Christmas Traditions?

[Gerudo Flygon]

So, most families or people have some kind of tradition on Christmas. Whether it be as simple as a fancy family dinner, or as big as traveling to some place new in the world. I'd love to hear what kind of traditions your family has, or if there are any neat things you do for Christmas(or any similar holiday) in your country.

For me, my family doesn't do much. We just open up presents with each other, watch a movie or two, and have a fancy family Lunch and Dinner. Every now and again we might go somewhere out of state, as well. It's pretty simple, but we still love it.

 

[Flume]

Go to Colorado and ski the week away.

 

[Gerudo Flygon]

Go to Colorado and ski the week away.

Cool cool, I've only ever been skiing once, but I loved it. Also, love that avatar. :3

 

[The Avalanches]

Australia's Christmas is the bastard child of England's, and it is completely unsuited for the Southern Hemisphere. Fortunately, Christmas Day is forecast to be cold and rainy, which will be nice. I'm going to my family's for seafood, and presents, and then going upstate for a holiday afterwards.

 

[Cresselia~~]

Will have something like a family reunion for 2 days.
One day will involve eating hot pot, the other day will involve eating seafood and turkey.

 

[D_what]

My family has an unfortunate tradition of leaving most or all of the actual Christmas shopping to be done on Christmas Eve. It's about as hectic as it sounds, compounded by our second (and actual) tradition of always having our neighbours up that evening - we exchange gifts and have dinner/party for a lot of the night. So Christmas Eve usually goes as follows:
Get up super early > Tidy and clean the entire house, especially the bits that are messy because of the recently moved decorations > Stock check > Head into town > Traffic > Split up and buy everything in sight > Go back, traffic > Eat food > Compulsively tidy the house again > Wrap gifts, while checking time constantly > Prepare food > Neighbours come in and we pretend like we haven't been running around like headless chickens for the last 14 hours > Entertain guests > Go to bed at 3:00am.

This year I've decided to work Christmas Eve and do my shopping on Monday, by myself :V

 

[jumpluff]

I used to split Christmas between my maternal family in the morning and my paternal family in the afternoon because all parties hated each other (my parents were still together). I liked both; maternal family Christmas was very warm, paternal family Christmas was fancy and a little formal (and rife with drama and intra-branch squabbling).

Christmas was always stressful on some level because it was difficult for my parents financially and emotionally. Once I got older I didn't attend a Christmas 'cause I was quite ill so I got blacklisted from paternal family Christmas and eventually disowned

Despite that I always liked Christmas, I just sort of ignored how my grandparents acted and I enjoyed all the fuss and cheerfulness and feeling of anticipation as the year drew to a close. I always wanted to see a snowy Christmas because like The Avalanches said, our Christmas is basically snowy Christmas but on a 35 degrees (C) sunny day, but there's something very gentle about the frontloading into lunch and relaxing until dinner, soaking in everything. Swimming is a positive of heat death Christmas btw.

Now everyone's older nobody really comes 'home' for Christmas anymore. My mother and I consider it special to decorate the tree and we have cats who like to play with the unused decorations. Christmas is mostly for my brother these days because he is the one who comes home lol

The big thing we always had was getting in the car with candy and just driving around the town looking at elaborate light displays, but people don't really do them anymore. Next year I'll be in Sydney so I hope there'll be lights. The last two years we've travelled to my maternal aunt's afterwards to relax, she invited us because both parties are basically on our own and it worked out well.

I think I like the ideal of Christmas a lot more than I like Christmas, but it's something to look forward to when the year starts to wane and time seems to have gone too sparsely. When I'm older though I want to build my own Christmas traditions and make more memories around it. The end of the year bringing in the new is an important time to me and because I grew up with Christmas culturally the two are sort of intertwined, never mind the sort of communal aura of excitement (and stress). Perhaps it's fitting that I've always liked the buildup of Christmas Eve more than Christmas Day itself. For that reason I always sorta thought it was cool how a lot of people and countries have traditions around Christmas Eve instead. I hope in the future I will get to see winter at that time of year.

the sales afterwards can be pretty good

 

[Flume]

Thanks mate. :)

 

[Gerudo Flygon]

Thanks for all the replies. Also, I feel bad for you Jumpluff, getting disowned must not have been very fun. I hope more of your family starts visiting you, and I hope all of you guys have a nice Christmas. Also, just found out from my dad I'm seeing the new Star Wars tomorrow morning :3.

 

[internet]

Gifts are on Sinterklaas here in the Netherlands, the family gathering will be on new year this year for me, and my mom and sister won't even be home with Christmas because they're on vacation. but steam sales are the best part of christmas anyway.

 

[Acklow]

I only celebrate the Russian new year because I'm a stinky Soviet commie.







Jk I also celebrate Christmas too. I'll elaborate later if need be, since I'm at work atm.

 

[Cresselia~~]

I only celebrate the Russian new year because I'm a stinky Soviet commie.







Jk I also celebrate Christmas too. I'll elaborate later if need be, since I'm at work atm.

Here in Hong Kong, we don't do anything for Western new year, so winter solstice is more important than Christmas, unless you are Christian.
But for many Christians, winter solstice is still more important than Christmas.

Winter solstice is basically hot pot day and family reunion. Nearly everyone does the same thing.

Christmas is not a tradition here, so every family does it differently, but most people do join in the fun.
Most people would have some sort of "big Christmas meal" offered in restaurants. Spare ribs are a popular main dish because most Cantonese people don't like turkey. (We find the turkey meat very rough and would prefer more tender meat)
A lot of people will go to watch drama/ plays by local churches... even when they aren't Christian, because the dramas are free of charge, and people love free stuff.
Oh, one strange unique thing in Hong Kong about Christmas-- most people go to the Victoria Harbor on Star Ferry to see the Christmas decorations of the commercial buildings around the harbor.
Buildings from both sides of the harbor will have Christmas lights on the body of the building to celebrate Christmas.
You can put really really Christian messages on your decoration without problems-- no one really hates Christians apart from some homosexual people.
Freedom of religion works in favor of Christians here, because Christians only make up to about 11.8% of the population, with 5% being Catholic.
Most Christians here don't act like dicks or social justice warriors anyway.