Holiday Traditions

[LoveDivine]

Are there any family holiday traditions that you fondly remember from your childhood? What special recipes or unique things do you like to make for holidays? I know many members in this age group have started their own families. Are you passing down these traditions to your kids or creating your own new unique celebrations? I thought that with Thanksgiving ( in the US) and Christmas approaching that this could be a fun topic to discuss.

I don't have my own kids yet ( still single), but I do really love holidays and enjoy baking for Christmas. For as long as I can remember I've watched the original version of a Christmas Carol during the Christmas season. I also love watching the film It's a Wonderful Life.

Feel free to share your traditions or new ideas. It is also very enriching to hear about others spiritual observations during the holidays. Many attend church service on Christmas Eve or are involved with certain charities and organizations that are very active during the holidays.

 

[Galatea]

The tradition that was always my favorite was getting a live Christmas tree and decorating it. I remember being a little girl and laying down under the tree and looking at the lights. I like turning off the lights in the room and gazing at the tree. We always gathered at my grandmother's house on Christmas Eve and opened presents with my cousins. We still get together on Christmas Eve, although my grandmother has passed away.

 

[LoveDivine]

That sounds very nice. I love the way trees or greenery look lit up. It is very soothing. Live trees are so fragrant and pretty.

Every Christmas I bake gingerbread cookies. I love the aroma of cinnamon and ginger as they bake. I think the smells associated with Christmas are so nice.

 

[Galatea]

That sounds very nice. I love the way trees or greenery look lit up. It is very soothing. Live trees are so fragrant and pretty.

Every Christmas I bake gingerbread cookies. I love the aroma of cinnamon and ginger as they bake. I think the smells associated with Christmas are so nice.

Me too, I love the scent of a real tree and I like using the extra branches to hang up around the house. Cinnamon is such a Christmassy scent. Do you make gingerbread men and women? We did when we were kids and decorated them not very artistically. Faces askew and things like that.

 

[LoveDivine]

Haha, I've made my share of poorly decorated cookies over the years. I think they are still festive though

I like to make men and women cutouts and other shapes. My favorite is my snowman cookie cutter. Sometimes, I'll free hand my own designs.

I think gingerbread men are so classic.

 

[Galatea]

Haha, I've made my share of poorly decorated cookies over the years. I think they are still festive though

I like to make men and women cutouts and other shapes. My favorite is my snowman cookie cutter. Sometimes, I'll free hand my own designs.

I think gingerbread men are so classic.

We used to make sugar cookies with cookie cutters. My sister carries on the tradition with her children. I think they make gingerbread people, too.

 

[mina]

I love cutting down a tree, baking, decorating. My husband and I are trying to do all that with our children. When I was growing up, my mom would make salt dough ornaments; we would cut them out with Christmas cookie cutters and then paint them and hang them on the tree. I plan to do that with my kids as they get older. And we always try to go to a candlelight service on Christmas eve.

 

[LoveDivine]

I love cutting down a treess, baking, decorating. My husband and I are trying to do all that with our children. When I was growing up, my mom would make salt dough ornaments; we would cut them out with Christmas cookie cutters and then paint them and hang them on the tree. I plan to do that with my kids as they get older. And we always try to go to a candlelight service on Christmas eve.

That sounds really pretty. I've been thinking about making a few dough ornaments this year. It's nice that you plan to keep the tradition alive with your kids.

 

[Goodbook]

In NZ its summer so its party season and we have bbqs and go to the beach.

I have given up trying to do the traditions the northern hemisphere imposes on us, like winter foods and snowmen and candy canes, christmas trees etc.
I wish people would do those kinds of things in winter here because people don't really, we just kind of endure the miserable weather.

 

[mina]

We plan to read "The Night Before Christmas" on Christmas Eve and maybe "the Gift of the Magi". And the story of Jesus' birth from the Bible aloud on Christmas morning. We have several books about Jesus and read them often as well as the Bible during the Christmas season and other times, but we want to do that as a family together on Christmas day as well.

 

[JCFantasy23]

My mother and I always cooked together for Thanksgiving. This year I'm extra excited again. We used to watch It's a Wonderful life and she'd make me rice pudding for Christmas. We'd decorate the tree together. I love growing up with holidays traditions.

 

[Joined2krist]

I plan on getting Christmas movies and some nice books to read on that day

 

[JCFantasy23]

I plan on getting Christmas movies and some nice books to read on that day

That's a nice idea too. I love reading.

 

[LoveDivine]

I plan on getting Christmas movies and some nice books to read on that day

That sounds very peaceful and relaxing. I love Dickens, A Christmas Carol.
I also love Tolstoy's short story What Men Live By. I don't think it is technically a Christmas story but the setting is in winter. It is a great story.

This Christmas I'm planning to read an Irish Country Christmas. I have the novel but I've not read it yet

 

[Mayflower1]

I really miss thr gumdrop tree we put up every year. It was plastic and stood up and my mother and I put gum drops on it. I didnt like gum drops but I liked keeping it filled up amd they looked like lights. It broke a long time ago but I would like to get another for my husband and I to keep. He likes gumdrops. Or we can tie pixie sticks on it.


My husband got married a year and a half ago and this is really our first Christmas together because I had to be in Texas last Christmas because my mother passed and he had to work. Our nee tradition is going to see Hamdel's Messiah every year. I love Handel's Messiah.

 

[Poppyseed78]

My family is Russian, so we'd always have borscht on Christmas. We always decorated the tree on Black Friday while watching Home Alone. Nowadays I don't do much decorating, but I watch Christmas movies on the Hallmark channel and buy lots of Christmas candy during December . I also like to have Christmas music playing often to make it feel more festive.

 

[LoveDivine]

I really miss thr gumdrop tree we put up every year. It was plastic and stood up and my mother and I put gum drops on it. I didnt like gum drops but I liked keeping it filled up amd they looked like lights. It broke a long time ago but I would like to get another for my husband and I to keep. He likes gumdrops. Or we can tie pixie sticks on it.


My husband got married a year and a half ago and this is really our first Christmas together because I had to be in Texas last Christmas because my mother passed and he had to work. Our nee tradition is going to see Hamdel's Messiah every year. I love Handel's Messiah.

I love the Messiah too. I try to see a production of it most years. It's such a tremendous celebration of the life of Christ

 

[S.O.J.I.A.]

getting a new videogame.