The holidays are almost upon us. We get to have joyous or unjoyous family experiences. It’s no secret that I love the holidays. I love traditions. What a better way to send us off then talking about holiday traditions?
Growing up, my family always opened up packages on Christmas Eve. Santa would bring us stocking gifts and one big one in the morning. My grandma would then cook all day and we would eat lots of great food. Sadly, I have not had a Christmas with my family in four years. Happily, I have been able to spend those four with my lovely wife, Carolina. Since we have moved to Seattle, our tradition has been to have pajama brunch, open most of our packages including our Santa stockings, and then see a movie. We plan on continuing this tradition this year.
So Unicorns, what are your holiday season traditions? Do you make special food? Do you give cool gifts to people you love? I want to wish everyone a Happy Holidays and see you in the New Year.
4 replies on “Lunchtime Poll: Holiday Traditions”
I married into an Italian family, so there’s a fish and seafood dinner at Gma’s on Christmas eve. This year, I even get to attend b/c my coworkers are awesome and two volunteered to work the eve in exchange for having New Year’s day off. The mister and I usually make a fire, have some spiked hot chocolate, and exchange gifts. Christmas day is usually spent making the rounds visiting my family, which involves ham, kielbasa, pierogies, and lots of cookies. Lots of cookies.
In addition to watching as much of the A Christmas Story marathon before our eyes begin bleeding, my family also opens one gift per person on Christmas Eve. I think it was mostly because my mom often worked Christmas Eve nights growing up, so it was to distract us long enough that she would be able to shower and get a cup of coffee in the morning before we started begging to open more. Now it’s just the “open the socks or other probably necessary but unexciting” gift time.
I always enjoy/fear our traditional wrapping paper fight which starts somewhere around the middle of opening presents on Christmas Eve. Since there are at least 15 of us in the living room, it devolves into utter chaos pretty quickly. It is all fun and games until someone accidentally hits my 83 year old Nana, then mom yells at us and we stop. For a few minutes.
Pyjamas are always the way to go.
Our traditions? Gingerbread tends to feature quite heavily, as do stockings on Christmas morning. We also watch lots of nature documentaries at Christmas time, too!