UK/US Christmas Traditions

[TitianWasp]

For fun, describe the details of your family's traditional Christmas. I think it would be neat to see how people from other countries celebrate. (Am I the only one thinking about it this early?)

[*Emma*]

Re: UK/US Christmas Traditions

LOL, yes, dont wish it to be here any quicker darnit!!

Mine will probably be nothing like anyone elses, my family arent very close anymore.

the main difference you will find is that its traditional in England to eat turkey for christmas dinner, its ham there right? you do turkey on thanksgiving dont you?

Thas the main difference,

My day goes Midday go visit mum, grandma, grandad and my 2 brothers and neice(first time this year!) switch pressies, sit down to christmas lunch with everyone at about 1pm, pull crackers, drink wine!

hehe, i then escape up to my best friends house, where we eat christmas dinner, same as lunch lolol at around 7, theres usually around 20 of us, all good friends who will meet at someones house for dinner, then we get real drunk and pass out in the early hours haha.

[TitianWasp]

Re: UK/US Christmas Traditions

We usually eat goose, actually. Turkey is a Thanksgiving bird. When do you open your presents? Some folks here do one present the night before, and then the rest Christmas Day. At my house we do it all Christmas morning, starting with the stockings followed by the loot under the tree.
Do you do your big dinner Christmas eve or Christmas day?

[*Emma*]

Re: UK/US Christmas Traditions

Big Dinner would be christmas day, we usually open presents before dinner, not in the morning though, no kids in our family (cept a 9 month old) so no need for rushing about at the moment!

I think some people here also have the tradition of opening one present on christmas eve, we've never done that, no matter how much i bugged the parents, lol

[TitianWasp]

Re: UK/US Christmas Traditions

Big Dinner would be christmas day, we usually open presents before dinner, not in the morning though, no kids in our family (cept a 9 month old) so no need for rushing about at the moment!

Ha ha - I think it's my husband who can't wait for the presents! He's always up first poking around!

[hrgillespie]

Re: UK/US Christmas Traditions

Christmas traditions run rich in my family ......... starting with Christmas Eve. We attend a candlelight Service at church and then back home where we sit together in the Living room around the tree and Open one gift each it is always a new set of Pajamas we call "waiting for Santa PJ's" then we take a family picture together allwearing our jammies and then settle down for a reading of twas the night before Christmas. After which the kids are tucked in and Bob and I come down and get busy setting up Christmas .......... Meaning getting the gifts under the tree, final wrappings, stockings stuffed ect ...... Bob and I sneak a few hours sleep in and then wake up early enough to get Christmas breakfast started, that is always ham and egg sandwhiches, cinnamin rolls, and orange Juice which is all set out for everyone to grab as we open gifts. The very first thing the kids do when they come down stairs is to check the Nativity scene and see if Jesus was born ( I never put him in the manger till after the kids go to bed Christmas Eve) so they have to check and make sure he's there and then we have a brief reminder that it is His Birthday we celebrate and the rest is just fun. After that Stockings always come first and then we "pick a spot" and the gift opening begins. Santa gifts are always first and then the rest. After everything is opened it then becomes a mad house of trying things uot assemly if needed batteries installed ect......... the kids take their things up to their rooms and first make their beds and then "display" their things on their beds so when friends and family stop by later it is easily showed off. Lunch is our big dinner I make a ham scalloped potatos corn and dinner rolls and we eat all together as a faily with the big kids and their families too. Then it's just being lazy for the evening. The last of our "Christmas" traditions is the day after Christmas I make a soup we fondly call "Day after Christmas Soup" it is made with all the meal leftovers and is basically a ham potato chowder. Everyone loves it.


Thats the Whole deal for us ............. My older kids are now on their own with families of their own but they still practice these traditions in their own homes and come for Christmas dinner here

Heidi

[TitianWasp]

Re: UK/US Christmas Traditions

I lovvvvvvvvvvvvve the pajamas and the Night Before Christmas!! That's wonderful! Don't be mad if I start doing that at my house. There ya go Emma - HR does ham.

[Katlam]

Re: UK/US Christmas Traditions

We also have the Night before Christmas jammies. Usually the girls each get a pj to fit their personality or favorite "like" but sometimes I get lucky and find matching jammies for them.

We also do a church service that evening (but earlier at 5 or 7 pm) and go home for snacks and sitting 'round the tree and the PJ's and the last few years we've also done NORAD tracks Santa (http://www.noradsanta.org/index.php)

Christmas morning is kid time at home then we have a mid-day meal (starting at 2 pm) and gift exchange with my brothers, their kids and my mom and it circulates as to which house (this year it's my turn again) and we hang around together until near 8 pm. Sometime between Christmas and New Years we have "Gramma Christmas" at my inlaws house. So Christmas last days and days.

We also host a Christmas party here for 5 families that have been friends since our first kids were not even 2 and we exchange cookies and gifts. That's an all day event with loads of drinks for adults and snacks for kids and PIZZA.

[hrgillespie]

Re: UK/US Christmas Traditions

TitianWasp please feel free to do the Jammie idea ........ I love it and so do the kids ......... like I said my older ones are now in their own places starting families of their own and it has always been such a special time for them that they are doing it now as well.

Strong traditions what ever they may be bond great family memories in your childrens hearts and minds that will never leave them.

Heidi

[TitianWasp]

Re: UK/US Christmas Traditions

Our family's traditions are such a disparate mishmash. My children are young, and my husband is 3000 miles away from his folks, so I am making small efforts here and there to add little events that slowly become new traditions for our basically new family. It's wonderful to hear about the lovely things that people do, and some of them are so neat that you want to do them yourself.

Not hearing from too many Brits, though - is it nighttime there?

[sadie147]

Re: UK/US Christmas Traditions

Not brittish or American but here goes:


Turkey and ham are our Christmas dinner foods here for most...We do have Thanksgiving with turkey too (in early Oct) but it's not nearly as big a deal as in the US. Christmas is far bigger than thanksgiving, I think there it's almost equal?


We open our presents on Xmas day in the morning, though I also do know some that do Xmas eve. We also get the day after Christmas off as a statutory holiday here, as I think Britain does, it's called Boxing Day. Here it's the equivalant of your U.S. Black Friday, and is when everyone shops for post christmas Bargains

A christmas tradition I always hated: i was never allowed to open any presents till my mom had made her coffee...it was agony!!!

[TitianWasp]

Re: UK/US Christmas Traditions

What exactly is boxing day all about?

[sadie147]

Re: UK/US Christmas Traditions

The wikipedia page for the origin (apparently there are several theories), it's observed by Britain and most Brittish Commonwealth countries

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boxing_day

Nowaday's it's just an excuse to make money:

Canada
In Canada, Boxing Day is observed as a holiday, except (in some cases) for those in the retail business. Boxing Day and the days immediately following are when many retail stores sell their Christmas and retired model products by holding clearance sales. Some shoppers will line up for hours at night (sometimes before midnight and after midnight on December 26) for retailers to open their doors. Except in Quebec, retailers often open their stores earlier than usual, such as 6 or 7 am. Some retail companies internally refer to the sales week after Christmas as the "thirteenth month." (See Boxing Week.) It is similar to Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, in the United States. Boxing Day 2005 was the single largest economic transaction day ever in the history of Canadian commerce (according to Visa). Individual big box stores can even gross over CAD$1,000,000 on one single Boxing Day.

Boxing Day has also been referred to as the day that people "box" up their Christmas decorations and put them away until next year

When i was a kid, I always thought it was somehow related to the sport of Boxing LOL.

[kate58]

Re: UK/US Christmas Traditions

I'm in Ireland, where we call Boxing Day St Stephen's Day and it's a holiday.

Christmas is BIG in Ireland, practically the whole country closes down and apart from stores, bars, restaurants etc most business are effectively closed from the day before Christmas eve until the new year. There may be a few people in work during that time, but they won't be doing very much, and nothing important happens.

On the food, we have Turkey AND Ham for dinner, with bread stuffing, lots of different veg (sprouts are traditional), roast potatos and cranberry sauce. Spiced beef is another popular dish in some parts of the country - it's a little like pastrami but drier. It's eaten cold on the days around Christmas, rather than on the day itself.

After the main course it's usually Christmas Pudding - a very rich boiled pudding packed with fruit and alcohol (usually whiskey, sometimes rum also) which is made some months in advance and matured before the big day. Every house will also have a Christmas Cake - which also is a rich fruit concoction, with a spicy flavour and again laden with whiskey. This too is made weeks or even months in advance and in the interim is 'fed' regularly by pricking the bottom of it with a skewer and pouring in more whiskey.

We open presents on Christmas morning. Generally the kids open their Santa presents first, then everyone exchanges presents and the ones that various visiting relatives and friends have left under the tree during the previous weeks are opened.

The 2-3 weeks before Christmas are very social - there are lots of parties, with pretty much all businesses having a bash in a local hotel or restaurant for their stafff, and lots of visiting other people homes bringing gifts and staying for a few drinks and/or some mince pies.

A pretty unique thing here is "little Christmas", also known as "Women's Christmas", which is on the 6th of January. This is also the day that Christmas is officially over and when decorations come down - it's considered unlucky to take them down any earlier. On that day (in theory at least!!) the women of the house get to rest and the men do all the cooking/house work etc. Can't say it is fully adhered to by everyone though, but I insist on maintaining this particular tradition.

[scaleskl]

Re: UK/US Christmas Traditions

In my family Thanksgiving dinner is small. XMAS is the huge dinner. At my mom's we usually have about 30 people in and out throughout the day. Most of theose children running about. We watch movies, drink, eat, dance and have a funky good time.

Last Xmas we had a turkey, ham, duck, greens, mac n cheese, corn bread, stuffing, patties, yams and too many other things to name. I will have to take control this xmas so I don't get lost in all of the food.