dreamsforthefandom

Well, when I was a kid -- my parents and I would go out to dinner on Christmas eve. Our little fake tree standing all of two feet tall was barren underneath, aside from a few small gifts that I'd wrapped or either parent contributed. After we returned from dinner, the tree was magically surrounded by a ton of presents and the cookies left out for Santa were gone and a note from the big man was put in their place.


Years later, now that I'm living on my own -- I decided last year that when people ask me what I want, I told them, "I want a special and unusual ornament that YOU pick out for me for my tree." Got a few nice ones to start my collection and tradition. My coworker gave me a very pretty, hand-carved Santa with reindeer ornament, and my mom passed on the hand-painted 'faces' collection that I always loved when I was a kid. I'll take some pictures and post them after I decorate this year.


But, those are some of my traditions.. Thought it would be neat to share and I'm curious to see what other people do -- since all the Christmas related movies seemed to imply the joy of waiting until the morning of the 25th to actually open presents. We always did that on the evening before, which was nice. Wake up the next morning with a solid plan of what to do first.. XD (yay, legos!)

Aw, that's such a sweet idea!

Well, I just started a new one last year. Have you heard of the German pickle in the tree tradition?
A picle is hidden somewhere in the tree, and whichever child finds it gets a special gift.
I bought a pickle ornament at Epcot last December, and it will be hidden deep within my Christmas trees from now on, for all the children to seek out.

The only other tradition is that every year we try to add a new forest creature to the tree.
Last year it was a mushroom, I think.
Before that it was a hummingbird, and before that was a deer.
We try to stick to animals that live in our area.

well my tradition is always going up north and spending christmas up at my dear sweet old aunts house, but this year, I think it just may be my grandpa, me, mom, and dad, my brother is supposed to be moving up to daton, oh soon maybe and well it will be sad not to have him around.

I only got a couple real traditions.

-On my dad's side, we all exchange gifts from each other on christmas eve.

-On my mom's side, before bed we watch the movie 'Christmas Vacation'. Also before we open presents, EVERYONE has to be up and out of bed.

Mind if I add a little christmas story? Once two years ago, my mom asked me 3 days before christmas what I really wanted. I told her I wanted a whole set of sonic the hedgehog plushies. Now see the thing is she already took care of christmas shopping, my dad was over seas at the time, plus she barely had any money left (The set was $100). So I knew there was no way I was getting them that year. So come christmas morning I ran out to see all the sonic plushies sitting neatly on the other presents! (Plus sonic and amy were sitting together, nice touch Santa! ;D) I'll never forget it, because i know there was no way my mom had gotten them. She was even surprised! Nice little christmas eh? XD

Aw! That's a cool story, Ideya!
So cool when stuff like that happens

..I was ecstatic when I got my Sega Genesis when I was a kid. I remember thinking to myself as we sat down to open presents when I was a kid after we got home from our Christmas Eve dinner, "Gee, that box looks big enough to hold a Genesis.." then to open it an realize that's what it was. Woo!

Only other time was when my stepmom made a huge deal about getting an X-box for her son (who was 30 at the time, I think). She ordered one online for $400 or something like that. It came with Halo and a couple of controllers. I was joking about how we should "test" the system, since I was really curious about the game at the time, but she never went for it. I helped wrap that darn box, then come Christmas Eve, we went over to her son's house for dinner and presents. Stepmom told both her son and me to open these conspicuously large boxes at the same time...
both she and her son were in on this gig -- they bought X-boxes for each other

So, all in all, I ended up getting to play Halo
..It was funny. I think there are pictures of me going, "OMG You're kidding, right?"

another one of my christmas traditions was to wait by the tree all night for santa, now being the young ace I was back then, I could hardly stay awake past midnight, so here I was, the next day right beside the tree, presents littered under the tree. I hadnt asked for a gameboy, but to my surprise when I opened a present to find the good old brick gameboy, man I went through a few packs of batteries with my Mario Land and Tetris, my brother got Bionic Comando and T2 the game, man I remember playing that day in and day out.

and another time, this was the cool part on the waiting on santa, I found ten gameboy games a couple christmas' later because I complained on pretty much beating the few we had and getting bored of it, because I was now playing the super nintendo and genesis (Both great systems, prefer them over most of the new systems in most cases.) I had gotten some really good games, like Metroid 2, Baseball, Spankys Quest (You played as a monkey, I think it was a puzzle game.) I dont remember the rest, but I know I had alot of good games that year, and not just for the Gameboy, I also got a couple games for the SNES, Yoshis Safari and a super scope.

My stepdad's side celebrates on Christmas eve as well.
My stepsister always makes stuffed artichokes and my stepdad makes. . . something that I forget then ame of. It's a really good meat tied into rolls and soaked in sauce.

Traditions have changed of course since there ceased to be any kids in the house.
But when my younger brother and I were younger, we had an agreement that whoever woke up first would wake the other one.
Then we'd creep along to the tree and try to guess what was in each box.
We had permission to go through our stockings, but the presents weren't touched until everyone else woke up.
(We broke that rule the year that we found Pongo and Perdita plushies, from 101 Dalmations just sitting there)

We don't have stockings anymore, I'm trying to reinstate that tradition.

I wish I was a kid again, I had so much fun when christmas meant seeing your family.


Mod Edit: Always good to see friends and family and being able to set aside differences to come together. Let's not dwell too much on the negatives here.. even if your parties get canceled, you can still party here with us! -infractus

My newest tradition is that every year, my parents and I make a special dinner, but not just any ordinary dinner, a Cajun one. My dad makes a Cajun turkey/chicken and dirty rice, my mom makes salad and rolls, and I make a huge dish of crawfish pasta and white chocolate bread pudding.

Ooh, a southern holiday. That's cool!

My dad and I actually got the idea from a Christmas movie. There was a scene in it that showed something called "Old Fashioned Cajun Christmas".

i go to california to visit family and a few days before christmas my grandma would make a few dozens of awesome tasting tamales so they have some to take home with them. then on christmas day have some of the family over , open girts and play some rock band and guitar hero with my uncle, brother and cousins

Rock Band? Guitar Hero? AWSOME!