First year for me, I'm super excited. It's so much fun, it's not even funny. I wonder why this was withheld from us when we were kids, this is a freaking amazing holiday, you know you're getting gifts (rather than the lame "we get you gifts throughout the year") but you don't know what it is so it's so much more exciting. I still don't celebrate "Christ" but rather the solstice or whatever.
Christmas traditions
by tec 14 Replies latest jw friends
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tec
We have stockings (are you supposed to wrap all the goodies in them?) hanging over the stack of presents.
There is no 'supposed to', when it comes to traditions :)
Some people do, and some don't. I don't. The stocking is the wrapping. But my aunt and uncle do for their kids.
Shades, I hope you have a beautiful first Christmas. And you as well, AnonyMous and U2B.
Peace to you,
Tammy
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lilbluekitty
This is my first year celebrating Christmas for real. I've been around Christmas for 3 years I believe. My husband's family traditionally always go up to my husband's sister's house and everyone comes up there for all the usual Christmas traditions. She makes cookies, has at least one very large tree (though I hear last year, while I was away, there were at least 2 trees!), and TONS of presents because there are a lot of nieces and nephews. I did give gifts the first year I didn't do much else. This year I'm going all out. I sent cards, recieved cards, wrapped tons of presents, gave each person at least one item, more for some, hung up stockings, got my first tree which is very tiny but I love it, and so on.
Traditionally Christmas Eve my SIL has everyone sit in the living room and each child can open one present that night, then for the adults there's something like musical chairs only it's presents, basically each person is handed a generic present and you can either choose to open it or pass it, the fun being that you don't know what it is and could pass up something you would have liked to someone else, it involves a lot of shaking of the presents and trying to figure out what's inside. I love it!
Christmas morning we wake up as soon as we hear whoever is up first, this is generally my husband's youngest nephew. Then they wake up everyone else yelling "Merry Christmas!!" and we all gather in the living room in our PJs and open the presents, hug each other, and eat breakfast. Then there's church, which I used to skip out on but now I'm going to go, and even dress up, then there's a huge Christmas dinner. Woohoo! I can't wait for all of it!!!
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Qcmbr
I have a christmas dream of staying in bed past 6 but what will happen is I'll be putting out presents, building stuff, filling stockings and chatting with my boss till midnight , I'll fall asleep pooped amd be woken by screams of excitement and bed bouncing (not from the wife sadly) but from a horde of kids who have discovered their stockings at about 4. The lights will go on and I will enter the twilight world of punch drunk parent and we'll head downstairs for presents. At about 5 I'll fall asleep in a mountain of paper , last vestiges of strength spent on undoing cable ties and inserting a bazillion batteries. Someone will wake me at 5 past 5 to play Buckaroo. That's my Christmas tradition.
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kitten whiskers
The tree and decorations go up the day or weekend after Thanksgiving (USA).
Each of us get a new ornament for the tree each year.
We have a "countdown to Christmas" chimney with a Santa that falls a little farther down the chimney each day you pull out one of the numbers.
Christmas Eve: the kids get new pajamas and we have popcorn and Coca~Cola in the old fashioned glass bottles and watch movies and read stories. I also prepare the breakfast casserole that sits in the fridge overnight. We also make cookies if we don't have any for Santa yet! He's pretty easy to please, but he likes his cookies! The reindeer usually need a snack when they stop by and leave carrots all over the place. Sometimes Santa leaves footprints.
Christmas morning: We get up when we hear the kids. I pop the casserole in the oven, we open presents one at a time taking turns. By the time we are done, the casserole is ready (Blueberry Creamcheese French Toast~yummy!)
Christmas dinner: I buy/make things that are cold. Cold spiral ham, rolls, some type of salad, etc. My hubby doesn't want me cooking all day and I am happy with that! Mama gets to play all day too! We usually watch Christmas movies all day long in our pjs and play with our new toys. We live too far away from any family that celebrates, so we are on our own and stay home. It works for us and we enjoy it.