And on the first day of December...

[hobbesgal]

I think I deserve 25 pints of Ben and Jerry's for my deep freezer.

[katelou]

We're terrible at traditions. I like to go to Christmas-themed events but we tend to go to different ones every year.

The only 'tradition' we manage to do every year is opening our presents to each other on like Dec 22nd because we are overgrown kids who can't stand waiting

[harlowjune1984]

I do 25 days of fun things for our daughter. Some of them aren't so "fun", like one of the days we donate some of her old toys (that apparently she still loves and still plays with all of the time according to her). But it is a mix of movies, fun things like baking, donating to different charities and such, and whatever else we want to do in the 25 days leading up to Christmas.

Although, my plan is to lay off baking this season, because my parents and my IL's (and several other relatives), like to give us TONS of baked goods for the holidays and I end up gorging myself on them (don't want them to go to waste, right?!). I don't want to add my own baked goods on top of it!

[mrss44]

The only 'tradition' we have is getting our yearly ornaments We haven't done it yet but hope to this weekend.

[tikoberry99]

I'm pretty anal about Christmas traditions. My family is Italian so we eat fish Christmas eve.....calamari in a homemade tomato sauce with linguini is my favorite! I'll be cooking it this year. We also exchange gifts Christmas eve. When I was younger we exchanged with my parents Christmas day, but now we do everything Christmas eve. We eat homemade meat sauce with rigatoni and baked ziti on Christmas with lots of meatballs and sausage. I can't wait for all the food!

[dscarr]

We do tons of stuff at the holidays. My house looks like a Hallmark commercial threw up all over it... and I love it! My husband goes all out on outdoor lights. They blink in time to music and light up the whole block. Everyone calls him Clark Griswold. I'm excited for Friday, our town has its Christmas tree lighting (it's a huge display) and then in all the downtown shops have big window displays with actors posing as manaquins showcasing a theme.

[madamewaffles]

We have an advent calendar that I usually fill with chocolates, but I'm liking hobbesgal's liquor bottle version.

For Christmas, we go to my parents' house on Christmas Eve and eat a traditional Danish Christmas meal with roast duck (I always call dibs on the rendered fat to bring home to use for cooking), caramelized new potatoes, and sweet and sour cabbage. For dessert, we have a rice pudding with one whole almond hidden inside. Whoever finds the almond gets a special gift - my mom has a kid gift and an adult gift at the ready. Kid gift is usually candy, adult gift is alcohol or fancy chocolate. Gifts are exchanged that evening.

For MH's family, we celebrate on Christmas Day. They do not put gift tags on their gifts. MIL started the tradition of hiding everyone's names within the design of the wrapping paper to challenge the children. Cute idea in theory, but as the years have gone by and the number of gifts have increased due to more grandkids, it is a very long endeavor.

[Ray]

All these traditions are great!

When I was little my dad and I used to drive around town and I'd make tally marks of all the houses that had lights up (we'd do it every few days)

My mom and I enjoy putting up the ornaments my grandmother made on the tree every year.

Now we always go to my parent's house for finger foods and drinks Christmas Eve. Christmas Day we head back over after opening our own gifts. We always open our stockings first.

[beebe918]

I love advent calendars, I have one with space for little gifts that h and I take turns giving to each other but were in the process of moving so that's not happening this year.

H's family has a huge Christmas dinner Christmas Eve, there are probably 30-40 people there. Christmas Day we hang out at my parents in the morning and have brunch then go the H's parents, our bil is Italian and last year cooked an Italian Christmas dinner, I hope he cooks again this year!

[sarcaztic10]

We are trying to do an advent calendar every year with DS, this year is angry birds.

We usually make our own cinnamon applesauce ornaments to hang on the tree and sometimes I dry orange slices for ornaments. I also try to pick a theme for decorating the tree by choosing certain cookie cutters for our ornaments and Santa then follows the theme with the wrapping paper on his gifts. Last year the theme was a Hunting Cabin Christmas, I used fish, cabin, deer, and snowflakes for the cookie cutters.

Christmas dinner is usually steak for H and I and something special for DS. If we went home for the holidays we would have a big dinner with lamb or turkey and all of the fixings made by my mom but we rarely go home because we don't get enough time off work.

[requiressnacks]

You're a nice wife, hobbesgal!

In our house Christmas Eve is the big night. My mom throws a huge cocktail party and everyone in the family/neighborhood comes. I have 2 sisters and 4 step siblings with a ton of kids so it's the one night a year that everyone gets together. There's nothing like 10 little kids tearing through gifts that will put you in the holiday spirit! I'm usually in charge of choosing/making a signature cocktail, but I think this year my mom is letting me off the hook. Last year I made yummy pomegranate martinis and garnished them with starfruit. They were beautiful.

MH and I always make a point to decorate the house and spend one evening watching Christmas Vacation.

Also, we exchange stockings and I insist that he wrap every little thing in my stocking (thanks mom for doing this!). From the lip gloss to the lotion. LOL. I can't wait to do that with our kids. It made opening the stocking so much fun!

[feisty]

That sounds awesome. We don't really do much. We usually travel for Christmas itself, so we don't decorate our house or anything most years. I am considering putting a tree up and all this year since DS is starting to get into it.

[requiressnacks]

Dec 2, 2015 11:36:49 GMT -5 feisty said:

That sounds awesome. We don't really do much. We usually travel for Christmas itself, so we don't decorate our house or anything most years. I am considering putting a tree up and all this year since DS is starting to get into it.

I think you should! Even if it's just a little tabletop tree. I love having mine on at night, even if just for a couple hours.  I also put all of my wrapped gifts under it, until I'm ready to distribute.

[mcktymck]

My mom is obsessed with Christmas, so it's always been a big deal in our family. We do the chocolate advent calendars as well as a very old felt Christmas tree advent calendar that you pin felt ornaments on each day, but I COMPLETELY forgot about both of them until just now. Whoops, guess we have two days to do!

As for the actual holiday, we have always opened presents on Christmas Eve. When we were kids we would always have to read The Night Before Christmas, and someone dressed as santa would come to our door and give us our first gift before we opened everything else. It was very exciting for us! Then Christmas morning we all go to my mom's in our pajamas and eat brunch together and do stockings, go back home for a few hours, and head back over to mom's for the big Christmas dinner. I always looks forward to Christmas with my family, it's such a special time!

[glaze]

requiressnacks Yum, a pomegranate martini sounds like it would be delicious!

[requiressnacks]

Dec 2, 2015 17:33:50 GMT -5 glaze said:

requiressnacks Yum, a pomegranate martini sounds like it would be delicious!

It was, it was. Sigh.

[allison7]

My family did lots of traditions, but we rarely travel to do Christmas with them anymore (they all live in Florida). I will do a few more things next year with DD to start as traditions because we will have moved, but this year just feels off.

Other than baking about 15 different kinds of cookies and giving certain stocking stuffers (slice and share 2lbs snickers, anyone), this holiday will be rather boring and low key.