Christmas Traditions, Traditions from your part of the world

Just curious what sort of Christmas traditions y'all might have.


Leo

Like most latin cultures the big celebration is the 'Noche Buena',
the evening of the 24th. Navidad is a time of family and friends and
a lot of food and drinking good things and celebrating. There is not
very much emphasis put on giving gifts, money tends to be spent on
getting good things to eat for the celebration that are too expensive
to have at other times, like ham, and ingredients to make a really
good arroz con pollo. Families usually gather together at a house
around eight to nine in the evening and will eat little tidbits and
talk and listen to music and sometimes dance. This goes on until
Midnight when everyone hugs and wishes each other a Feliz Navidad.
Soon after that the real eating commences. That's when something
like a heavily glazed ham would be served with the arroz con pollo
and potatoe salad and tamales de puerco. The party sometimes
continues until very late (sometimes four or five in the morning on
Christmas day).

Christmas day is usually spent fairly quietly, there is always a Mass
in the morning and people eat on the leftovers and sort of rest up
from the night before.

Christmas trees are coming more and more into style, but of course
fresh trees are somewhat more expensive than in the states. A
string of small Christmas lights can be bought for less than a dollar
and so just about everyone that has electricity will have lights
strung up.

I mentioned earlier that people sort of snack on things before the
big meal on Noche Buena, one of the things that is very common are
bollos de maiz and small pieces of fried pork.

Here is a link for a recipe for bollos. (just scroll down a short
ways)

http://www.critica.com.pa/archivo/recetas/varios.html

I will have to write out a recipe for the fried pork, which is really
very easy, the only problem is that I very seldom measure things so
you would have to be a little adventuress here.

First the pork would be cut into pieces roughly 2 inches square, you
could use a piece of boneless roast or better yet, pork ribs that
have been cut into lengths of about 2 to 3 inches long and then
seperated to have about two bones for each piece.

These are soaked in soy sauce, crushed garlic, salt, crushed and
chopped culantro (fresh green cilantro leaves), achiote (annato)
[note, this is not used by everyone and can be omitted, it mainly
adds color], sometimes a small amount of worscestershire sauce might
be thrown in. These marinate at least a few hours. Then carefully
are fried in hot oil until done. Drained and that's it.

The bollos are sliced into pieces about an inch thick and served with
a few chunks of the fried pork.

These are a sort of appetizer served in the evening to keep people
from bugging the cook to death while they prepare the real meal to
come later.

More later,

Leo

We allways had our big celebration on the 24th also..
Italian traditional dinner is the Feast of Seven Fishes...

It has changed over the years, mostly due to the fact that
some of the dishes were just too labor intensive, and no
one ate them ! Bakalva , dried fish, for instance..
Cod to be exact, which had to soak for days...
There is a smell I DON'T miss..

But we still do Clams with Garlic and Olive Oil
Shrimp
Squid
Salmon
Scallops
Crab meat
Lobster..

Along with Red pasta, roasted red pepers,marinated mushrooms, fresh fennel,
lasagina, fried califlower , and the meats from the sause, meatballs, bragulia, sausage ..

Then the cookies and Italian Ice Creme..
Pitzells, biscotti, wedding cookies, pinolia cookies, honey balls , just to name a few done on trays, with Italian Nugget Candies, which I call Dom Delisuse Candy, if you ever saw the box, you'd know why ..
Local Sarris Chocolates .. all and all , just about everything that is bad for you ! lol
munga munga...

Then off to Mid Night Mass.. come home.. and then, the neighbors start to come over.. kids back from College, folks home to visit parents..
Shots of Sambocca ! and more munga munga!
Any child still awake , gets to open ONE present..
It is a wonderful evening...
Christmas Morning, its frattais and panatone ..
You can see why Christmas day is just spent relaxing ..
and visiting... and eating leftovers ..

Happy Holidays to all my new friends here!
How ever you Celebrate, may it be Peaceful and Brite !

In Service to the Dream,
Paula

The German Cristmas is also celebrated mainly on the 24th (Heiligabend - Holy evening). It starts with bringing in the Christmas Tree (a fir tree usually) and decorating it about noon time. After the decoration is done the living room (or the room in which it's standing) is usually being locked for the rest of the day.
Then the dinner is being prepared (well made ready to be shoved in the oven or heated and the deserts are being finished). The the family gets ready (bathing, showering and getting dressed up). Then Dinner will be served (since others shoved it into the oven for you while you were getting ready) and after Dinner the children get sent into their room while the parents prepare the living room (putting candles on, putting some christmas music on and placing the presents under the tree. The Children are being called (who were anxiously waiting of course) and they can open the presents and such.. it is quite a festive ocasion in Germany, and of course this is the night when children get to stay up long because everyone is going to Midnight Mass after a nice evening inside.
It is quite a festive occasion.

The traditional German Christmas dinner is: Goose, Red Cabbage and "Klösse" (Potato Dumplings)... of course it varies.
Nobody in my family liked goose so we usually had Lasagna, Rapunzel Salat (some special sort of Lettuce) and after this Mousse au chocolat and Red Wine Cream.

On Christmas Day it's traditional to sleep long and then go and visit the relatives of one side, on the next we used to visit my mothers family.. Then we had the rest of the week for us.

On Boxing Day we also used to have "Feuerzangenbowle" with friends at the evening. It is freshly pressed Orange Juice (with some Lemon juice as well) and Red Wine, heated in a pot (which stands on a wee stand with a petroleum light under it). Above this pot there is placed a sugar loaf above it. This is drenched with rum (the higher percentage of alcohol, the better ) and set on fire. Then you watch the sugar caramelising and dripping into the pot beneath. Once it has all burned down it is getting stirred and distributed to everyone.. it's tasty!

I hope you don't mind Aon but I am coming to your haus for Christmas yum (wipes drool off keyboard)

Arminta and I make our Quarter yearly pilgrimage to her parents house in Delphi, IN where we get up early the next morning have breakfast and open presents. Then we have an insanely large setting for dinner (of which I of course only eat sensable portions of ) Then we usually leave for home that afternoon.

Not near as exciting as everyone else. We should figure something out to spice it up like dropping in unexpectedly on some of you

Peace and Good will

Mikel

Hey Mike,

Drop in anytime, if you show up for nochebuena, you may not even be noticed , a couple of years ago I spent most of the evening behind the house barbecueing a pork leg, and when I got around to the front of the house where the celebration was going on, there were about ten people that had just dropped in off the street to have a few drinks and eat as much as they could hold. Everybody is welcome and it is not unusual for people to just show up uninvited that we know, but seldom see, that's one of the things that makes it a special day.

Leo

All righty then Leo

I will start saving my pennies now for the trip

Mikel

hehe... well I'll be cooking for my boyfriends family this year Just bought my christmas tree yesterday, it's a tiny fir tree (a real one!) and it now stands in the garden waiting for the 24th...

On Christmas eve my mom's family gets together at my mamw and papaw's house and we have a huge dinner with ham, turkey, dressing, the usual fixings, and a TON of desserts. WE then gather around the tree and give presents and watch the wrapping paper fly.

We then usually stop by my mother-in-law's house and visit them. When my dad was alive, I would go to midnight mass with him.

We then sleep in and have a nice breakfast and go back to my in-law's.

You are still going to have all that great food aren't you??? If I come all the way to Germany for Christmas I was it to be right. BTW my wife is a Vegan.

Peace on Earth, good will to all men (and women)

Mikel

Its trite, but every year we go "Over the river and through the woods to grandmother's house..." We have several Christmases, one with my parents, my sister, her husband and son, and me. We have a non-traditional Christmas dinner, one time it was stir-fry, another time it was ribs, mashed potatoes and salad, and another time it was pizza. Then on Christmas eve we have the ham, turkey, pink stuff (a mix of cool whip, cherry pie filling, pinapple, condensed milk) sweet potatoes, dressing... all sorts of yummies with my Dad's parents, brother and kids. Then the next morning we wake up and see what Santa has brought Jacob (my nephew). At around noon we head uptown to my mom's parents have the feast all over again and open presents with her family 5 aunts and uncles that each have 2 kids a piece and 3 of them have a kid. Its a fun time had by all... and I hate that I might miss it this year.

How we celebrate Christmas in my family:
We usually have one of the two uncles of mine, who are retired priests, come in from Iowa and join us. We have our big dinner on Christmas Eve. We have my aunt & uncle from a nearby suburb, whichever retired priest uncle that is in this year, and a friend of the family and her stepdaughter over for Mass in our basement. My sister and brother-in-law, after going to Mass with his family, bring their kids over and join us for dinner. The meal is usually prime rib and/or lobster tail (I'm not a big fan of lobster tail, so I just eat the prime rib), mashed potatoes, corn, Jello, butter beans and Polish/Slovak/Croatian/Lithuanian pastries called kolachis , which is basically little squares of baked dough with fruit filling. For dessert, we have the kolachis, ice cream, or French silk pie from Bakers Square. After dinner is over, we adjourn to the living room, where we open a few presents.

Christmas Day for us usually doesn't get started until about 11am, when my sister, brother-in-law and their kids come over for brunch, which'll be my dad's world famous French toast (his is better than any restaurant's ). After everyone has eaten and the dishes are done, PRESENTS!!!

Raven, dear, I live in Scotland
My BF's sister is veggie too, she get's vegetable lasagna and misses out on the goose...

You guys have pink stuff!? Wow, I thought it was just something my mom through together one year at Christmas. How funny!

Yumm!