Originally Posted By Lisann22 December 19, 2005 - Question of the day: Do you have your celebration on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day? In the morning, afternoon, evening? When do you eat? Do you have a traditional dinner - same thing each year or do you mix it up?
Originally Posted By wahooskipper We do stuff both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. In the morning my wife prepares a traditional brunch and has all the family over. I don't think the menu has ever changed but she is thinking about spicing it up this year. That might not go over well. It used to be our tradition to go over to my brother's inlaws house on Christmas Even and watch his mother-in-law make a drunken fool of herself. Each year she wore a more revealing outfit than the last. In fact, if he woudln't be getting a divorce we might have seen her naked this year...which would mean a night in the psych ward for me.
Originally Posted By Ursula Both. I have three Christmases each year. One for my dad, one for my mom, and one for me and my husband. They are spread out over Christmas Eve, Christmas morning, and Christmas Afternoon. When it's Christmas afternoon at dad's, his wife usually makes something. When it's Christmas with mom, it's either at a restaurant or my sister's home. I still think it's really screwy for us to still have to deal with divorce issues so many years after the event. The Husband and I always have Christmas morning together, though. I make hot chocolate or tea and we eat candy for breakfast.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan We spend Christmas Eve with Mrs. 2oon's family. They've always exchanged gifts then, and my side has always done so Christmas morning. We mix it up with her side of the family as far as what's on the menu. This year, we decided we're ordering Chinese food. My side has mostly the same menu every year for Christmas dinner. We make a big breakfast before opening gifts, and that's always something different each year. That's usually plenty until dinner time.
Originally Posted By Kylesmom We get the family together for the traditional Christmas Eve speghetti dinner, my cousins open their presents, on the years we celebrate with them. Christmas AM we do stockings, then breakfast (some years we go out). Presents after breakfast. Then a roast or turkey for dinner.
Originally Posted By Lisann22 Christmas for me is nuts. I don't know how my mom did it when we were kids. My dad's family was always a mess for being so few of them. We usually had 3 Christmas's for his side because his mom and her brother (his uncle) didn't talk and my dad was close to his uncle and his parents were divorced so like Ursula we had to do the 2 sets of grandparents Christmas visit. Usually a weekend before was with my uncle and his family, then Christmas Eve was my grandma (dad's mom) and another weekend, sometimes New Year's Weekend with my grandpa (dad's dad). My mom's side has always been on Christmas day. So, some years we had Christmas Eve to my immediate family by ourselves. I loved when this happen because my mom and dad were into Christmas and we usually cooked a nice dinner all together and were allowed to open our stocking gifts. This was the highlight cause my mom always found us cool, weird, gizmo's and gadgets for our stockings. We'd get to play with them till time for bed while listening to Christmas music. Christmas morning was always spent at home doing the whole Santa thing. We usually either had Christmas for my mom's family at our house or we had to be out the door to whoever was hosting it for our traditional 2 or 3pm at the latest eating. Food at this event was/is always plentiful. A pot luck of stuff from all different family members. Once all of my mom's siblings kids (us) started getting older and my dad's parents moved, things have slowed down a bit. We now traditionally have Christmas Eve just to my mom, sister and her family and me. We always have a very nice dinner, visit and open gifts. We've recently after my dad's death decided to stop exchanging gifts. We give to charity and only buy for my nephew. Christmas Day is with my mom's immediate family. We rotate houses. Still a potluck. We do not do gifts. Just eat and visit, play games and have kid's activities. Every Saturday before Christmas my mom's ENTIRE family gets together. Here's a taste of what it was like this past Saturday: My great, great-grandpa had 4 children; Pete, Fernando, Mitchell & my great-grandma Francisca. We call this the Moreno lineage. Of these siblings Mitchell and Francisca were exceptionally close. My Uncle Mitch and his wife my beloved Aunt Marie had 13 children. My great-grandma Francisca had 5 boys and 1 girl, her eldest boy Marion was my grandpa. My grandma and grandma Emily had 8 kids. The children of Mitch and Marie and Marion and Emily grew up together and have always been really close. So, every year on the Saturday before Christmas we all get together. Relatives from 100 years old to this years 1 month old baby girl Autumn. Everyone is to bring a dish of food and we play the White Elephant Gift game. This year it was so crowded that when we said grace in order to all hold hands we started in the kitchen and snaked into the family room, living room down the hall and back around again. Most of us bring a couple extra gifts in case a family can't afford it, didn't know or forgets. As we have many many relatives who show up who haven't been to this tradition for 5, 10, 15 years and beyond. We have a lot of cousins who live out of town, who don't make it every year etc. The gifts are suppose to be unisex and for all ages worth between $5 & $10 dollars only. Well, my family keeps having babies. To the point that we have a club in our family called the "Over 30: Unmarried and No kids." Each year we take a picture of all of cousins who still fit in that category. They toast and thank us. LOL! Our club is getting smaller and smaller. We have a pretty good system in making the White Elephant Gift game work. Usually one of us computer geeks makes up the number tags and as people come in you deposit your gift in a barrel and get your "number." Are you ready - I drew number 48 this year and I was in the MIDDLE of the pack. We had to hurry up and hand write more numbers because my mom told me I was nuts for printing them out to 75. We ended up with 89 participants. Aye yi yi. The Gift game normally takes us a couple hours. We usually make deals, end up teaming up together to get the gifts we want, we strategize the steals to make a gift safe from taking, etc. We always have a blast. This year it was my cousins Cia, Jennifer, Beth against my cousin Jeremiah, Juan and Delila for empty snowman picture boxes that I wanted, a saki cup and teas from Japan and a poker set. Whoa nelly, it got complicated. Jeremiah has threatened that I'm going down next year. LOL! It's all done good naturedly. It's loud and insane once the game starts. Sadly, the small kids in our family have watched and learned. We have 4 year old conspiring together now. LOL! This years hot item for them was the three ToysRUs $10 gift certificates. Each were stolen 3 times each. The kids get so excited to play, they start getting antsy as soon as dinner is over. After this years game started at 8:30pm and we didn't finish till 12:50am. We started the elephant game because it just got nuts trying to draw names. People would draw a name, then not show up. People would surpass the dollar limit and others would get upset. Whole families wouldn't participate because it was just too expensive. So, then we moved to just the kids only. Well, that was even worse - there's over 31 great grandkids produced just from my Grandma Emily's kids. It was costing me a fortune. Then, we decided no gifts at all - boy the kids were sad and we still had people showing up with a gift for so and so and others had nothing. Feelings got hurt. So, plenty of us had played the Elephant game at work, so we tried it. It's a huge hit. If you don't want to play, you don't have to, if you do want to play and you're a family of four, it will cost you between $20 to $40 bucks - that is not unreseasonable. So for our huge clan it works. Everyone gets a small gift, the kids are happy cause it's a game, it's exciting and they get something. What gifts get stolen and cause the major competition to escalate? Christmas ornaments and decorations. It actually becomes really sweet. This year my 9 year old cousin Shane traded and stole a Santa ornament 3 times for his mom. We make a game out of it and have a lot of fun. Us cousins all in our 40/30's banned against the cousins in their 20's this year for the saki set, snowman boxes and poker set. We kicked their butts. LOL! We also have to set up one room for the poker game - my cousin Donna Marie brings her "table." Those of us that like board games bring our favorites and we stay up playing all night. We usually have a couple arts n crafts things for the kids, we sing, have a talent show - the kids entertain us, etc. So, considering our families craziness, we really do bring it together for Christmas, I steal a moment to kind of soak it all in. It's pretty amazing to see all the generations together. I stopped trying to count people as we had to eat in shifts because we didn't have enough room for everyone to sit down. My poor cousin Marie (our host) my mom, me, Cia and about 8 other cousins stayed till 4am helping her clean. We had 4 turkeys, 3 hams, over 400 tamales, enchiladas, chiliquiles, salads, dips, cakes, pies. Marie mashed 50 lbs of potatos. Aye yi yi! The most insane thing of this...we all lobby and fight for the right to have Christmas. Each year we take 1 hour to discuss who's having it the next year. We have to campaign, what city in your house in - need to be centrally located, how big is your house - overnight guests, bathrooms, kitchen facilities, ideas for kids games/entertainment, etc. It's hysterical. Next year....it's at my house. God help us! My mom and I won, I think I'll start drinking today. LOL! Sorry I went all Big Thunder, this was a long one.
Originally Posted By melekalikimaka We used to always spend Xmas Evening with my husband's family: his two sisters, their families, his mother and her boyfriend and my FIL. It was nice but I really didn't like being away from home on Xmas Eve. The kids never wanted to read 'Twas the Night Before Christmas' or put out cookies for Santa. They would fall asleep on the drive back and I'd have to wake them up. Then I got into a tiff w/his younger sister (who is a spoiled brat. LOL) and decided that I wouldn't be spending anymore time with her. I told my husband he was welcome to see her if he wanted but me? No way. So then we used to go to the older sister's house on the 23rd. But the other sister got married (for the 3rd time. Heh) and decided that she wanted to visit on the 23rd. Of course, everyone changed for her. And we were back to Xmas Eve. That all happened last year. Argh! But we decided on brunch instead so we could be home by 5 pm. It worked wonderfully. I got an email from the older sister last week asking us when in the evening we would be coming over. She forgot the "brunch" thing. We got that all cleared up and are going out for to her house for brunch. Oh wait, there's more! Dave, my husband, might possibly going to some sort of football game on Xmas Eve. Everyone else is appalled but apparently it's a really special game and since he'll be home for the rest of the year, I don't really mind. I also get credit as the cool wife. LOL
Originally Posted By wahooskipper If the Buckeyes were playing in Miami on Christmas Eve I'd be there. You have to have your priorities clear.
Originally Posted By Lisann22 Mele - my dad didn't have dinner on Thanksgiving with us for about 15 years+, he was always in LA for a car race. My mom said she'd rather he be there and happy, than home and miserable. My dad was always there for us on a day to day basis and when it really counted, so one holiday wasn't going to kill the marriage or the relationships with his daughters. Cool wife indeed.
Originally Posted By Kylesmom Lisann22, I'm just curious. What kind of car race? I can't think of one in LA that weekend. I know my dad always missed my birthday for the Winter Nationals (drag racing).
Originally Posted By wahooskipper SUNDAY, SUNDAY, SUNDAY!!!! IT'S THE WEINER DOG WINTER NATIONALS!!!! Sorry, I couldn't resist.
Originally Posted By Tiggirl I don't currently have a tradition. In fact... I'm not even sure what day we're going to be celebrating Christmas on THIS year, yet. Mark and I will probably figure it out tonight but we had to wait for his schedule to come out. I do know that on Christmas Eve Eve (LOL!) we'll be going to our friend's house for dinner with his family and to exchange gifts with them.
Originally Posted By knightnfrees >>Do you have your celebration on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day?<< Usually we celebrate Chanukah on Christmas Day, we're unique that way. We have a nice breakfast and spend quality time with each other. We don't get to see each other that often, so every moment counts when you're with close family. Good Times.
Originally Posted By Labuda Christmas morning I'll call my mom & my brothers and for lunch Eric & I will share a turkey breast & fixins. Then we have a show at the theatre that night and do our Secret Santa Reveal. And after the show, we'll all (well, those of us over 21) probably stick around and have a couple of drinks before we take off.
Originally Posted By tapdancemom Since my grandson was a year old we've done Christmas Eve dinner at a restaurant with hubby, daughter and hubby's sister. Often we attend Christmas Eve services. Andre is at with his dad and his mom's house for dinner and gifts. We pick up Andre later that evening so He'll be with us all on Christmas morning. After gifts are open and breakfast we get in the car and make the 90 minute drive to the coast to have Christmas dinner and gift exchange with my sisters and their families. There is always smoked salmon and sturgeon and if we're lucky fresh crab. The rest of the "grazing" includes lots of differant salads, a cheese and meat platter, meatballs, veggie tray, crab and clam dips and chips, bacon wrapped sausages, barbequed chicken drumettes and of course lots of differant Christmas cookies and candies. The younger kids get lots of gifts and the adults all draw names. There is a brand new baby to see this year, can't wait.
Originally Posted By trailsend When my children were young, we had Christmas Eve dinner at home with steamed King Crab legs and a honey-baked ham; macaroni & cheese, green beans, baked potatoes. At the beginning of dinner, we would light the candles on the Jesus birthday cakes my children had baked and decorated earlier that day. We sang "Happy Birthday" to Jesus and then had dinner by candlelight. Of course, Jesus's birthday cakes were for Santa and carrots were left for the reindeer. Christmas morning began around 5 am. My children were up and the house was full of openen gifts and wrapping paper everywhere. My parents and sister came over to see what Santa had brought and we had Christmas Breakfast at my house. I've always made Holiday Casserole the night before and put it in the oven on Christmas morning. Yum My children then went back home with Grandmother and Granddaddy and Aunt Fran and Mom and Dad got a much needed nap, then off to meet the whole bunch to check what Santa had dropped off at Grandmother's house and Christmas Night Dinner. Dinner was everything ~ turkey, ham, dressing, sweet potato casserole, green beams, creamed corn, fried okra, biscuits, gravy, salads of all kinds, wonderful coffee and cakes and pies. Man do we eat.
Originally Posted By Big Thunder >>"Sorry I went all Big Thunder, this was a long one"<< LOL, sheesh I guess I have a reputation? [blush] I saw that big post and thought OK I'll read it till I get bored, and part way through I thought "gawd that women writes almost as long as I do" then I came to that line at the end... goodness but hey! I read through it
