Christmas Day 14

[Paizw]

For Christmas time, my memories are necessarily linked with the childhood mainly, +young adulthood secondarily, experiences and memories.

The #1 BIG THING was the 15-days vacation OFF-school!!! So yeah, in this respect it was a Big thing! [but this was for Christmas and New Year, both]

The 2nd BIG THING was the presents!!! The shopping and giving gifts, as well, but mainly the receiving ones! [traditionally on New Year Eve/Day]

The 3rd, would be the family dinners gorgeously cooked & prepared by my mother, and of course the family time together!


Now in my country, religion-wise, the big celebration is at Easter!
We do celebrate Christmas, but Mainly New Year, where traditionally the big feasts, big gatherings were, and still are, taking place, and where the presents were exchanged!
It was in my mid-to-late twenties when to my big surprise I found out that some people were going to church on Christmas (Day, or Eve ???) -
even though once when I was in primary school we had gone all together with the school [not for long, though, I think]

For Christmas, well on Christmas Eve there would be parties for the younger adults.
Or, occassionally visits to Family members, especially the elderly. Mostly, though, it was nice & homey and preparing for the main dinner on Christmas.
Christmas dinner, mainly served at lunch, or late lunch, is the FAMILY thing!
Friends parties etc go to all the days before or after.

Nowadays, since the Christmas Day is usually spent with family-members gifts may even be exchanged on the Day or Eve,
unless these people is who we're spending the New Year festivities with - in which case gifts are exchanged normally in New Year!

[karenrollins]

not for Christmas, but Thanksgiving:
since i was very little, my family would always have Thanksgiving with my grandparents. My Grandmother always made a very old recipe ... squash biscuits.... they were not really a biscuit but more like a parker house roll... very moist and flavorful. the recipe was handed down from her mother, which was handed down from her stepmother, and so on....
it is an extremely difficult recipe to make and no one in my family other than my Grandmother could make it. one day i took the day out of work to see my Grandmother. we made them together. It seems the only way to understand the recipe is to actually do it, as part of it goes by feel not by amount. Since that day, i have been the only one to make them as she aged and was unable to do so.. She has passed on, but the tradition remains
it takes an entire day to make a couple batches. For my family, i bag them and send them off. but for tradition, those babies are always on the Thanksgiving table, and they are served out of a basket with a cover over it. the cover over the little basket is a duck, and you have to lift the wings to get at the biscuits. the recipe is close to 200 years old <3

[Lorelei3]

Starting on 23rd of December, kids come caroling in their neighborhood, each evening another carol type. First one is for Christmas Eve and Santa, the following days it is about Nativity.
People are giving them small gifts, initially that involved fruits and pretzels and some sweets, more recently it's just some money. It is considered that kids caroling brings luck to the house they are visiting.

[Rhiathynn]

We always go to the Christmas eve service for church, and then on Christmas we have a meal of ham and cheesy scallop potatoes and open presents.

[sylvannaro]

What I will tell you is very different from what the previous ones told. From the New Year, Romanians are wishing to have good luck, money and to be healthy the next year, going from house to house, respecting the old customs. Sorcova, Pluguşorul, the goat or the walk with the Bear are just some of the most beautiful New Year's customs, kept from ancestors in Romania. They are pagan traditions, unrelated to religion. They occur in parallel with Christian traditions and are much older. For example, walking with the Goat usually lasts from Christmas to the New Year.
The goat is made of a short wood, carved in the shape of a goat's head, which is covered with red paper, on which another paper is put, black, finely chopped and wrinkled, or a thin skin with hair is glued on it. It is executed by a boy disguised as a goat and dressed in a bun on the back. The goat and her companions walk from house to house, dancing at the door of each one on the threshold of New Year's Eve. Unmarried boys accompany the goat by singing and dancing around it.
The researchers suppose that the dance of the goat, as well as other manifestations of the zoomorphic masks, encountered in the Romanian villages at Christmas time, come from the archaic sacred ceremonies dedicated to the death and rebirth of divinity.
https://ro.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capra_(et ... _Roman.jpg

[1Shaluv1]

One tradition our family has is everyone dresses in pajamas and bakes cookies and cakes the night before Christmas.

[Seamist]

Making fudge for family and friends. Also the company I work for collects money for local area kids that wouldn't have much of a Christmas. We do the shopping , then the wrapping of the gifts and then we give the kids a party with Santa.

[mistybleu]

my fondest memories are when my kids were little. even when they were adults and still at home we would have them open a gift christmas eve and then christmas morning they would get up and wait for us then open the gifts , we would then put things together have nice christmas dinner and just enjoy the time. now days we go to each ones houses and bring gifts but dont stay...

[Saphira47]

we make an advent calendar for my children .... At Santa's toy factory, there is a lot of work. However, the naughty goblin does not like to work and runs away from the factory and comes to play tricks on my children.
He plays funny little tricks on my children. He hides afterwards and they have to find him.
the elf can hide a shoe or make a drawing and leave it on their drawing table or even knock over a few toys ... but it is really necessary to capture it because it could eat the cookies and drink the milk of Santa Claus ....and Santa Claus finds him in his path and brings him back to his factory at the North Pole. HO! HO ! HO!

[Gwink]

My children used to write their Christmas lists for Santa, and, as we have a large fireplace, stand inside it and put the letters on a ledge about a foot above the opening, inside the chimney ... a few days ago, my 18 year old was still insisting she did this!