Spooky Holidays 2010/11

[JHyde]

Last year, the equivalent thread was one of my very favourites on the forum. With the resident Yanks celebrating Thanksgiving next week, I figured it was time to start talking about the holidays.

Do you celebrate Christmas or Hannukah or Chinese New Year? Do you write cards or decorate trees or have silly traditions that you can never break? Or are you spending the holidays away from people you love this year? What new traditions are you starting?

My Christmas involves a lot of singing and making mix CDs to send to my friends while trying to stay cool in the Australian heat. What do you do?

[Beatriz]

yaaaaaaaaaaaay!! I also loved this thread last year, I learned a lot of traditions

This year I'm far from home, but I won't be missing the main celebrations with my family: Christmas, New Year's eve and the Three Wise Men day (Reyes Magos) Looking forward to it!!! I miss my people!! hehe

[A Cousin]

We like to make sure the kids understand the history behind any Holiday if we can. My mothers family have been in the US since before the US was the US so we have our very own family Pilgrim ancestor: Edward Winslow. That helps give the personal touch with the lesson.

In dinner conversation the other night my five year old son demonstrated his newly found knowledge of said historical background of Thanksgiving he has been learning in school by announcing that the name of the first Native American the Pilgrims met was Squanto. Not to be overshadowed by her younger brother, my 7 year old daughter announced that the first Pilgrim Squanto met was...Elvis!

So far, I think we are doing a fabulous job!

[JHyde]

I love your daughter! Brilliant!

I think if I was American Thanksgiving would be my favourite holiday. It has a really sad history but there's also a lot to celebrate. I think it's important to embrace both. For better or worse, it's history and should be acknowledged.

Bea's said exactly why this thread was so much fun last year - we had a great time finding out what people in other countries do for their holidays.

[Hunted]

Loved reading through last year's thread this evening! Christmas is such a family time, I love it, especially since my niece was born on Christmas Day over 10 years ago, that was the best present Santa brought us!
On the day, we manage to stuff ourselves with my mum's turkey & ham dinner, followed by homemade christmas pudding (my granny's recipe) & brandy butter, with a further course of chocolate cake & candles & singing happy birthday to the birthday girl:-) After that gut buster it's time for a walk or I knock a ball around with nephews. Before the inevitable melt-down about 8pm when little people get tired.
We go on Christmas Eve to church for midnight mass and open pressies after. I recently got married so now we're going through the whos house do we go to on the day?! A bit easier as my folks are 10 mins walk from ours, we can have a few drinks and fall asleep after the celebrations & washing up are done:-)

[JHyde]

I'm really interested to hear from people starting their own baby families, and what traditions you might be starting. How you decide where to go and when is always difficult when you're negotiating as a new unit.

I honestly thought my family was the only bunch who argued on Christmas Day at one point or another. i find it really comforting to know that it's not just my rabid family.

[A Cousin]

I've been married for 18 years but I suppose that you could still call our family a "baby" family as the kids are still young. The normal small child stuff is in place - Santa Claus, Christmas tree, decorating the house, just for instance. House decorating is big in my town - maybe I'll post a pic when I get it done.

My family is spread across the four corners of the US so Thanksgiving visits are not feasible. We all touch base via phone though. It is a small and quiet holiday for us - just us, my sister-in-law and a friend and her daughter. The Uni I work at has a program I want to start taking part in where you can host an exchange student for the day. I need to get on the ball about that....

After Christmas however, we take a family road trip and drive the 800 miles to visit my mother in Indiana. It takes us 2 days (one-way) and must have a hotel with a pool in the middle. My husbands parents have passed away but we used to stop for a couple of days at their house on our way.

The husband and I have a ball playing Santa Claus, but as the kids get older and don't buy into the Santa Claus legend anymore, we have started to re-evaluate the traditions. We like to take a pantheistic view of the Winter Holidays so we talk a lot about the various Winter Holidays in various cultures - starting with Diwali and ending with Chinese New Year. Some will stay the same - Christmas Eve at my sister-in-laws house, mimosas and cinnamon rolls on Christmas morning, opening presents - but we are going to start to transition from them receiving to them giving of themselves by donating their/our time.

Traditions take time and, at least for us, have developed by accident over time. I am probably not even aware that they have changed from just "what we do" into traditions!

I'd be curious to hear from anyone what Holiday traditions you have chosen to carry over into your adult celebrations and what traditions you have actively not chosen to carry over?

[JHyde]

When I say baby families, they absolutely don't have to include children. I must admit that I think the holidays with kids is something special, but 'baby family' also refers to people newly married and starting their own thing. (Marriage and parenthood are two different things in my book.) And I have a lot of friends in that category this year.

The hosting of the exchange student sounds excellent, you should totally get in on that. I help out a a homeless man's shelter on Christmas Day (as well as an overnight once a month) and it really makes my day. I spend most of the night before singing with some people who are honorary family. I may or may not go to my godmother's on Christmas Night, depending on various things.

I make mix CDs to send to my friends so that I can give everyone something. Ask Bea - they're actually pretty cool! I try and add some new people to my list every year.

I do miss helping to pack the sacks early on Christmas morning, playing Father Christmas. The youngest in my family is almost finished school, so those days are over.

[HellsBells]

At the moment my children still believe in Father Christmas, which is great, although the amount of deception is getting harder each year. I know once my eldest finds out about Father Christmas he will tell the other two and I think some of the magic of Christmas will be lost. One tradition they love to do is put out a biscuit and a glass of milk for Father Christmas, and a carrot for the reindeer just before they go to bed on Christmas Eve.

[A Cousin]

We *think* the 9 year old has figured it out the Santa Claus secret but doesn't actually want to say it because that will make it real. Sweet boy. The 7 year old - the girl, of course - has already announced that she knows that Santa isn't real but that she expects him to visit anyway. So I am not so sure how much it has really sunk in. I think we have one more year on this one.

HellsBells - In addition to the cookies and milk for Santa, my kids spread out reindeer food on the yard that consists of primarily oatmeal with glitter in it. We also watch Santa's progress around the world all day on NORAD a NASA website. It's fun and also *encourages* the kids to go to bed at a reasonable time. The fun starts on 1 December.

Here are a couple more holiday traditions for my family.

Night before a holiday dinner: Chinese take-out.

Traditional Thanksgiving Breakfast: cinnamon rolls and kahlua and coffee.

On today's menu: cheese-y dill dip, turkey, cheese and garlic mashed potatoes, asparagus, rolls, cranberry sauce, stuffing, mac & cheese, blueberry pie and pumpkin tarts. Oh, and lots of beer and wine.

Since this is the Holiday thread, and today is Thanksgiving for us here in the USA, I would just like to say here that I am very thankful for this forum and the people all over the world on it.