I come from a strong German background -- my father's family is Schulz and my mother's Koch and we lived in Milwaukee, a US bastion of Teutonic culture -- and have a strong sense of association of oysters with Christmas although we didn't have oyster stew on Christmas Eve.

I think, perhaps, that the reason we had no family history of it was because of my mother's bad episode with a bad oyster circa 1955 or '56. We never had oyster stew again. (Although my parents indulged my taste for smoked oysters.)

Linn