Christmas Traditions

[St. Amish]

My grandmother always hid a pickle on the tree. Not for any good reason. It was just a thing. Grandma's tree had a pickle on it. Everyone would look for the pickle, and then once they found it, go on about their business.

Not sure how it started. Depending on the website you find, it's a German, Bavarian, Dutch, or American tradition.

[Pleater]

My father also used to toast 'absent friends' at Christmas.

My Nanna - mother's mother, always used to prepare an extra plate, cutlery, and set a spare chair in the corner of the dining room. We used to visit her each Boxing Day and it would still be there - I don't know how long it stayed there, but she used to keep the twelve days of Christmas.

She was always a bit evasive as to why it was there - she would say it was in case anyone turned up unexpectedly - but everyone in the family turned up because they were expected.

From my father's side - his mother was a great maker and baker - she made an oblong Christmas cake - it was always sliced into a thick piece which was then cut into four - and I do just the same. She also made a Twelfth cake which was a different recipe and cooked in a fluted circular tin with a hole in the middle - a major feature of this cake was the different colour glace cherries, red, green, orange and yellow, cooked whole. There was more fruit than cake - and nuts, walnuts, hazelnuts and almonds, very lightly chopped so as to fill in the spaces between the fruit.

A Yorkshire custom - I think - is to eat white Cheshire Cheese with Christmas cake.

Anne the Pleater :ootd:

[vmac3205]

Christmas Eve clam chowder for any and all who can attend. This year is was daughter, son-in-law, his mother and another friend, then off to Midnight Mass where we partake in some was in the liturgy. This year, I played in a string quartet, and Captmac sang O Holy Night as a solo.

[beloitpiper]

My grandmother always hid a pickle on the tree. Not for any good reason. It was just a thing. Grandma's tree had a pickle on it. Everyone would look for the pickle, and then once they found it, go on about their business.

Not sure how it started. Depending on the website you find, it's a German, Bavarian, Dutch, or American tradition.

My maternal grandparents are from Bavaria, and I can tell you that this is a distinctly German-American tradition, as finding a pickle in the tree in Bavaria is bad luck.

[Sir William]

Christmas time is full of traditions in my family.

I put up the tree, my son puts on the first ornament, and my daughter puts on the angel after all else is done. My kids are adamant that we follow this ritual.

During the days leading up to Christmas, we watch a number of Christmas themed movies - The Bishop's Wife, all the Scrooge type movies, Miracle on 34th Street, and of course It's a Wonderful Life, plus several others.

On Christmas Eve, we attend church (and I always wear a tartan tie) and watch "The Muppet Christmas Carol" together.

On Christmas morning, we examine our stockings, get dressed and have cinnamon rolls for breakfast, which I always bake, and then we attack what is under the tree. In the afternoon or evening we frequently visit with relatives or friends.

On Christmas day I wear a bright red tartan shirt and a pair of ugly Santa socks that my kids gave me many years ago.

[NewEnglander]

When the clan gathers on Christmas mornings we immediately start with some whisky sours (in my late and dearly missed grandmother's special glasses) and then proceed to open gifts, in order of increasing seniority. The whisky and other beverages flow and we have a grand old time.

[Lachlan09]

A thing in our family when I was a kid was Santa’s visit. We used to leave out milk and McVitie’s chocolate digestives for Santa and something for his reindeer and go off to bed. Hardly able to sleep with excitement, when my brother and I did awake and rushed, shivering, to the living room (we only had a coal fire back then), we’d spot the empty plate and the empty glass which had sooty fingerprints on it ! Sure sign of Santa’s visit. Then we’d see the stockings filled on the mantelpiece and the pressies around the tree. Then opening the presents, all the while me in my little cowboy motif pyjamas, shivering like a chihuahua, while it was still pitch black outside.

We did this until I was about 38.