.

These days, Christmas Eve is still church and one prezzie before bed, and Christmas Day varies depending on the movements/needs of the rest of the family. Looks like Christmas Dinner will be on Boxing Day this year, so that we can have the company of Number One Son and his lovely SO. Her family has claimed them for Christmas Day, and somewhere in the mix he will want to spend time with his Mum, too.

I've been spending Christmas Eve with DH's family for about 15 years. We would always go to his Grandmothers house with his Dad and that would be our Christmas. We open gifts and eat ourselves silly. We used to do a sit down dinner but since his Grandmother is getting older she usually has a ham or turkey, cheese, etc. and FIL's GF and I bring other munchies. I also bring two huge cookies trays for them that we would have for dessert.

FYI is it just a New England thing to always have pickles, olives and celery for Thanksgiving and Christmas? My Mom always did it and so does his Grandmother.

This year I don't know what we'll do since we are so far away and we can't get home.

I visit my mom and brother and we always attend mass. Neither my brother nor I are practicing Catholics anymore, but Christmas Eve mass is an important tradition to my mom, so we go to make her happy. The choir and music ensemble always do a beautiful job- it almost makes it enjoyable . Afterwards, we go home, eat like pigs, and open presents.

When I was growing up and lived closer to my family, we'd have a big dinner at my Dad's Parents. We'd open presents and my cousin and I always shared a bowl of butter for our shrimp oh and some of Grandma's home-made cocktail sauce! It was the best! Oh and we did have a relish tray with pickles, olives, celery with cream cheese, and some other things with Christmas Day dinner each year too. I'm from upstate NY orriginally.

From my teenage years on the tradition is, Christmas Eve service at church, followed by the annual Christmas party at someone from our church's house (different people host it) with the gag gift exchange game (always a hoot!) and lots of food, and then home for a glass of egg nog before bed.

Ooohh, I just adore Christmas Eve!

Every year since I can remember, my mom has made hamburgers & home made french fries & we all eat as a family. Then afterwards me & my 2 brothers exchange our gifts to eachother & my mom & dad each open one gift from us kids.
After that, we get ready for 7PM church with our whole family. When thats through, we go to my Grandparents with all my extended family on my mom's side & open gifts from everyone

I love it & cannot wait for this year! Unfortunately, this year will be different & we'll open all our gifts from my parents & brothers on Christmas Eve, because my Dad & brothers have to work Christmas Day, & thats when we open our "Santa" gifts & presents from my parents. Oh well, such is life! But we're still going to my Grandparents so thats exciting!

Christmas Eve my family on my dad's side used to get together at my great-grandmother's house and open presents; we would do a Secret Santa type thing. This year it will be at the nursing home because that's where my great-grandmother is now. But it's a time for us all to get together and have fun. It's a blast with the little kids. We used to have someone go around and bang on the windows pretending to be Santa and when they went outside to look, there would be bags of presents. Their eyes would light up, it was great.

Originally Posted by Abacat

FYI is it just a New England thing to always have pickles, olives and celery for Thanksgiving and Christmas? My Mom always did it and so does his Grandmother.

Click to expand...

Oh, the relish tray was a tradition in our family too! We actually had a 3 section crystal dish..the green olives went on the left, the black olives went on the right, and the sweet mini gerkins went in the middle. The celery, some with cream cheese and some with peanut butter was on another tray. It was my first job with I was a kid to make the relish tray and fill the celery. I grew up in Maryland, so maybe New England traditions came down here?

When I was growing up, Christmas eve was mom making the pumpkin pies (and last minute cleaning with the house), and cooking a ham. She would leave it in the oven baking while we went to midnight mass, then when we got home we would have warm ham sandwiches. Lord, I miss that.

We're still working on our own traditions now. Ask me in a few years, and I'll tell you.

My family doesn't really have any Christmas Eve traditions as a group, but I have one that's just my own. I've never told anyone about it before... but maybe some of you may decide to do it too, and that would be nice.

I got the idea from a wonderful episode of M*A*S*H, many years ago: to do something nice for strangers, anonymously, every Christmas Eve. Usually, I make some cranberry-orange bread or some cookies and wrap them up, then put them into a package along with some small gifts that anyone could use -- a picture frame, a pretty nightlight, small things like that.

Then I drive out after dark on Christmas Eve to a very poor part of town, someplace where you can see that people are really struggling... and when I see the right house, I leave the package on their doorstep.

I don't knock, because I'm so afraid of being caught -- so I have no way of knowing whether the package is found by the people in that house, or gets taken by someone else. I just trust that it goes to the right place either way.

When I was younger, we were always allowed to open one gift Christmas Eve night.
I keep that tradition with my 4 kids.I let them have a choice between 2-3 gifts and they can open only 1 of them.

Since my mothers death, we dont really have one anymore.
But that used to be when we would open gifts and stuff with the whole family.