BS: Christmas traditions

Subject: BS: Christmas traditions
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 17 Nov 03 - 11:54 AM

With Christmas almost upon us, we look forward to celebrating the Holiday with friends and family. As there are 'Catters from all around the world, we'd love to hear how you celebrate Christmas where you live.

Jerry and Ruth

Subject: RE: BS: Christmas traditions
From: mack/misophist
Date: 17 Nov 03 - 12:15 PM

One I recall, from Texas, is that adults exchanged gifts on Xmas Eve after any children had gone to bed. So as to leave the motning for them. People from both coasts have objected to this.

Subject: RE: BS: Christmas traditions
From: GUEST,MMario
Date: 17 Nov 03 - 12:20 PM

I think in our family most of our Christmas Customs are more family customs then they are regional customs. In the household I currently live in -(I rent a room from my sister and her husband) some come from my own family - some from her husbands family. and a few have gone by the wayside.

Christmas Eve supper is tortellini in brodo with a salad and bread;

in our youth we were allowed to pick ONE present from those under the tree and open it on Christmas Eve. (this custom didn't survive for reasons that will be obvious below).

Christmas morning the stockings would have magically filled overnight - and stocking gifts were allowed to be opened. You still couldn't touch any of the presents under the tree - not until after going to church services - but the stockings were available. And in the toe of your stocking would be breakfast - usually an individual box of cereal and some raisens - and (most important) a tangerine. The breakfast in the stocking bit has gone by the wayside - but the tangerine remains.

My b-i-l contributed the custom from his family that the Christmas Tree not be set up until AFTER the children went to bed on Christmas Eve. (talk about masochistic customs!) - As we got older and so did the children there was a lengthy battle to dispense with this custom. At 22 the nephew finally stopped his objections! (So now the tree gets put up at a convenient time a day or so before Christmas). But the packages etc don't go under the tree until Christmas Eve.

Christmas dinner at my parents was always a buffet - nowadays it is a sitdown - menu varies ; but breakfast (also a sit down meal these days ) is german style kuchen, scambled eggs and either sausage or bacon.

Subject: RE: BS: Christmas traditions
From: open mike
Date: 17 Nov 03 - 12:59 PM

i remember having a gift exchange determined at
thanksgiving. since most of the same family emmbers
would gather for both events, at thanksgiving in'the
end of november, each who wanted to participate put
their name in a hat and pulled out a name. This was
the person they got a gift for so were not expected
to present gifts to everybody. quite efficient, really.

Subject: RE: BS: Christmas traditions
From: GUEST,Kim C no cookie
Date: 17 Nov 03 - 01:30 PM

I started making plum pudding a few years ago.

I normally decorate the tree myself - as we have pets, and limited space, a floor tree is pretty much out of the question. So we have a little tabletop tree, and I get itty-bitty ornaments for it, and have a great time setting it up.

One year, Mister and I thought we might could get us a larger tree. I went out shopping, and found one I wanted at a good price. Just as I was about to put it in the cart, I was seized with horrible pangs of guilt. I loved my little tree! I didn't buy the big tree that year, and have never considered it again. :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Christmas traditions
From: wysiwyg
Date: 17 Nov 03 - 02:09 PM

And Kim, you do look quite festive on the tree! :~)

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: Christmas traditions
From: Dead Horse
Date: 17 Nov 03 - 03:13 PM

Here in deepest, darkest Kent, UK, we gets up to all sorts of mysterious customs - notably Hoodening.
So what is Hoodening?
I am a member of The Whitstable Hoodeners, and can often be seen wearing my posh frock & fruity hat.

Subject: RE: BS: Christmas traditions
From: GUEST,KateG at work
Date: 17 Nov 03 - 04:06 PM

When I was a child, we always spent Christmas eve with close friends. Just before bed each child was allowed to open one present -- and the package always contained a new pair of pyjamas, which we put on and were bundled off to bed. Stockings were fair game in the AM, and they always had chocolate coins, kumquats and a tangerine in them. Breakfast came later -- after the presents.

Now hubby and I have dispensed with stockings (we don't have kids), and the requisite fruit and nuts go in a bowl on the coffee table. But Christmas breakfast is always eggs benedict, calories and cholestrol be hanged.

Subject: RE: BS: Christmas traditions
From: TheBigPinkLad
Date: 17 Nov 03 - 04:14 PM

Dead Horse -- long may you flourish!

Subject: RE: BS: Christmas traditions
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 17 Nov 03 - 04:46 PM

Our Christmas tradition is to get in the car on Christmas Eve morning, drive 400 miles down the most boring stretch of highway in the US to where my family lives, do dinner and gift exchange with them, go to sleep, wake up Christmas morning, drive back home, do dinner and gift exchange with wife's family on Christmas afternoon, try in vain to come up with a way to do it differently next year.

Bruce

Subject: RE: BS: Christmas traditions
From: GUEST,Kim C no cookie
Date: 17 Nov 03 - 04:49 PM

Bruce, don't feel bad, Mister and I have been doing that SAME THING for the last 14 years!!!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Christmas traditions
From: GUEST,ClaireBear
Date: 17 Nov 03 - 05:40 PM

Bruce and Kim C --

I guess you've done it too long to change now, but I wish you could have benefited from one of the few really wise things my mother ever said.

My mother always expected us and our spouses and children to show up at Thanksgiving -- which she said, was about celebrating with the family you came from -- but never at Christmas, which she claimed was for celebrating with the family you made.

Works for me...

Claire

Subject: RE: BS: Christmas traditions
From: GUEST,Kim C no cookie
Date: 17 Nov 03 - 05:42 PM

Makes sense to me, Claire, but you don't know my Momma... ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Christmas traditions
From: Joybell
Date: 17 Nov 03 - 06:37 PM

When I was a student nurse at a big Melbourne hospital in the 1960s we rehearsed carols for weeks before Christmas. Everyone on the medical staff was included from the most senior doctor to the newest student nurse. We sang together at a time when we students were not allowed to speak to a doctor unless we were spoken to - and we never were. On Christmas Eve we were given lanterns with candels inside and dressed in our white uniforms, ankle-lenth aprons in our case, we walked through the wards singing. As we came to the end of each ward we stepped down to the next floor via the fire escape stairs. From the outside the 10 storey building was lit up like a Christmas tree by the hundreds of candels. The inside lights were turned off except for dim emergency ones. I can still recall the magic.

Subject: RE: BS: Christmas traditions
From: mg
Date: 17 Nov 03 - 06:39 PM

a wonderful idea about Christmas..if I had young children, under no circumstances, short of a terminal illness perhaps, would I haul them even across town on Christmas morning..maybe a short trip in the afternoon. I would keep them at home, and invite grandparents and other relatives to come Christmas evening and the week between Christmas and New Years'....mg

Subject: RE: BS: Christmas traditions
From: artbrooks
Date: 17 Nov 03 - 07:09 PM

Being a family with a mixed background (and no specific religious orientation), it would seem that this year we will first light Hanukka candles on Christmas eve... Anyway, we also have the 'one present the night before' tradition, although this will be our first holiday with no children at home so it may well turn out differently. Stockings have really always been the big deal...as stuffed as possible, with 3-4 real presents inside and some fun things as well. We open them in bed, and take our time doing it. Other presents over the course of the morning, then roast beef and Yorkshire pudding for dinner.

Subject: RE: BS: Christmas traditions
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 17 Nov 03 - 07:31 PM

We always opened one present on Christmas Eve and it was always the same present - a packet of modelling clay (plasticine for those who remember it, and the distinctive smell!) from 'the pets' - it kept us quiet all evening whilst Mother and Father got happily sloshed on Baileys and/or beer.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Christmas traditions
From: artbrooks
Date: 17 Nov 03 - 07:48 PM

Plastique? Oh, what fun!

Subject: RE: BS: Christmas traditions
From: Mary in Kentucky
Date: 17 Nov 03 - 08:22 PM

ClaireBear, that sounds like my experience. Thanksgiving varies at different locations with everyone together. Christmas is at home. Thanksgiving is lots of food and cooking. Christmas is low key, brunch or breakfast foods.

Here in a small town we have friends stopping by constantly. I usually gain SEVEN POUNDS between Thanksgiving and Christmas, mainly just snacking and eating goodies. Also, here in Bardstown, many friends work at the distilleries so Bourbon is exchanged a lot. (We often re-gift too!) I usually have so many fruit baskets and cookies I have to take some to my mother's the day after Christmas.

Traveling to my parents' house the day after Christmas was a tradition I started when my kids were small. Hubby couldn't leave, and I needed a REST, so I packed up and went to my Mama's!

My kids always had allergies, so we had an artificial tree when they were small. Then when they were teens, we moved to a large house and started buying a real, huge tree. After they left they gave me a beautiful artificial tree which I usually put up shortly after Thanksgiving, takes two days to decorate! Also, here in Bardstown everyone is encouraged to put candles in the windows from the day after Thanksgiving until January 6. Since I live on a busy highway I try to have mine lit every night.

One tradition I started -- I have a large red candle in a hurricane glass. I call it the Christmas Eve candle and only light it on Christmas Eve. It's now burned down low.

Subject: RE: BS: Christmas traditions
From: Rapparee
Date: 17 Nov 03 - 08:59 PM

Mom went down to the Fish Store at Christmastime and got oysters. Every Christmas Eve she made oyster stew, with milk and butter, and we ate it with oyster crackers.

        The oysters came from the river, so they were really fresh. The man at the Fish Store said that they were bigger and tastier than oysters from anywhere else, and that nearly every one had a pearl as big as the end of this thumb.

        He said the pearls were sent to the Queen of France, so he couldn't show us any. He was French, so he gave the Queen the pearls as gifts and that was why he ran a Fish Store and wasn't rich. He said that the Queen was happy and so he was happy.

        Tony, Ted, Martha and I thought it would be nice to give a big pearl to Mom for Christmas. We asked the man for one but he said that they were only found in months with a "C" in their name and all of those for October and December had already been sent to France.

        We obviously couldn't wait until March, because that would not make the pearl a Christmas present. We knew we'd have to find our own pearls.

        Pearls, we knew, came from oysters. Oysters were gray, wet things that were used in making stew and they came out of the water. As best we could figure, the pearls were made inside the oyster, like an egg. Since oysters were soft we should be able to tell lquickly which had pearls, since we could feel the hard pearls inside the soft oyster. We could get the pearls and even leave the oysters to make more pearls after we'd squeezed the pearls out of them.

        I occurred to us that if we didn't tell anyone where our oysters were we could sell the pearls we didn't give to Mom and become rich. Also, we didn'w want to have to give the pearls to some Queen we didn't even know.

        Cedar Creek was the obvious place for oysters. It was wide and deep and we'd never seen anyone looking for oysters there.

        It was a cold, cloudy Saturday in early December when we went out to get the pearls. We were dressed warmly and were wearing our rubber boot (we only had one, so we took turns wearing it, hopping along to keep our other foot out of the snow).

        North we trod and hopped, past the stadium, past the cemetery. It got colder and colder the farther North we went, and when we got to the Big Deep Pool at Cedar Creek we found it covered with ice.

        "Good thing we brought a hatchet," said Tony, and in a once (which is faster than a trice) we were at work chopping a hole through the ice.

        We didn't get anywhere, although we did get there quickly. The ice refroze as fast as we chopped the hole open. It was chop - freeze, chop - freeze for about a half an hour.

        Ted found the solution. He found an old peice of pipe about a foot across the middle, and as we chopped he put the pipe into the hole. This prevented the water from rushing into the hole and turning back into ice.

        Finally we had to use an old railroad spike as a chisel to get through the last of the ice, but we at last cut through to the water!

        Tony stuck a stick into the water to see how deep it was. He pushed the stick all the way down and it never touched the bottom. Since the stick was at ten feet long we decided that Cedar Creek was probably deep enough there to catch oysters.

        Unfortunately, none of use had looked up what kind of bait was used for oysters. Fortunately, we had some peanut butter and cheese sandwiches (with pickles), so we used those for bait. Of course, we mushed it up in our hands because we knew that no fish — not even eels — had hands so they could eat sandwiches as sandwiches are made. Besides, how would they stay on the hook?

        We used big hooks, because we knew that the bigger the hook was the bigger the fish would be. And we wanted to catch BIG oysters, as it stood to reason that they would have the biggest pearls.

        Time — COLD time — passed. We caught a sturgeon, two halibut, a paddlefish, and a blue catfish, but nary an oyster. We were becoming, well, we were becoming frustrated.

        Tony said, "Well, so far all we're going to take home is chilblains and frostbite. Why did you (he asked me) look up the right bait for oysters?"

        "Because last night I washed the dishes, remember?" I replied. "Why didn't YOU?"

        "Let's not fight right now," said Martha.

        "Lets! It'll warm us up," said Ted. And he laid down his fishing pole and made a snowball which he threw at Tony.

        Before you could say "Jack Robinson" (always assuming that, for some reason, you wanted to say that) all four of us were throwing snowballs at each other!

        Tony threw at me, I threw at Martha, Martha threw at Tony, and we all threw snowballs at Ted. Even Ted threw snowballs at himself and pretty soon he was just a pile of snowballs, but with eyes.

        After a little while we all collapsed in the snow. We had warmed up so much that we had melted the snow for meters in every direction. "Whew!" said I, "that was exciting."

        And a BIG VOICE said, "WHAT ARE YOU KIDS DOING?"
        We scrambled to our feet and looked up on the bank, where stood a real, live, deputy sheriff!

        "I repeat, what are you doing?" He said.

        "Laying in the snow," I answered.

        "Before that."

        "Having a snowball fight to warm up."

        "Before that."

        "Fishing for oysters. But we only caught some catfish and sturgeon and stuff and we let them go."

        "We don't seem to have the right bait for oysters," Ted added.

        "Oysters don't like peanut butter and cheese sandwiches with pickles all mushed together," added Martha.

        "We're sure there are lots of oysters here because we've never seen anyone fishing in Cedar Creek for oysters, so they're probably real big, too," added Tony.

        "Oysters?" the deputy said, weakly.

        "Yeah. But we only want the pearls to give to Mom for Christmas so we'll release any oysters we catch," I explained.

        "The Queen of France has enough, we're sure," Tony explained.

        "We may keep one or two for Christmas Eve, but we'll the rest loose," Ted explained.

        "Oysters are gray, soft, wet things," Martha explained. "They have pearls."

        "Kids," said the deputy, shaking his head, "you've got it all wrong. Haven't you ever heard of....oyster shells?"

        We looked at each other, puzzled. The I exclaimed, "Oyster SHELLS! Of course!"

        "Yeah!" agreed Tony and Ted. "Oyster SHELLS!"

        "No wonder!" said Martha. "Oyster SHELLS!"

        And the deputy nodded and said, "Oyster SHELLS."
        "No wonder we didn't get any," exclaimed Tony. "We're going about this all wrong!"

        "That's right," said the deputy. "You are."

        "Boy!" said Ted. "How big of a gun do you think we need?"

        "Gun?" asked the deputy.

        "To shoot oyster shells," I explained. "They're sort of like shotgun shells or cannon shells, huh?"

        The deputy laughed and said, "Oyster shells come in lots of sizes. I've seen them as much as six and eight inches across."

        "Six or eight INCHES?" Martha asked, amazed. "Those are real big shells!"

        "To tell us," I asked the deputy. "Our Uncle Gene goes duck hunting. Do you think he'll take us oyster hunting if we get the shells?"

        "Ah, you'll have to ask him, I guess. I've got to go now. You kids be careful — and no more snowball fights!" And the deputy walked away, smiling and sort of shaking his head.

        Ted turned to us and said, "I'm glad we didn't catch any oysters! Can you imagine what an oyster to big it would take a six or eight inch shell to shoot it could do to us?"

        We agreed with Ted. So we picked up our stuff and pulled the pipe out of the ice so that the creek could refreeze and started home. We went though the Swamp, of course, to see how things were, and we found everything okay. We did put some more dried grass and leaves around the archeopteryx nest to help keep them warm.

        On the way home we talked about oysters, of course. We decided that they must be awfully nasty creatures, since they needed special shells, and maybe the Queen of France ddidn't appreciate the pearls enough.

        We told Mom all about it when we got home and she miled and said that the deputy had dropped by to tell her all about it. And we had okra omelets and onions and olive and ortolans and oranges for supper and the ozmazome was terrific! We didn't get Mom pearls that Christmas, but we did chip in and buy her a big bottle of "Evening in Kansas City" perfume.

Subject: RE: BS: Christmas traditions
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 17 Nov 03 - 09:00 PM

Ah, Christmas caroling! I wonder who does it anymore? I really learned to sing harmony, caroling with my Mother and two older sisters. I don't ever remember my Father singing with us (or singing more than an occasional line of a song to make a point.) Maybe Caroling has held on longer in England than it has, here. I keep saying I'm going to round up some neighbors and go out caroling... and it always seems to turn out to be "next year." Best I can figure, this year is last year's "next year." The Messengers are doing a Christmas program this year, and we're dusting off the old carols, and enjoying it. I think you really need neighbors to do it, though, because Christmas Eve, people don't have the time to drive for an hour to sing.

Too bad..

Anyone still sing Christmas carols, walking around the neighborhood, or is it all a special program at a nursing home or senior center?

Jerry

Subject: RE: BS: Christmas traditions
From: Bill D
Date: 17 Nov 03 - 09:16 PM

there is a group I know that still does neighborhood caroling. They are various folkies and members of a choral society-- united by one fellow who is a member of both camps...I was invited to go one year, but they were fanatics about staying out late, and I was tired.. They say they are often invited in and offered libations...(This is in Tacoma Park, MD)

Subject: RE: BS: Christmas traditions
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 17 Nov 03 - 11:01 PM

Good to hear, Bill... if there was any neighborhood caroling, I'm not surprised if it would be down your way.

Jerry

Subject: RE: BS: Christmas traditions
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 17 Nov 03 - 11:10 PM

Hey, Rap: Evening in Kansas City?.. u putting me on. I used to buy my Mother Evening in Paris perfume for Christmas every year (and chocolate covered cherries for my Dad.) But, evening in Kansas City? Is that anything like Evening in Newark? Comes in a toxic green bottle with a skull and crossbones on it?

Great, great story, taken with an ounce of Evening in Kansas City..

Jerry

Subject: RE: BS: Christmas traditions
From: open mike
Date: 18 Nov 03 - 12:15 AM

in the country we have gone carolling for 3 years.
each year down a different road. several cars full.
the magic ingredient is several copies of photo
copied songs....have books will sing!!
and in town a group of folkies and sierra club
members go carolling at several rest homes.

I think it sounds fair to go to the paternal
relatives on odd years and maternal on even
ones. (or visa versa) Does any families
work it out that way?

Subject: RE: BS: Christmas traditions
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 18 Nov 03 - 07:44 AM

One of my sisters and her husband always did it that way,Open Mike..
In the later years of their lives, my Mother and Father alternated Chistmas with my two sisters, both of whom live in the same town. Since I re-married, we've continued my wife's tradition of always having Christmas at her (now our) home. Unless we went out to have Christmas with my Mother (my Father died six years ago, and she continues to alternate Christmases.) This Christmas, we're just welcoming immediate family here... not the 40 or 50 people we've had, some Christmases.

Jerry

Subject: RE: BS: Christmas traditions
From: jacqui.c
Date: 18 Nov 03 - 09:20 AM

I was on my own with my two children for a number of years and got really fed up with Christmas decorations going up so early. (Still do). I told the kids that, as they only had one parent, Santa Clause's fairies would come along when he left the presents and decorate the sitting room. They would go to bed on Christmas Eve with the place looking normal and were not allowed in the sitting room until they had dressed and had breakfast on Christmas morning. Their faces when they saw the decorated room were a picture. There was one year when I was working in a pub until midnight on Christnmas Eve (with the kids upstairs with the pub landlady). We got a lift home and a very tired fairy had to put up decorations about one o'clock in the morning!

Nowadays I usually end up at my daughters for a couple of days before Christmas as both she and her husband have to work right up to Christmas Eve and I look after their very energetic toddler. Watching him enjoy the season makes it all seem quite magical again. Mind you, before I go to them I'm hoping to attend a number of Christmas sessions and have just printed off the Christmas parodies thread to find some good stuff to sing! Hopefully that is going to become a Christmas tradition for me as well.

Subject: RE: BS: Christmas traditions
From: Rapparee
Date: 18 Nov 03 - 09:30 AM

Yeah, Jerry, only "Evening in KC" perfume was labeled as "part fume" which we, of course, took to be French for perfume. It was useful year round, killing roaches and rats in the Winter and skeeters and sich in the Summer. Buzzards didn't come around much, either, when the stopper was out of the bottle. Yeah, they just don't make perfumes like they used to.

Actually, the part about the oyster stew on Christmas Eve is true. (So's the rest of it, only a Higher Truth.)

We too used to get and give chocolate covered cherries (Mom had PLENTY of "Evening in Paris" btw). We kids were banned from giving and getting them after a couple of Christmases, though -- we'd discovered that you could soften them up a little and they would then make a very nice "SPLAT!" when thrown at your brother. The SPLAT was satisfactory whether or not you hit him, too. Cleaning the result up was, ah, interesting, especially if it had been around for some weeks and had started to pulsate and glow.

Tangerines were a different story. We only got them as Christmastime and would eat them even when they'd dried out considerably. The trick was in spitting the seeds across the bedroom, annoying your brothers who were trying to read. Bank shots and high angle shots were especially useful.

Subject: RE: BS: Christmas traditions
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 18 Nov 03 - 10:35 AM

My Mother wrote a wonderful account of her Christmases as a child... she was born in 1908 and grew up on a small dairy farm. Each of the 8 kids got an orange for Christmas, which was a very rare treat for them... it might be the only orange they'd get to eat, all year.

You sound as irreproachable as I was as a kid, Rap. 'Cept I didn't have a brother. Two older sisters served the purpose well enough, even though I usually got the worst of it. One of the secrets of eating an orange, which I passed on to my nephews who had plenty of brothers, is that if you pinch the orange peel you can shoot a nice stream of pure citric acid into someone's unsuspecting eye. Stung like crazy, and the only way to stop it from stinging was to squirt the perpetrator in their eye. It was kinda like a Calvin and Hobbes cartoon, where by the time everyone had had their fun, no one could see anymore from the tears streaming down their eyes.

As for Evening in Kansas City, I thought you meant eu de livestocke.

Jerry

Subject: RE: BS: Christmas traditions
From: GUEST,Kim C no cookie
Date: 18 Nov 03 - 01:45 PM

Ozmazome?

My other Christmas tradition is to watch It's A Wonderful Life, and have eggnog and brandy, while I wrap presents. Then I watch A Christmas Story and get all fuzzy. :)

Subject: RE: BS: Christmas traditions
From: LilyFestre
Date: 18 Nov 03 - 02:36 PM

Ahhhhhh....Christmas!!! We traditionally begin decorating for the holidays in our home shortly after Thanksgiving. The first thing to be set out is the nativity with a wooden creche that my Nana brought back from one of her trips overseas. Our tree is usually a small spruce that still has it's roots intact. We untangle the lights and work together to put the lights up as we both HATE doing that job! Next, we take the ornaments out and oooh and ahhh over them with stories of Christmas past as we decorate the tree. With some soft Christmas music playing and hot chocolate always near by, the evening usually passes by much too quickly for me!!!! When all is said and done, we both collapse into our chairs and bask in only the light of the Christmas tree. :)

On Christmas Eve, I go to church with my Mom (lots of wonderful memories of candle lit services as a child). My husband spends this time with his mom as well. When we return home, we exchange our gifts. More often than not, we get all snuggly in our jammies and open our gifts in bed....he hiding his gifts on his side of the bed and I have his on my side. :)

In the morning, our moms' come to our house (or sometimes we go to their homes). Breakfast is usually set up...fruit, muffins, juice, doughnuts, Christmas cookies, coffee, etc....for picking at whenever we get hungry. Then we sit and chat while we open our gifts. There are always phone calls from aunts, cousins and grandparents from far away wishing us a Merry Christmas!

This year, however, our traditions will be happily altered as we, for the first time ever, have a child in our home for Christmas!!!! She is 11 years old and has never had a stocking of her own to open...has never made Christmas cookies.....never had a real Christmas tree or been sledding....I CANNOT WAIT to share all of the little things that make Christmas so very special!!!!! :)

Michelle

Subject: RE: BS: Christmas traditions
From: LilyFestre
Date: 18 Nov 03 - 02:39 PM

OOPS! I forgot to add that once all the decorations are safely tucked away for the next Christmas to come, we put the tree outside and hang suet and peanut butter pinecones on it for the birds. In the summer, we plant each tree in our yard!   :)

Michelle

Subject: RE: BS: Christmas traditions
From: sian, west wales
Date: 18 Nov 03 - 03:52 PM

In Wales we have a special kind of carol - the Plygain - which is mostly sung by groups of men. Originally, they were sung at a special 3 a.m. Christmas morning service; today they sing them at special services leading up to Christmas, often around 6 a.m. or 11 p.m. I tend to miss them as I go home to Canada for Christmas. Pity. We also have a hobby horse type of tradition - the Mari Llwyd --which is being revived in a number of areas. Groups carry a decorated horse's skull from house to house and have a competition with the householders in making up verses to a traditional song. One village in mid Wales does this after Christmas, so I'm hoping to get to it this year.

I also used to make Christmas pudding and take it home to Canada. But apparently they have the same consistency on the x-ray machines as plastic explosive, so I'm not bothering any more. You can't always count on getting a customs official with a sense of humour ...

In Canada, our traditions are pretty 'usual'. I'm a Christmas service junkie (!) so I do a couple on Christmas Sunday, and end up the feast with a Christmas Eve midnight communion. Sometimes the minister uses Chocolate bread. Very nice indeed!

The only other real family tradition is something I think I mentioned a couple of years back. I have four god-kids and for their first Christmases, I bought each a wicker basket which I line with quilted Christmas fabric. Then, each year, I buy them each a particularly nice Christmas ornament so that, over the years, they'll have a collection which, hopefully, will remind them of particular Christmases ... as well as their god-mother.

I DO like Christmas!

sian

Subject: RE: BS: Christmas traditions
From: Amergin
Date: 18 Nov 03 - 05:39 PM

every year my gramma makes clam chowder and oyster stew on christmas eve...and we got all sorts of goodies...home made caramel....fudges...cookies rice krispie treats....pecan pies, lemon meringue pies, sour cream and raisin pies, pumpkin pies....

and then send all the kids to bed and stay up half the night wrapping pressies.....but since I have the tendency to use three rolls of wrapping paper for just a small gift (like a video or a couple of books)...I let others wrap for me....i'm so generous...

This year the future bride will be with me...and we plan to go sledding as she has never been....