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Post by Zab Jade on Nov 6, 2018 17:14:31 GMT -8
My family's holiday traditions are fairly boring for the most part, but I figured I'd get this thread started. Something we would always do is the traditional Christmas Eve gift. A lot of times it some article of clothing, usually some kind of sleepwear.
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Post by myrabeth on Nov 7, 2018 20:14:42 GMT -8
My mother's "Accidental Appetizer Dinner" tradition is fun. When I was so young I barely remember it, she was in the habit of making a big family dinner for Christmas Day. Very normal and traditional. To make it easier on herself one year, she decided that Christmas Eve dinner would simply be a modest selection of easy-to-prepare snack foods set out on trays on the coffee table, so we could munch and relax, and she wouldn't have to try to put together a regular dinner while doing the prep for the next day's big meal. She cut up some bell pepper, carrots, celery, cheese, and deli meat, set out some crackers, chips, and dip, and called it good enough.
The problem was that we loved it, enough that we asked her to do it again. So some frozen snack foods (chicken nuggets, tater tots, pizza rolls, and the like) were added the next year, because it worked so well the first time, but intentional leftovers would serve as a great way to keep us fed and out of her hair at lunchtime Christmas Day. By the third year of it, she started adding homemade and semi-homemade (hot and cold) appetizers.
By the time small and bite-sized desserts started working their way into the Christmas Eve menu, the big Christmas Day dinner was no longer a thing. "The Snack Tray," as her Christmas Eve dinner came to be known, had become the main event. I don't think she's cooked on Christmas Day in 25 years. Christmas lunch and dinner are covered by the leftovers from the previous night's appetizer festival.
If my parents host any family or friends for Christmas, the meal they come to is Christmas Eve dinner, and they know going in that it will be casual, relaxed, and so full of variety, any dish they bring to add to the mix will probably fit right in.
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Post by Zab Jade on Nov 8, 2018 7:36:08 GMT -8
That's pretty cool, Myra. It seems like something really fun. I kind of want to adopt that tradition now.
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Post by stuffandnonsense on Nov 11, 2018 6:12:57 GMT -8
My mother-in-law's family does a huge family Boxing Day thing. There's a walk to a pub, drinks there, then return for a big family meal (semi-pot-luck) and a small gift exchange that's now turned into a secret santa. It's historically been pretty chilled out, but one of the cousins has now married a PE/Phys Ed teacher, who insists on board games or quizzes or some other type of organised fun. We submit, but it's definitely become less relaxed.
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Post by spindlekitten on Nov 16, 2018 12:31:45 GMT -8
We have a big family, so it depends on who is hosting Christmas what happens. Especially since my siblings have all moved to their own homes and started their own families, so it could be just the two of us or it could be over a dozen. Watching The Sound of Music feels like a Christmas tradition - even though it isn't connected in any way other than always being on TV at Christmas when I was a child.
For me and my son, we celebrate Christmas with my family and New Year Russian style, so he gets visits from both Father Christmas and Grandfather Frost and we usually watch the Moscow New Year Countdown (because they are 3 hours ahead of us so theoretically he can go to bed at a normal-ish hour) eat Russian salads and make lots of toasts. He enjoys his own bottle of alcohol-free champagne, too. I will usually watch the film that everyone in Russia watches over New Year at some point, too.
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