Holiday Traditions....

[Guest CronoT]

During this upcoming holiday season, I, as most people, will be spending a lot of time with my family. Most families have traditions they do for the holidays, and mine is no different.

 

Besides the normal traditions, such as buying and/or setting up and decorating the Christmas tree, my family does some things that we do as a family. We decorate the inside of the house, as well. My mom has a special decoration that is made of blue cotton balls, hexagonal wire, wooden balls and cloth. It's an angel model that we hang every year.

 

One of the traditions I am going to start this year is based on what myself, and I believe most people my age used to get in school. It was a small apple, or other school-related trinket that had my name on it, and the year I got it. We hung them on the Christmas tree.

 

So, I bought small wooden Christmas tree ornaments, one for every member of my immediate family, except for my niece and nephew, since I think they're a little too young yet. So, my idea was for everyone in the family to pick one, paint it, and then put their name and the year on the back.

 

Most of our ornaments are old, and some are breaking or broken, so, I thought this might be a good way to give our family a sense of history that we have been losing, because of all our old ornaments breaking. So, I'm hoping that by the time my niece and nephew, and, God willing, my other nieces, nephews, and my own children are old enough to truly understand what the family part of Christmas is about, we can have something that they can see and touch, and not just hear about.

 

So, now that I've told you all some of our holiday traditions, what are yours?

[Guest Smues]

Going to church on christmas eve, and not having Thanksgiving dinner on Thanksgiving. Thanks to my moms goofy work schedule I think we've had Thanksgiving dinner on a Thursday maybe once in my life time, and this year is no different. The usual day we have it is Saturday, although last year ended up being Sunday, and this year is actually going to be the Monday after Thanksgiving so that's going to be kind of odd.

[The Czech Republic 0]

I have Super Christmas New Year's Fun-Fest Week.

 

1. Christmas Eve at my aunt's house. We eat lots of Swedish cuisine. Then all the kids put on a show!

2. Christmas Day we open presents at home and stay home or go to my grandmother from my mom's side. That side isn't as fun.

3. Boxing Day at my grandmother from my dad's side with lots of the people from Christmas Eve. We eat turkey and stuffing and lots of other food. Then all the kids make a movie! Then we all sleep over and party.

4. December 27th Day we hang out, and the girls watch Heidi. My cousin and I do other stuff because we don't like to watch Heidi. We try to finish the movie. Then we eat leftovers from last night's feast. Then everyone goes home.

December 28 and 29 are days off, in which we take time to relax and enjoy our presents.

5. New Year's Eve Eve is a day in which my immediate family goes to Woodfield and does stuff for the day, like spend the money we got for Christmas. Then I head over to my cousin's house and we get ready for the New Year's Eve party the next day.

6. New Year's Eve is a fun day in which my cousin and I hang out at his house and others for a while. I beat his friends at family board games and then they don't like me.

7. New Year's Day is a time to unwind from the stuff. Then I go home and that's the end.

[Alro 0]

The Sunday before Thanksgiving, I have Thanksgiving dinner/celebrate my grandfather's birthday with my mom's side of the family. We have Thanksgiving dinner on Thanksgiving with my dad's side.

 

The day after Thanksgiving we always put up Christmas decorations. We don't have one of the fancy trees that you see in stores. All of our decorations are from some place we've been or from something we've done. Now that I think about it, I don't think we've put a star or angel on the top of the tree in years. Yeah, our tree might be a little commercialized, but it all has meaning to us and I wouldn't change it for anything.

 

Whenever "Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown" comes on, I'm always there to watch it. Same for A Christmas Story. Even though I own the movie, I'll still watch it on TNT.

 

Christmas Eve is spent with my mom's side of the family. Then on Christmas morning, we're up a 6am to open presents, despite the fact that the childhood novelty of waking up that early to open presents has worn off. Then it is off to Christmas with my dad's side of the family. And the day after Christmas, all the decorations come down.

[The Czech Republic 0]

We like "How The Grinch Stole Christmas" in our family.

[the max 0]

xmas eve, I watch National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation

xmas day, go over to my aunts after we open gifts at home, and open more gifts (every year, 20 bucks for the local movie theatre and a 10 dollar walmart gift card)

new years, nothing special

 

we're lowkey.

[kkktookmybabyaway 0]

I don't give a shit about family.

 

In college I always worked on holidays.

 

After college, the better half always went home to spend the holidays and I stayed back either in Sappy Valley or Ohio, which was a nice little vacation.

 

Now, I usually just go over her parent's house, laugh at her crackhead sister and if either one of my parents called previously to arrange a get-together I do that. Last Turkey Day I spent the afternoon with the better half's family, then I went out to dinner with my loser mom. Of course she had "RSVP'd" a few weeks prior, so when my old man called THE DAY BEFORE THANKSGIVING he was all shocked and appalled that I had other plans made. (Sorry, but if I have plans made by someone who RSVP'd my time well in advance, I'm not going to jip them out of time because someone else wants to do something at the last second.) This has convinced him that I was "avoiding" him, which is fine by me because he doesn't contact me as much.

 

Families...

[Kaertos 0]

Let's see...

 

Well, my wife's birthday was yesterday (11-7) and we kind of use that as a "kick-off" day for the holidays. After her birthday it is officially OK to start listening to Christmas music and watching Christmas movies.

 

Thanksgiving "Eve"...

Most of our friends will gather at... well... the smallest house of anyone's... and have a nice dinner. We get to see a lot of people only once a year at this, so it is very special.

 

For Thanksgiving...

We will wake up early but stay in bed to watch the Macy's parade, then we will take showers and get ready for Thanksgiving Dinner over at her parent's house. Dinner is traditional Thanksgiving fare. My sister-in-law and her boyfriend will bring the wine, my wife and I will bring the pie (one pumpkin, one pecan) and my mother-in-law will cook dinner. After dinner, we will all pretend to watch the NFL game, but really we will all take a little nap. Then around 7 or 8, we will make turkey sandwiches and eat leftover while we watch "A Christmas Story" and "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation".

 

Sometime between Thanksgiving and Christmas, my father-in-law and I will go out shopping together, getting done in three or gour hours what it takes our wives three months to do.

 

Christmas Eve...

We will go to a Christmas Eve party with my wife's extended family which usually starts around dinner time and lasts late into the night. We then go back to my in-law's for a cup of coffee and help them put all of the presents under the tree. Then we go home and take turns putting gifts under the tree and we fill the stockings. Then we both open one gift. the gift my wife opens is always a personalized ornament that says "Our xth Christmas Together", this year will the 9th. Then we go to bed listening to one particular CD and with the tiny miniature tree in the bedroom on.

 

Christmas Morning...

We get up early, usually around 7. My wife and I open out gifts to each other, all except for one which we take over to my in-laws. Then we head over to their place for presents and breakfast while the "A Christmas Story" marathon plays on the TV. Usually, my sister-in-law and her boyfriend have to leave to visit his family, so we take a little break in the festivities. We open up some of the gifts and look at them and pay the Trivial Pursuit Christmas Edition. Then her sister comes back and we have Christmas Dinner which is always Prime Rib.

 

The Day after Christmas my wife and I always watch "It's a Wonderful Life".

 

On New Year's Eve, we have a party at our house where our friends come over and we exchange Christmas gifts. We have fun late into the night and sleep in the next day. We usually go see a movie on New Year's Day.

 

And there you go. The funny part is, I am certain I have forgotten something traditional we do...

 

Christmas Day...

[kkktookmybabyaway 0]

Oh, I do have one tradition. Playing the newest version of Madden all day (I'm not allowed to get it when it first comes out because the better half bitches because she never knows what to get me, although if I don't get the hippie collector's edition, depsite having told her a month before it was released that she better get it pre-order, this tradition may be broken... )

[Guest Agent of Oblivion]

Thanksgiving I usually get ostracized by my whackjob Methodist extended family, but crash it anyway and make everyone feel uncomfortable. They eat dinner at noon and I hate every single one of them.

 

Preferably, I just work the holidays because the double time is more valuable to me than my idiot relatives I wouldn't talk to the other 364 days of the year. Mom and dad are alright, but we've never been one of those close-knit, dinner at the table kinda families. We get along ok, though.

 

I don't speak to my dad's side of the family on principle, so they're out.

 

This leaves my mom, her mom, my dad to an extent, my Uncle Frank, and maybe two cousins I can stand out of my entire family. Luckily, none of us are sentimental people, so we don't get bent out of shape when we don't communicate over the holidays. We'll get each other crap for chirstmas, say thanks even if we don't mean it, and that's all she wrote.

[Guest Haps' Happenin']

I think it's a little sad some of you have such poor relationships with your families, but it is not proper for me to really pry.

 

My favorite tradition is on Christmas, when we all go over to my aunt's house in Little Egg Harbor and open Christmas presents. These are kind of like secondary presents, because my mother and father already gave me everything on my list at home. We talk and drink eggnog and watch A Christmas Story. One memorable thing that happened last year was two of my cousins got in a fistfight over a Troll doll. I also ate too much fruitcake. You can guess what happened after that.

[Art Sandusky 0]

We like to signal the birth of Christ with a rousing mass argument, which will lead to most people leaving and at least two family members locking themselves in their rooms.

[Guest The Shadow Behind You]

A whole week before Thanksgiving me, my gf and my parents and my sister along with her husband all go my mom's side of the family for Thanksgiving because one of my aunt's goes to D.C for her (4th) husband's family during actual thanksgiving and god forbid my grandmother have thanksgiving without her. I basically hate this family save for a couple cousins and uncles. Besides my actual family and those few others, everyone else is snobby or gay. often both.

 

Thanksgiving Eve, my family along with my gf will have our quiet intimate dinner at my parents house.

 

Thanksgiving Day, the all of us go to my dad's side of the family for Thanksgiving lunch, usually at my Aunt's house who thinks cleaning the house isn't neccesary. We go there because it used to be our grandmother's house before she died and my aunt took the house. I like this side of the family but we see each each other often so it's not much different. After we leave, I go to my Girlfriend's grandparents for their dinner and I completely love that entire family. We stay the night there.

 

Day After Thanksgiving, Me and My girlfriend sleep in all day and watch countless movies. No traditions yet for that custom.

 

Sunday before X-Mas. We go to my Mom's side of the family for X-mas which amazingly isn't that bad since we play alot of games for X-Mas. So it's much more fun.

 

X-Mas eve. We go to my dad's family at my aunt's house again. It's quite boring there as there are no kids save for my 7 year old cousin. So we basically give out money/boring gifts. Rather ho-hum event.

 

For X-Mas eve, My Sister and Husband stay over at our house.

 

X-Mas Morning. We get up really early (8) and open present until about 11. Eat xmas breakfast made by my excellent cook of a brother in law. Then I stop at my aunt's house to see what my cousin got for X-Mas and to help clean the mess.

 

X-Mas night. Dinner with my girlfriend's family. We give our presents to each other. I stay over on X-Mas night.

 

New Year's Eve. Me and My GF go to a small party with close friends and celebrate there.

 

New Year's Day. Me and my father watch the bowl games from start to end.

[Guest subliminal_animal]

Why are you some of you writing eight paragraphs? These things don't exactly read like a spy caper.

[Guest ian.]

I've never been much of a family type person. They're there, and they know I'm here. That's pretty much the extent of our relationship. We usually just have dinner and that's that.

[B. Brian Brunzell 0]

5. New Year's Eve Eve is a day in which my immediate family goes to Woodfield and does stuff for the day, like spend the money we got for Christmas.

Is Woodfield still the more expensive, bastard NW suburb brother of Fox Valley?

 

Until I moved from Joliet to West Virginia, my family always went to my aunt Nancy's for Thanksgiving. Did the usual, my mom, aunt, sisters and cousins would prepare the food and talk about work and school and anything else that females discuss in groups. My dad, brother, uncle and I would watch football, giving assistance to the women if needed.

 

Christmas Eve would also bespentat Nancy's. We would go over to her house for dinner, which always included crab melts and LIL SMOKIES~!, open gifts, then go to Midnight Mass. My family would then head back to our house where we would finish gift opening, then proceed to take pictures and be the happy family that most dream of for a few hours. After that, it was back to the usual bickering and squabbling and me kicking my younger sibling's asses. But for a few hours, everything was nice.

 

Last year was different. I spent the entire holiday season here in The Valley, doing double-dinner duty at my house and my aunt's on Thanksgiving, managing to catch up with my cousins whom I hadn't seen in sometime and watching football with my grandpap/

 

Christmas was spent at my house with my aunt, uncle, my cousin Rachael and her boys. I took my younger cousin Jake to mass with me, and when we got back,we all watched "Little Nemo." After the boys went to bed, my uncle and I went down to his costume shop to get the bikes we bought the boys. Two guys dressed in all black entering a shop past regular business hours on Christmas Eve got us some looks from passers-by. When we got home, Rachael and I watched the Papal Mass. And of course, Christmas Day involved gift opening and a nice family dinner.

 

And no one in my family died. I know that's a weird thing to say, but my family has a LONG history of death during the holidays. Christmas, Easter, and Thanksgiving have all had at least one death.

 

I hope things go as well as the did last year.

[treble 0]

Christmas Day, we'll have dinner at our house. There's usually about 15 or so of us depending on the year. After that, we play stupid games that only about half of us understand while we tell stupid jokes that aren't funny to anyone but us.

[The Czech Republic 0]

Christmas Day, we'll have dinner at our house. There's usually about 15 or so of us depending on the year. After that, we play stupid games that only about half of us understand while we tell stupid jokes that aren't funny to anyone but us.

But that's my family

[B. Brian Brunzell 0]

Mine too.

[The Czech Republic 0]

Yeah Woodfield is nice. Hawthorn sucks. Randhurst's existence is questionable.

[B. Brian Brunzell 0]

Randhurst can't be any worse than Ford City. Worst. Mall. EVER.

[The Czech Republic 0]

Randhurst declined big time when Montgomery Ward and JC Penney moved out and were never replaced. I remember in like 1990 they had Bergner's AND Carson Pirie Scott, which was rather redundant.

 

I miss Randhurst

[Ted the Poster 0]

My mom goes batshit crazy when it comes to holidays. On Haloween little pumpkin lights guide the eager youngsters to the front porch. There they come across a 10' tall inflatable (vampire)Snoopy and Woodstock. Each step on the front porch has its own pumpkin, with one carved by each member of the family. A few years ago she forced us to take CARVING CLASSES at Michaels. Here is mine from this year:

 

Christmas is three times as insane.

[MrRant 0]

I don't give a shit about family.

 

In college I always worked on holidays.

 

After college, the better half always went home to spend the holidays and I stayed back either in Sappy Valley or Ohio, which was a nice little vacation.

 

Now, I usually just go over her parent's house, laugh at her crackhead sister and if either one of my parents called previously to arrange a get-together I do that. Last Turkey Day I spent the afternoon with the better half's family, then I went out to dinner with my loser mom. Of course she had "RSVP'd" a few weeks prior, so when my old man called THE DAY BEFORE THANKSGIVING he was all shocked and appalled that I had other plans made. (Sorry, but if I have plans made by someone who RSVP'd my time well in advance, I'm not going to jip them out of time because someone else wants to do something at the last second.) This has convinced him that I was "avoiding" him, which is fine by me because he doesn't contact me as much.

 

Families...

Bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch....

[sfaJack 0]

Thanksgiving: We do the family get-together thing the Saturday after because my dad gets paid for 32 hours by working a double-shift on Thanksgiving Day and he refuses to give up that money. It's just as well, because my Evil Bitch Sister-in-law doesn't allow my brother to spend time with anyone but her and her family on holidays anyway. Our Thanksgivings used to include a rousing, aggression-fueled game of 4-on-4 tackle football, but because my cousin got his nose broken during said game two years ago and one of my uncles has decalred himself "too old" to play, this has morphed into a sad display of just tossing the football around in the backyard.

 

Christmas: We used to do the traditional big family Christmas, but since my grandparents passed 5 years ago, it's become nothing more than the four of us (plus the Evil Bitch Sister-in-law now) eating sub sandwiches (my mom sees no point in cooking a huge meal for only 5 people) and opening the one gift we got for each other.

[kkktookmybabyaway 0]

I think it's a little sad some of you have such poor relationships with your families, but it is not proper for me to really pry.

Bite me, hippie, you don't know our families...

[Bruiser Chong 0]

We have a tradition on my mom's side of the family to never still be eating Thanksgiving "dinner" after 1 P.M. I still remember going to my dad's side of the family for Thanksgiving and being blown away that we were eating pancakes that morning instead of turkey. Stupid me, not knowing that most normal people eat Thanksgiving dinner at, ya know, dinner time.

 

The only other tradition we've got on my mom's side of the family for Thanksgiving is to do the annual death pool. Everyone who wants to be involved has to put in a 10 spot and chose one male and female from various categories on the list. Categories include celebrities, local celebrities, unexpected deaths and so forth. The following year, the person who guessed the most correct deaths from that year wins!

 

On Christmas Eve, we all go to church, where I make sarcastic comments throughout, then head over to the designated relative's house for some food and gift exchanges. This used to last many hours and the gifts used to be off the chain, except for mine. While everyone else got at least three or four presents for various reasons, I never got more than one and even then, it was usually something shitty. One year I got a children's book for like four-year-olds, despite being in second grade. Along with those I got some fabulous Penguin Commando figures from the Batman Returns series, complete with clearnance price tag still clearly on them. What a great aunt!

 

Now everyone's more jaded than before, so we're usually done within three or so hours, since you don't want too much family togetherness, I guess. That's how blows wind up being thrown. And the gift exchange has become 99 percent joke gifts, including the worst food you can buy, hideous clothes and inane CDs you can't believe exist.

 

I don't think it's hard to see why I have trouble getting a grasp on why my girl's so close to all 832 members of her family.

[The Czech Republic 0]

My mom goes batshit crazy when it comes to holidays. On Haloween little pumpkin lights guide the eager youngsters to the front porch. There they come across a 10' tall inflatable (vampire)Snoopy and Woodstock. Each step on the front porch has its own pumpkin, with one carved by each member of the family. A few years ago she forced us to take CARVING CLASSES at Michaels. Here is mine from this year:

 

Christmas is three times as insane.

The thorn sodomy from last night, now this. I think you're one of the most purely amazing people at this board.

 

 

Well there's the Amazing Rando, but you can't compete with him, it's even in his name

[Guest JamesHetfield]

Every years on Thanksgiving, I want Turkey, Stuffing, Mash Potatos and Asparagis. But Lars says no! Lars always says no just to ruin my holidays! And now I'm not even allowed to drink! This will not be a good thanksgiving for James.

[k thx 0]

Fuck Lars.