Last night I attended an ornament swap and one of my friends asked the rest of the ladies, “What is your annual Christmas Eve tradition?”
What do we eat? Where do we go? What do we do?
I know that many newlywed couples are looking for new traditions and are often torn with whether to begin their own family traditions or continue with old family traditions. It’s hard to come up with fun original ideas, so I was hoping that you could all leave your tradition here in a comment– and then people have a place to find fun ideas for new traditions with their family.
Here’s mine:
When I was growing up, we split Christmas Eve and Christmas Day between my grandparents on my mom’s said and my grandparents on my dad’s side. We had pretty much the same exact meal at both places. We spent Christmas Eve with my dad’s parents, siblings, and all my cousins and we opened all of our presents. Santa Claus came that night to my grandparents’ house and then on Christmas Day we woke up to see what he brought us. Then we packed up the car and went to my mom’s parents’ house where we exchanged more presents and ate again. It was always a lot of fun to get to see so many family members.
For the past three of four years, our new tradition is to eat gumbo on Christmas Eve. Wherever we are. Sometimes we’re in Dallas and sometimes we’re in Columbia. But gumbo is the constant and I love that! We watch Home Alone while we cook and then Christmas Vacation later that night. We also go to church either at our church or at my parents’ church in Dallas. We don’t open any presents on Christmas Eve anymore– although I’d like to change that. The kid in me is still dying to open presents on Christmas Eve!
Some of the other traditions that I heard last night were “taco night,” fondue, crab boil, and a mixure of snack foods.
What is your Christmas Eve tradition?
We always open pajamas on Christmas Eve. I love it!
We always went to Mass Christmas Eve, and then had dinner as a family. New Christmas pajamas is also another great tradition! Open the pajamas and wear them to bed. It makes for cute pictures in the morning!
I personally dont have any kids yet, but there is one tradition I would like to start when that day comes. Gather up 25 different childrens christmas books and wrap them all individually. Then the 25 days leading up to Christmas the kids, in your case Hudson, could unwrap a book each night that mom and dad could read to him. There are some major advatanges with this, I think it helps the kids in all of us who want to open presents early, its quality family time, and lets be honest its got to be fun!
P.S. I love your blog!
We go to mass and then to our family friends and eat dinner and then we go to my parents and open new pjs to wear;) I’m wanting to start new traditions too!!I like the book idea above. My sister n laws mom gets her grandkids big Santa bags and they open a small present the twelve day of Christmas… It’s like maybe a coloring book one day, ornament one day.. Etc..
Every other year we celebrate with my family in CA and the tradition when we’re at my sister’s is to have my step-dad make his “famous” clam chowder and play cards while my sister, her husband, and my nephew are doing the obligatory Christmas Eve thing with her in-laws. We visit and just hang out until they get home and then we pop in a Christmas movie. Before we head to bed we get the stockings situated and appropriately stuffed (we each provide 2+ things for everyone’s stockings so they’re all full in the morning). We used to open a gift Christmas Eve but no longer do that.
We’re still adopting one for the years we celebrate in LA but so far it entails Miracle on 34th Street (the new version — I’ve still never seen the original) and hot chocolate. We don’t have a certain meal we do but it’s always something easy and some sort of “comfort food.” This year we’ll all (the girls will be here) help wrap presents at the hospital for the kids in the late afternoon and attend church in the evening. We let the girls decide if they want to open a present and I’m fairly certain the answer to that question will be a resounding YES!
I cherish those time with my family and find myself smiling as I type this. Thank you for letting me share 🙂
BTW – I’m loving the idea of having gumbo!! I may just need to get your recipe…
Growing up, we always went out to see a movie on Christmas Eve. We’d typically see a Christmas movie, but not always. There’s been a few icy or snowy years where we stayed home and watched it on the VCR instead. My little sister can name the movie we watched on Christmas Eve going all the way back to ’91!
PS – LOVE the book idea above!
Great post! Our family lived in Switzerland for a few years when I was little, so every year since then we’ve always had Swiss Fondue, a big green salad, and Christmas cookies for dinner on Christmas Eve. I don’t know if I’ll continue that tradition with my own kids, but traditional cheese fondue and Christmas will always be linked for me, so I’m sure I’ll have to incorporate a big fondue dinner into the Christmas season for my own family.
I swear, my parents are geniuses. When I was little, we’d go to Children’s Mass in the evening, and when we got home, we’d find that Santa had been there! We’d go through our stockings, and then open the gifts under the tree. I’d get to stay up late, and we’d snack, watch movies, and play games. Then I’d sleep in the next morning…no 5am wake-up call for my parents!
Now that I’m married and have a toddler, we always eat appetizers all day long, play games, and then go to mass with my parents. We’re blessed to live close to our families, and so Christmas Day is always full of traveling to others’ homes. We like to reserve Christmas Eve as a special day for our family….our parents are welcome to join us, but we stay at home.
We always did some very casual-fare on Christmas Eve, like a deli spread where you could make your own sandwiches and then also some appetizers. I also like the tradition of reading the Christmas story right from the Bible before going to bed. Hopefully my kids will go to bed with the REAL meaning of Christmas on their minds as much as the anticipation of Santa coming.
we go to a huge open house Christmas Eve. So much fun for the kiddos. They spread out reindeer food on the grass, track santa online, and have a little gift exchange. Afterwards we come home, open one present each, and have a cake for baby jesus’ birthday. so fun! then we stay up until 3 in the morning putting everything santa leaves together. not quite as much fun….
This is my husbands and my first Christmas on our own as a married couple. We decided to stay in LA for the holidays because we have a wedding back home a few months later. We are each incorporating our old family traditions into our new family traditions.
For Christmas Eve, we meeting up with our other couple friends who aren’t going home either for church, then dinner with a Honeybaked Ham (my husbands family tradition) and a gift exchange. Then Christmas morning, wake up and do stalkings (which is very big in both of our families), open presents, go over to our friends house for brunch and then later that afternoon go to a movie (my family tradition). I am thrilled to have our friends with us over the holidays. It will make staying in LA that much easier.
Merry Christmas Y’all!
We always had a Christmas party at my Mom’s best friend’s house and all of my Mom’s family and her friend’s family came. We swapped gifts and ate tons of snacks. Later that night all the kids got in the old mini van and were driven around by my Mom and her friend to look at Christmas lights. This is our first married Christmas and I get to introduce my husband to the traditon this year(we skipped last year)! Love the gumbo idea.
This will be our first Christmas together as a married couple, but we plan to spend every other holiday with each others families. So this year we had Thanksgiving with his, and we will have Christmas with mine, then next year we will switch.
One tradition that we have done in my family the past few years is to make cioppino (an Italian seafood stew for those unfamiliar with the name). It is the best cioppino I’ve ever tasted and we usually decorate Christmas cookies and sip wine while the cioppino cooks. We usually open just one present on Christmas Eve and save everything else for Christmas Day.
We always open one gift each *pajamas are my favorite to get and to give!* and Dave and I pile the kiddos in the mini after they’ve had their bath and are in their PJ’s for a spin around town to see the Christmas lights.
I love Christmas traditions and totally want to start one with the hubs…that can carry on when we have children. Right now…our traditions are pretty much just who/when we celebrate with. We go to my Dad’s Christmas Eve, my Mom’s Christmas morning, Aunt’s Christmas day, Inlaw’s later that day…etc. I’m thinking a Christmas nap might become a tradition!! 🙂
We watch Home Alone and Christmas Vacation too! Ha ha! Also, all of the girls in the family wear the same PJ’s on Christmas Eve. I just got mine, and my sister’s today at Target. We also open just one gift too on Christmas Eve. This is our baby’s first Christmas, and my husband plans on reading “Twas the Night Before Christmas” to him. We’re hoping to do that each year. Each morning, we always do a sausage and egg casserole – yummm!!!
we pick out one present on christmas eve before midnight mass, and open when we get home before we go to bed..
i have a couple friends who open their xmas pj’s on christmas eve..
Christmas eve fancy dinner at my grandmother’s house followed by a family movie and then a late night church service for the adults. Christmas day is always a day spent at home in pjs gathered around the tree drinking hot chocolate and warming ourselves by our fireplace, we play family games as well as watch Christmas movies or play with and use new presents that we opened the night before. Oh, and we play tons of Christmas tunes both those days. I also have a tradition where my grandmother and I dance to an old Frank Sinatra type song.
We usually open almost all the presents Christmas eve and then save one or two special ones for Christmas day.
We have appetizer night at my parent’s house. There are tons of different snack foods that we enjoy. And we play games until late at night. We used to all (my siblings and all of our spouses) sleep in the same room on Christmas eve, because growing up, my brother, sister and I always did that, but as we’ve gotten older and babies have started coming, that tradition has died. But it was fun!
The men in my family (on my Dad’s side) compete in a college football pick competition all season long… the one that picks the most winning games throughout the season is presented with a trophy on Christmas Eve and the loser has to dress up in an elf costume and serve drinks all day! The trophy gets engraved with the winner’s initials and it stays in their home all year. My husband won his first year (last year).. and he is in the lead for this year! It is a great tradition and we always end up with the best pictures!!
I have never seen Christmas Vacation, but I have been told that I need to see it this year 🙂
Great post! My family tradition is to go to church then come home for a chili and tamale dinner. We live in New Jersey now (originally from Houston) so we can’t find tamales anywhere! Christmas Eve will be a rush this year since I have to work (but the market closes early) and will be home just in time for the 4:30 service at our church. It will be just us and the girls that evening then we fly back to Houston on the 25th.
I love spending Christmas with family, but with my work schedule and families being so far apart, we aren’t always able to do that. One of our favorite traditions both as a married couple and on my side of the family is to attend the candlelight Christmas eve service, then come home and open our stockings. We fill the others stockings with small presents like candy, cologne, jewelry, and then play Christmas carols while opening them. It’s always a lot of fun and carries a lot of meaning for me 🙂 Knowing that my family is doing the same thing no matter where we are in the world makes us all feel closer!
I love all the ideas! Great post! I think we’ll be adding the new pj’s!
My husband’s entire family (all aunts, uncles, cousins, etc.) has a pitch in and gift exchange in the house his grandfather built. The family has gathered there on Christmas Eve for over 45 years! I love such a long standing tradition!
This is our first year as a married couple so it will be interesting. My family has always done a big fancy Christmas Eve dinner and church. We used to open one present on Christmas Eve with our family friends that we celebrated the holidays with. My brother and I would sneak down the stairs once we were old enough to see what Santa brought us..my parents just found this out a few years ago! But I truly loved opening presents, eating breakfast and lounging all day in our pj’s.
This year we are hosting my husbands family at our house..so no lounging in pj’s until noon this year! So the plan is to stay with my family Christmas Eve and then have his family over on Christmas Day.. His family does White Elephant which is always fun..We are going to start making Christmas cookies this year and hopefully if it is cold drink hot chocolate.
I have rambled for long enough. Love the book idea!
My husband’s cousins are all relatively the same age and we have had a Cousin Christmas Party for the past 5 years or so-before everyone was married and still dating. Babies are entering the picture, but there is always a highly boisterous game of Catch Phrase and Apples to Apples and lots of wine and cheese.
Last year was our first Christmas married, and we opened a bottle of Champagne around midnight which was really special. I hope to keep that going moving forward.
We’ve always gone to my maternal grandmother’s house for Christmas in Waco! On Christmas Eve morning, my grandmother, aunt and I make homemade sugar cookies and the entire family has chili and tamales for lunch (this was the traditional Christmas Eve dinner for my father growing up and my mom’s mom adopted it when they got married to make him feel like part of the family – which I LOVE!). Then we get all gussied up and attend candlelight Christmas Eve services. After church, my grandparents have a cocktail party. This tradition originated because a very, very wealthy family in Waco used to also have a cocktail party on Christmas Eve but the food there was always terrible and they didn’t serve any alcohol. Everyone used to always gather at my grandparents for brisket sandwiches and a few cocktails before heading across the street for the mandatory sucky party 🙂 The tradition stuck! My grandparents have a ton of candles in their home and ever since I was a little girl, my job is to light them all after church and snuff them all after the guests leave! After the party, everyone else goes to bed and my father and I always watch “A Christmas Story” – since TNT plays it for 24 hours, we just start it wherever it happens to be and watch it until we come back around, full circle. Evan has now joined us in this tradition 🙂
Christmas morning we wake up and open presents and then eat traditional Thanksgiving-type meal. When I was little, every other year, we’d leave after presents, drive back to Austin and open presents with my Dad’s family. Now we stay in Waco the entire time. But a week before Christmas, we celebrate with my Dad’s family for Chili & Tamale Night… which is exactly as it sounds!
As you can see – we are ALL about tradition! I am very anxious about what will happen when my grandparents pass or are too ill to host the entire family for Christmas – it will be a very hard transition but I am excited to pass along so many rituals to our kids someday!
Aaaaaaand I’m sorry I just left the LONGEST COMMENT KNOWN TO MAN.
This is our first married Christmas, though we spent last Christmas together. We’re splitting the holidays – this year my family, next year his (though we see our both our parents, just not extended family for both). My family celebrates Christmas eve by setting out luminaries on the street, delivering my mom’s homemade cookies to neighbors, an oyster roast party at my godmother’s house, then candlelit Christmas eve service at 11pm. We’ll travel for the holidays until we have kids. Then Christmas will be spent at home because I’ve always resented my parents for making us travel all day on Christmas and not enjoy our toys and friends that stayed in town on the street! I want my kids to enjoy the day – we can celebrate with family on days other than actual Christmas day 🙂
We always open Christmas Jammies on Christmas Eve too! Since it is just Hubster and Me we dont have too many traditions besides this one. I cant wait to have babies to start our own traditions!!!
We eat pizza and watch Christmas Vacation! I love it!
Our parents live too far apart to split Christmas between them, so we alternate Thanksgiving and Christmas. If we spend Thanksgiving with one set of parents, we spend Christmas with the others. This year, we spend it with my folks. Christmas Eve, we’ll go to a caroling service at the church I attended as a little girl. We’ll go home and have beef tenderloin, potato casserole and a big green salad for dinner. We each get to open 1 or 2 small gifts and then we set out cookies and veggies for Santa and the reindeer. Christmas morning, we wake up, open way too many presents and eat a great breakfast that Bapa cooks–eggs, grits, bacon, biscuits. For a late lunch/early dinner, we have the traditional turkey and cornbread dressing, which my 92 year old grandmother still makes, cranberries and all kinds of other goodies. The day after Christmas we leave early and hit the sales. Traditional sweets for our holiday include buffalo chips (ginormous chocolate chip cookies), millionaires (chocolate and caramel covered nuts, a/k/a turtles), peanut candy, homemade toffee, iced sugar cookies and trash (a/k/a party mix). And now I’m suddently starving….
I’m not married yet but this is what my family does…On Christmas Eve we always go to church then come back and have a little party at my parents. We have always tried to stay home for Christmas and my realives live very spread out so a lot of times neighbors and friends stop by. We eat tons of yummy appetizers not a big meal. After everyone leaves my brother and sister and I open our Christmas PJs (yes, even at 24, 21 and 17 they match and last year my boyfriend got them too) We also read Twas the Night before Christmas and still leave cookies for Santa!
Growing up we always rented a movie for Christmas Eve & my Mom made homemade pizza dough. She’d roll the dough out and we’d all “decorate” our wedge & then we’d eat pizza & watch the movie. This is my first married Christmas & we are going home so I’m sure we’ll do the same- after we have kids of our own I’m not sure *what* we’ll do, but I know a movie will be involved- it helped us whittle away the hours until bedtime!! My brother & I also exchanged our gift to each other on Christmas Eve, but only if we could remember what our sibling had gotten us the year before. It was my parent’s way of ensuring we’d remember what we got each other & not letting it get lost in the shuffle of Christmas morning.
This is a great post! On Christmas Eve we have a delicious meal of roast beef, yorkshire pudding, etc. We used to go to midnight church but this year we have a 6 month old so we’ll go to the children’s service at 4:30. We get to open one present on Christmas Eve. But, my most favorite things is when Santa comes. You know he’s been there because he lays the stocking on the foot of the bed. As a child I’d get so excited when I woke in the middle of the night and heard the crinkle of tissue paper at the foot of my bed. I’d snuggle back down under the covers and go to sleep knowing Santa had made his visit! Merry Christmas!
In my family, Christmas Even has more traditions tied to it than Christmas Day, so my husband and I spend the evening at my parents’ home, and we leave for his parents’ house (2.5 hours away) by 10 am the next morning. It works well!
Even though we’ve clearly outgrown it, my family always attends the childrens’ mass at our church, and afterward we head home for our annual dinner – Lobster! The sides change from year – one year, we just did steamed oysters, sometimes my mom’s french onion soup, twice baked potatoes, or caesar salad – but lobsters are the constant!
After dinner, we watch Christmas vacation and settle in for a comfortable night. It’s the perfect Christmas Eve!
Loved hearing of your traditions, sooo sweet!!! 🙂
I’m starting to look for traditions for our little family, but I don’t think we’ll start to put them into effect until next year when our little one is here to share it with us! 🙂
Hey Erin! Our Christmas tradition started the year we got married. My dad gave us the beautiful Swarovski Christmas ornament for that year (2005) and encouraged us to purchase the annual ornament each Christmas. It’s such a wonderful tradition to go buy the new ornament shortly after each Thanksgiving, and we put the ornaments on a special silver wire tree. As we hang those ornaments, it’s a great time to reflect on each year of our marriage! Here’s the link to all the details on my blog: http://oneluckycouple.wordpress.com/2009/12/02/our-christmas-tradition-swarovski-ornaments. Merry Christmas!
We always eat breakfast for dinner on Christmas Eve. My mom drags out the big ole waffle iron that she got when my parents got married and my dad makes crepes for everyone (a nod to his French heritage). Its so much fun, plus breakfast is my favorite meal of the day so on Christmas Eve I get to have it twice!
my family’s Christmas Eve tradition is to go to our church’s candlelight service and then to a big dinner at ruth’s chris… most of our Christmas Day’s are spent with the grandparents so this is a fun way for my parents and i to spend quality time together! then we go home and listen to christmas music and drink hot cocoa before going to sleep to see what santa broughts us in the morning!
We go to church on Christmas eve with my husband’s parents and open gifts with his family. Then we (meaning him, me and the dogs) all pile in the car to my parent’s house where we exchange gifts and eat the most delicious egg casserole ever! 🙂 When I was growing up we only got to open 1 gift on Christmas Eve, and it was alway PJs and they always matched my siblings!!
My family has always gone to the children’s mass (none of us are still children) on Christmas eve and then we come home to eat “Seven Fishes” technically it ends up being Seven various forms of seafood (Tuna Fish sandwiches, shrimp cocktail, New England clam chowder, etc…) My mom’s family did it when she was growing up so now we do it with her.
In our house Christmas Eve is a bigger deal to my mom than Christmas Day because of the traditions!
hey erin! i love christmas traditions! my tradition is watching home alone as much as possible between thanksgiving and christmas – best movie ever! our family on christmas eve always goes to the candlelight church service and orders take out chinese food….very random but i love it! i don’t think it matters what the tradition is, as long as you have one! my sister, brother-in-law and some friends started a new one last year on driving out to lindale (tyler-1 1/2 hours from dallas) to santa land, this christmas light drive-through thing. we all pack in the car, go see santa land, and eat dinner at cracker barrel and drive back – so much fun!
i love reading all of these comments! my family used to do christmas eve at my grandmother’s house and christmas day at my parent’s. now that my grandmother is older and the cooking is a little much for her, my mom hosts both meals. typically after mass on christmas eve we all go to my parent’s house for a cocktail party with appetizers. it has also always been a tradition that my parent’s go to lunch just the two of them on christmas eve. this is when they get our “stocking stuffers” and have a chance to be alone. i hope this is something matt and i start doing once we have kids. after the guests leave christmas eve night we, like many others, open our christmas jammies. a few years ago my mom added a book to the pajamas. so now everyone gets a book my mom picked especially for them that night. i always sneak and buy a book for my mom and add it to her package :). now that we’re married and live away from both our families (who are 6 hours away from each other) things are a little more complicated. we will continue to try to see both families at christmas until we have kids. timing this up with matt’s working nba schedule makes it even harder. this year we will be at my parent’s on the 23rd and will leave at 2pm on christmas day to travel up to see his family by dinner and stay until the 28th. it’s a struggle sometimes but we have to remember how lucky we both are to have such close-knit families with such strong traditions. i love how holiday traditions have motivated everyone to comment 🙂
When I was little my family would always watch Home Alone and we would bake Christmas cookies for Santa. Before we went to bed for the night, my mom let my sister and I open one present. After we opened the present, we would put out a plate of cookies by the Christmas tree along with a note for Santa saying that the milk was in the fridge. As my sister and I got older, we couldn’t just open ONE present, so we would have “Christmas” on Christmas Eve.
Christmas Eve- go to mass with Dad’s family. Even though we aren’t Catholic (the extended family is), the beauty of the liturgy of Christmas Eve mass is breath taking and that signals the beginning of Christmas for me. Then on to my Dad’s mom’s house for party food, Nannie always makes Charlotte Russe. Then on to mom’s parents for more party food and opening Santa presents the next morning.
This year is first married Christmas and randomly we are starting a tradition of drinking Cheerwine out of the old fashioned glass bottles. Simple and random but unique. My new husband didn’t have holiday traditions growing up and it makes me doubly grateful that my immediate and extended family had so many that defined the season for us as a family and looking forward to sharing this year. LOVE your blog!
After my brother was born, my parents decided he and I would always wake up at home on Christmas morning. If our grandparents wanted to see us, the door was open. We’re (un?)fortunate in being the only grandkids on either side, so a new tradition was born. We have our big meal on Christmas Eve, and the grandparents spend the night. It’s sad to see the tradition fading as people age.We always get up early on Christmas morning, open presents, eat breakfast and then the grandparents leave. We spend the rest of the day lazy with mimosas and playing with whatever toys (at 28 &30!) we opened that morning. My mom almost always fixes spaghetti for supper Christmas night.
My parents assuaged our want to open presents on Christmas Eve by buying us each a Christmas book every year. That was the one gift we were allowed to open; and a tradition that continues today.
Every year, since I can remember, we’ve gone to the candlelight church service on Christmas Eve. This is my favorite and most moving church service to attend throughout the year. I remember when I was a kid, we were allowed to open one gift after we can home from church. The rest had to wait until Christmas day. I love reading your blog and I’ve given you and award over at my blog. You can pick it up here!! Happy Friday!
This is a great blog Erin! Thanks for asking this question…I have been thinking about this a lot the past couple of years since the kiddos arrived and it is so nice to hear what others do. I like the book and pj idea, and especially love someone’s tradition of exchanging a gift with her brother. I think that is one we are definitely going to begin this year! I remember being dragged all around town to different relatives on Christmas day so I am committed to staying home in jammies as much as possible on either Christmas eve or day. I want our kids to have wonderful memories of a lazy day at home with a fire, games, and Christmas movies!
we have our first child this year so we’re changing things up some. normally we go to my parents and they do a big gumbo party for the extended family and friends on christmas eve. this year they agreed to move that up to a lunch time gig so we (my sister’s and i and our husbands) can come back to ruston. santa will come to our house (my sisters don’t have kids) and my parents and sisters/husbands are coming for that. we’re going to do a huge breakfast just like my mom normally does but in ruston. i’m sad for the changes but look forward to our daughter always being at home on christmas. i never had to travel b/c my dad’s family lived to far away so i don’t feel that it’s fair to make my kids travel. unfortunately, both of my husband’s parents have passed away so we’ll just go visit his grandmother the weekend before or after christmas.
we also do the pj’s! can’t wait to give olivia her first set!
Love your blog. I made a new one! (My old blog was KY Katie and The Bluegrass Bride)
You will quickly guess if I didn’t mention that I live in Florida.. that I live somewhere like that as I tell you my past Christmas eve traditions and how they changed as our children grew up.. When the kids were little, we always had a cake on Christmas eve with candles..( never did figure out how many to really put! LOL..) but the cake said, Happy Birthday, Jesus, and we would all blow out the candles and then sing Happy BIrthday to Jesus and then have a piece of cake! I always got the kids new Christmas jammies and they opened that one present Christmas eve and then wore them to bed. It was so cute because the closer to ‘teenage’ they got..the more they would say, ” Hmmm..I WONDER what THIS could be??” PJs, maybe??” LOL
We also ALWAYS went for a drive to look at Christmas lights and usually did it fairly late so as to hopefully get the kids more sleepy! At some point, we incorporated stopping at our favorite icecream shop that has a late night walk up window..and everyone would get a milk shake of their favorite flavor to sip on while we looked at lights! There was one house we always went to that had a Santa and Mrs. Claus out front of their 2 homes that were decorated to the max..so we would stop there and let the kids go see Santa one more time! ( and yes, they often DID wonder why Santa wasn’t already busy going to houses!!!)
Little did I know..neither would I have wanted to know.. that I would end up divorced after my daughter was already out of the house and the 3 boys were in their teens! Thus that 1st year of a new type of life.. we started the tradition of looking at lights being followed by going to Denny’s to get either a dessert and coffee or a sandwich to share .. and have a place where everyone would sit and talk and laugh and just have a great time.. (its amazing how a big booth full of family induces fun!
Christmas will be quite different this year for our family. Its my next to oldest son’s 1st year being married! Usually we always went to my Mom and Dad’s after Santa presents were opened Christmas morning ..and that’s still what the grown kids were doing.. well..most would get here by 1 pm or so..and then we would eat a BIG turkey dinner and then open presents!!
We decided to try Christmas at my daughter’s this year. She has 6 children and its a better situation for her kiddos to be home with their things and by their beds for naps if my daughter wants, etc.. Well, ONE son thought that meant no Christmas with Mom this year..so he offered to his Dad that he could have them for Christmas this year. GULP! ( That was me swallowing my heart back down ) 🙁 So..they are all going to their Dad and step-mom’s Christmas morning and then the plans are to leave there about 5 pm and go back to my daughter’s apartment. Where Roger & me and my folks will meet up with them. We will then open our gifts from each other..( get to watch the grandkiddos YEY!!!..and then eat overflowing fresh cooked ham sandwiches, have tater salad, baked beans, etc.. I will probably still make my pumpkin pies too. I am actually looking forward to the change..but feel a little sad that most of the day will be quiet and without the little ones. However..it will also mean time with my hubby and folks.. that won’t be a bad thing!
That’s it for us!
Love the gumbo idea! That sounds like so much fun. In my family we go out for dinner somewhere fabulous on Christmas Eve ’cause we’re cooking up a storm at home on Christmas Day. Have a wonderful holiday!
We go to waffle house. tradition began when my parents were engaged and there was a blizzard and it was the only thing open! now 25 years later, they + us kids go to WH after christmas eve service!
we go to our church’s candlelight service and then get chinese food take-out. even out of college, my sister and i are still allowed to open one present each on christmas eve. when we were little, we used to pile in the car with blankets and hot cocoa and drive around to look at christmas lights, but now we just drink red wine and watch 24 hours of ‘a christmas story’ on tbs!
Christmas traditions are my absolute favorite! It is so heart warming to read all of these comments 🙂
My family has always been a stickler for tradition – Christmas Eve – Eve dinner with my grandmother and all of the family with beef tenderloin, potatoes au gratin, salad, green beans with almonds, lots of yummy deserts and homemade rolls. We always have a family gift which includes a donation to a charity on behalf of the whole family.
Christmas Eve dinner at my grandfathers with the same crew minus a few of my step-grandfathers family. The meal varies but it is always yummy! We open gifts and sip wine 🙂 Then we go to our prospective homes and exchange PJ’s and do the Santa thing for our little one. I am always incorporating new traditions for this night to make it special and something our daughter will always remember. This year it was the Twelve Days of Christmas – we started last night and she is SO EXCITED!
Christmas Day we go to my mom’s house and “graze” on yummy food all day. We have biscuits and sausage gravy for breakfast and tons of appetizers and a full dinner buffet style that is set out all day. We open presents at the last possible time we can stand. We always try to make it last 🙂 Stockings are a HUGE thing for us and is my sisters and my favorite part.
On a not so cheerful note, my husbands family is the complete opposite. They dont have any traditions per say, just getting together and eating a meal. They wont come to my family’s homes to join in our fun. SO my husband is always stressed out and fighting with his family the whole Holiday season beginning before Thanksgiving. This year we had planned to host Christmas dinner at our home with his family. We would go to my mom’s in the early morning, leave around lunch and celebrate with them the rest of the day. Once his mom found out he planned to go with my daughter and I that morning she was furious and cancelled the plans. I dont know when we will see his family now. It breaks my heart 🙁
Let’s see… Growing up we’d do a fun Christmas dinner–usually nothing overly fancy, but, nice. We never did a turkey or ham on Christmas. And then we’d open one present and go to bed early and wait for Santa, etc, etc. My parents we’re divorced so we usually did this at my dad’s house, but, my mom and all our family would come to dinner and every other year I would switch where I stayed for Christmas Eve. Kind of sucky, but, it worked OK. If I stayed with my mom on Christmas Eve, my dad and stepmom would come over around 11 and we’d all have brunch. My mom always made crepes.
My mom is no longer alive, and I’m married, so, things have changed a lot in the last few years, but, we spend Christmas Eve with my husbands family–they do pizza every year, which is fun and easy (!) and we open presents that night at their house (including Santa gifts) and then go home to my parents house to read The Night Before Christmas as a family and then open gifts with them in the morning. After Santa has come of course. It’s kind of a nice way to split things because my dad’s family has moved, so, there’s no need to do Christmas dinner like we did when I was a kid for just the five of us and that gives him, my stepmom and half sis a night to do their own thing before we get home. Plus, we kind of get two Christmases out of the deal.
I don’t know what we’ll do when we have out own children considering we live 1,200 miles away from our families…..
I’m glad you posted this. My husband and I are both big Christmas people, but we’re still working on how to incorporate our family traditions. I really like the idea of doing a signature dish each year.
Christmas morning was big in my house with present opening & a big breakfast, and Christmas Eve is big with his, including a traditional Italian seafood dish & going to Midnight Mass. We’ll probably try to make that dinner ourselves Christmas Eve and go to midnight services, but I’m still working a traditional Christmas morning meal to accompany the presents.
I share your concern regarding establishing solid Christmas traditions, and in fact, had myself a good, solid cry about it recently! As the “kids” in our family are grown without kids of their own, our traditions have turned to (a) soup & salad dinner on Christmas Eve – each year different, more intricate and looser interpretations of delicious soups and salads, (b) going to the movie together Christmas Day in the afternoon/evening, (c) Elf on the Shelf (notwithstanding the lack of little ones) and (d) matching shirts. The shirts “tradition” only started last year when my mother bought shirts for my sister, herself and me. This year (unbeknown to them so far) I bought matching manly shirts for the boys from Cafe Press that I will have them open on Christmas Eve so that everyone matches. So a few fun traditions, but I definitely am searching for some new – I can’t wait to read all the comments!