Holiday Traditions

With Christmas (and other fun winter holiday's) right around the corner, I thought it'd be fun to share what some of you holiday traditions are? :) What are some of your favorite things about this time of year/to do? What are you hoping Santa brings you? Did you buy someone a totally awesome gift? xD

For me, we are totally laid back when it comes to the holidays. Seriously, the most nontraditional family. Like our Thanksgiving morning is spent watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade followed by the Dog Show and we sit around ALL DAY doing nothing. We eat our big meal the day AFTER because... well we do xD

For Christmas, it's a little more active.... sort of. Because both my sister and I live out of state, we both travel back to Tennessee to be with our mom and dad. We wake up around 8 or 9ish and get coffee. Lots and lots of coffee. Then my sister and I pass out everyone's gifts and we each take turns opening stuff.

The funniest tradition we have, at least for me, is that literally every year since since I was like 5, I've given my dad some goofy calendar for him to hang up in his art studio. Examples of what I've given him in the past are: Outhouses, Nuns Having Fun, Pigs at the Circus, and last year he got a calendar of nothing but bacon :P. This year, his calendar is called Bear Aerobics and is filled with pictures of bears working out. Why? Because why not ;) He knows he's going to get one but it's still always funny to hand him the flat square package and see him roll his eyes :).

I spent a little extra money on mom this year and purchased her an Origami Owl necklace with little charms that really represent myself and my sister. Was a bit pricey but totally worth it as it's the first time that both my sister and I have lived away from home.

So tell me about YOUR holidays and what's going on! :) and remember... Santa is watching you! O.O

Last edited on 2016-12-12 at 07:02:17 by Gaia.

My family is the total opposite Gaia ;)

I think tradition tends to dictate the entire month of December and the end of November.

So Thanksgiving used to be traveling to see my grandparents; however four years ago my parents decided to do Thanksgiving at their house and that has become the new tradition. My dad (and now myself) get up at 6:30 AM and begin cooking, we have turkey, ham, mashed potatos, sweet potatos, gravy, hot rolls, a corn/green casserole, pecan pie, apple pie, pumpkin pie, and homemade ice cream. We eat at noon if things go according to plan (this year we ate at 12:45 because the hot rolls needed to be re-cooked from scratch because the first batch were just off). After we sit down to eat everyone says what they are most thankful for. Then we eat. After lunch mom cleans the kitchen and everyone else has a long nap (yep Thanksgiving day has a scheduled nap). Then we all watch a holiday movie.

So Christmas begins for my family sometime in Oct. when we draw names from the hat/bowl to determine who we need to purchase gifts for. There are eleven people in my immediate family, years ago we decided that it was too expensive to try and buy a gift for everyone so we draw a name and buy presents for only that person. There is also a 50 dollar gift limit because one year someone (my dad) went overboard on his gift. A big part of Christmas for my family is trying to detective out what you were given; there are no lists to tell others what you want, no they just have to know (not sure why honestly). Then you spend all of Dec. shaking, smelling, weighing your gift to figure out what they got you. I have an impeccable record for figuring out what my gift is (three years strait I was able to guess it, hoping to keep it going this year too). Come ~Dec. 1st we decorate the house, this is what my mother loves most and the day I wish to duck out on (they know if there isn't cocoa that I'm impossible to keep motivated about decorating). Then about a week after the tree is up we begin The Search, every year we spend days/weeks searching for the perfect ornament to represent each member of the family to add to the tree. Most of us have developed ornament themes, I always have reindeer ornaments, my parents always get a heart, my two sisters just younger than me go for religiously themed ornaments and the eldest of my brothers goes for nutcrackers. On Christmas Eve we attend a candlelight service held at our church, then we come home and watch It's a Wonderful Life and White Christmas back to back. Then we go to bed in our uniquely selected brand-new pajamas (this is something my mother insists on). I'm typically the first to wake up ~4 AM, but it has become something of a competition to see who is able to naturally wake up first (no alarm clocks allowed). At 6:00 AM my dad gets up and makes a huge breakfast. Until after consuming this breakfast no presents can be opened, but the stockings are fair game (my parents way of appeasing us as kids which has stuck). We eat breakfast and gather around the tree, where presents are doled out and then we take turns youngest to eldest (you're looking at the lucky eldest right here ;-;) opening gifts so that everyone gets to ooooh and ahhh over the presents you got. We also go to both of my grandparents sometime during the Christmas holiday. On my dad's side everything is nicely organized and you know precisely when everything will be happening; on my mother's side everything is chaos and nothing ever happens when it is suppose to (actually great representations of my parents lolz).

Anyway that is the overly complicated holiday season we've knitted together over the years. I, for the most part, love it; however I think a nice laid back holiday sounds amazing right now.

so my family is pretty laidback, especially because most of our big family has now passed and there's really only three main members left: my mom, my sister, and i.

however, before my dad passed away, i do remember holidays well. my dad, my mom, and i used to live in florida. central florida. so my sister, living in south carolina, would always either fly in or drive down to spend the holidays with us. she'd do it once for thanksgiving (she would come early and be there for my birthday, which is usually the week before thanksgiving) and leave after black friday. then she would come back for christmas and leave before new years.

there were two big traditions back then:
1: we always lit our tree perfectly in time with the rockefeller center tree. we'd do the countdown and all.
2: we always opened half our gifts on christmas eve and the other half christmas morning.

now, since my mom, my sister, and i all live in my sister's house in south carolina with two big dogs and two little dogs, it's been a little more unfestive. we have a hard time finding the holiday spirit anymore because we're all tight on money and can't afford much and we can't decorate (my favorite thing to do) so that makes it pretty dreary for us now.

but we still try.

this year, we haven't bought many gifts. i think my mom has ordered some stuff for me from etsy and i don't know about my sister because i'm really not that close to her (we barely speak, even though we live together).

i haven't really gotten anything for my mom yet because i'm not sure what to get her. plus, the total amount of money i have is $20, lol.

my sister - i'm trying really hard to get her a canvas painting of her two dogs. i'm actually supposed to go by an art gallery this morning to see what they can do. other than that, i've gotten her some stuff she mentioned she needed.

so that's us. my little family.

Thanksgiving is pretty crazy in my family half the time I try to avoid going, but when I do there's a lot of cooking. My mom and one of my sisters always end up making to much food so there's always left overs, my brother and dad play foot ball out in the back yard(last year they broke a window). Me and my other sister stay in the living room watching TV or on our phones just trying to avoid everyone. While everyone else is just talking to each other.


Christmas is even worse I have to go to two different houses on Christmas day my sister's and my mom's, I have to buy everyone at least one present or I'm not going to hear the end of it.

At my mom's it pretty easy going though, I try to get there first so I wont have to stay there that long. We eat breakfast, talk a bit and then open presents, once that's done I leave and head to my sister's . Which I have to get there by noon for lunch, being at my mom's takes a few hours to leave (I get there around 8 in the morning) she never wants me to leave.

At my sisters there's a hole bunch of people, my two sisters, my brother, uncle and aunt. We open presents first which can take forever because we do youngest to oldest, and my niece and nephew always want to open their new toys before opening their other presents. After all the presents are open then we eat lunch, which is probably the only time the house gets quiet.

This year I got my nephew a Minecraft Lego set, my niece a horse barn with a few horses (she's starting to get into them now :D I'm so happy for I'm not going to be the only one who likes horses in the family anymore). I got my mom a few candles, my sisters a few bottles of perfume. My dad a watch, my brother a gift card. My and aunt and uncle both got gift cards as well, and last but not least a dog bed for my dog and catnip for the kitty.

When I used to live with my parents, we normally wake up at about 6 or 7am and open presents from mum and dad and then me and my sister give mum and dad their presents and mum and dad then exchange presents. Our cousin then comes over for about 9am and we open her presents and give her presents from us. Then we all go down to my uncles and his kids come over and we have mass unorganised present giving. Then its a chill time before going to grans for christmas dinner where there is even more present opening but a little more organised this time. After christmas dinner we go home and wait for my cousin who runs a pub to come over for more present giving. Our christmas day starts early and ends late!!

This year is a little different as it's me and my boyfriends first christmas together and I currently live with him. This year we are spending christmas morning together with his mum and dad and then going over to my mum and dads in the afternoon for christmas dinner at my grans. Im really looking forward to this year cos I adopted a deer for my boyfriend (one of those where you pay so much to a charity and get like a little gift pack)

My mom loves to start decorating for Christmas in October. For me, I still watch the claymation Christmas specials as it doesn't feel like Christmas until I watch A Year Without A Santa Claus or The Little Drummer Boy. We always watch the Charlie Brown Christmas movie too. We get to open one gift one Christmas Eve, which has been specifically selected by my parents.

We get up really early the next day and go to my grandparents where we first open stockings, followed by a breakfast of at least one munchkin from DD, then presents. We generally manage to get all of that done just as the sun is rising. Then we either visit or take naps while we wait for the food to cook, which is generally a mini remake of our Thanksgiving meal.

My mom, stepdad, brother, & I live in California and the rest of our relatives are in Texas and Wisconsin. So we don't always travel for Thanksgiving, but my brother and I always go to Wisconsin for Christmas. Our dad lives there and we have a few traditions. One is that the day after we arrive my dad takes us to the outlet mall and we do all of our Christmas shopping. Even if it's Dec. 23! That night we eat dinner at Cheesecake Factory and we get a whole cheesecake to go and bring it to our grandparents' house on Christmas Eve. On Christmas Eve morning my dad puts Christmas music on and we wrap the presents and then go to my grandparents' house. Our family opens presents on Christmas Eve, I'm not sure why, it's just always been that way. Gifts from "Santa" and our parents are opened on Christmas morning though. On Christmas Eve for dinner my dad cooks a ham and my grandma makes her famous potato salad. Then on Christmas Day we visit my dad's cousins.

All of my cousins and most of my second-cousins (my dad's cousins' kids) are around my age or older and it's not as much fun as it was when we were all kids. I would look forward to Christmas SO MUCH and for the past few years I really just look forward to seeing my dad. A few of my cousins have chosen really bad paths in life (e.g. drugs) and I try to avoid them because they want to pretend like nothing's changed when it has. And there's a lot of family drama between my dad and his siblings which was kind of entertaining when it was just between his siblings but when my dad is involved too it's a bummer because I know how much it hurts him.

I also miss fun Christmas stuff like decorating a tree, putting up lights, and baking cookies. My mom used to do that stuff when my brother & I were kids but then we got cats and we couldn't have a tree because they'd destroy it, and my mom & stepdad are now old enough that the decorations and lights are a lot of work that they'd rather not bother with. I could do it myself but it seems kind of pointless when I won't even be home during Christmas. That's basically the same reason my dad doesn't do lights either, because my brother & I are only there for 10-12 days and it's a lot of work for that short of time. One year I tried to put up the lights but all of his are so old that a lot of them don't work anymore. I think the holidays will be fun again when I get married and start my own family with its own traditions.

Tradition wise, we don't do much. One family tradition that we have is on every Christmas Eve we all sit done and read Tas The Night Before Christmas. I could probley read the whole entire book right now without even looking at it, but i wont even get into that. XD I know what I'm going to get my two best friends in RL but since they also play EV I can't. I will say that they are Laney and Bopper, I know they both in RL so yeah. I always get cards for my family because if I by them a present they will never take it, I've tried for years and I have just given up so they just get cards. XD As for what I think I'm going to get, I have no clue what so ever. I didn't really say what I wanted so I guess it will be a surprise! XD I kinda hinted that I would love a cat but since my dad is not a huge animal person, I don't think that it will happen. I'm lucky that he lets me have two horses and a dog. I kinda thought about maybe asking for barrels but I didn't, IDK why. Then I also need a new saddle. When I got my first barrel saddle it was at Christmas and they told me to close my eyes and they came back with it in a Christmas Themed trash bag. XD I have had that saddle for years and I'm due for a new one, hopefully and Billy Cook because they are so so amazing. XD I know that that's a lot so no matter what I get I will be SUPER happy with it. Those were just some thing floating around my head. So yep, that's about it and Merry Christmas!! XD