Christmas is coming

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un-dee

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Hello everyone, since its only 1 month to go until Christmas i'd be interested in how you celebrate it where you live, what you eat, etc etc.

Here in Germany the main event is on December 24th (Christmas eve), you go to church in the afternoon and after that all the families meet at home and get their presents. The presents are brought by the "Christkind" (baby Jesus himself), thats what all the kids are told. So no Santa Clause here.
Important day in December is also Nikolaus day (December 6th), where all kids place a shoe or boot in front of their door or the living room and the next day its filled with sweets and nice stuff. (Or, when they weren't nice, stones :D). That stuff is brought by the Nikolaus (Saint Nicholas). http://img329.imageshack.**/img329/5189/rettenbachdeckenikolausgy5.jpg
I think he's supposed to be the inspiration that led to Santa Clause.
In my family its kind of a tradition that we eat cold but classy dinner after it (smoked salmon, etc) but that is different everywhere. You just spend the evening together and then everybody goes to bed late at night.
On December 25th its the main eating event, because the traditional Christmas food is on the table - Goose. I can tell you there is nothing even coming close to a good Christmas Goose. Its filled with maroons that are put in the great sauce afterwards, and you eat it with Potatoes and Red Kraut.
http://img329.imageshack.**/img329/2969/gefuellteweihnachtsgansia3.jpg
Mhhm

On the second Christmas holiday (December 26th) you visit all kinds of friends and relatives that weren't there on the first one, and have another great meal, like Fondue or sth.
 
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It's the same here though only old people go to church and we call him Santaclaus (Julemanden) We dont fill shoes with candy either, the following days we lay around and feel bad for all the food we ate so we eat some more to cancel it out.
 
For xmas eve our family just has a big feast with some weird polish traditions that i don't understand because im the first in our family to be born in australia. Then the next day we have another big feast at lunch then another big feast at dinner..
By the next day your stomach is screaming in pain :)
 
I don't care about Christmas until a week before. I don't get everybody's obsession with promoting Christmas 2, 3 months in advance. (Not singling you out undee, but it's more a gripe at retailers who start screaming about Christmas in mid-October and don't let up for 2 effin' months.) :x
 
I don't really do traditional christmas stuff. I sped the days with family in general. Chich is kindof a problem since my in-laws are divorced, and especially my mom-in-law really is an attention-whore since then, so she DEMANDS we spend at least one day at her place... So the rest has to be split between my parents and my father in law. That's why this year my parents and my father-in-law and his new wife+children will be spending dec 25th at my place.

Oh, and my parents have a tradition of going to a movie or a play on christmas eve. So this year we're going to see the musical Annie on the 24th and afterwards we're going to de efteling.
 
BlaRo said:
I don't care about Christmas until a week before. I don't get everybody's obsession with promoting Christmas 2, 3 months in advance. (Not singling you out undee, but it's more a gripe at retailers who start screaming about Christmas in mid-October and don't let up for 2 effin' months.) :x
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I dont like that, to. For me the whole time starts December 1st, thats when the Holidays are coming (1st to 4th Advent) and all becomes Christmas-y. The thing that annoys me most is that you can buy all the stuff in October but if you wanna buy a tree or some cookies the week before Christmas there's nothing left. The idea for the thread came only when i read the Thanksgiving thread.
 
un-dee said:
Here in Germany the main event is on December 24th (Christmas eve), you go to church in the afternoon and after that all the families meet at home and get their presents. ...
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My family is catholic and it's almost the same as you said on my mother's side. But we do it only with the closest relatives ie.: aunts, uncles, close cousins, grandmother. But the whole family is very united and big. My grandparents parents were italian and arrived in Brazil on the early 20's. I'm from the 3rd generation born here and only to give an idea, my grandmother had 4 sons and 4 daughters. So, as you might see that's plenty of people! Of course, not everyone kept in contact but I'd say the core of the family is about 110 people, including husbands, wives, children...

My grandmother had the idea to gather all this people together on the 25th and make on her house a lunch, followed by deliciouuuuuuus desserts. It's pretty cool because we all fraternize, talk about our lifes, achievements, make announcements like "She's going to have a baby!" or "We'll get married" that stuff... We also play WAR, which is very nice because everybody is around you watching and making funny comments and some of us have created the tradition to go to the movies.
There is my father's side of the family too, but it's smaller and the gathering is on the Christimas eve only, when we eat, pray, exchange presents, etc... Of course, it's impossible to be at same time in different places so each year we spend the eve on a different house. One year is with my mother's side of the family, the other with my father's.

Ah! I have created a new tradition that applies only to me; After I was 14, no one gave me toys anymore :( BUT, from 3 or 4 years ago till now, I demand that no one buys clothes or whatever they may come up with. Instead, I opened a bank account so they put the money they want in it. No one here is rich, but if everybody puts a small amount on it... man! That's enough to buy myself a power toy! That's how I could buy my computer, MP3 and... I hope this year I can get a Xbox 360, or a PS3 later on.
 
I refuse to celebrate Christmas and every other holiday until most people learn that it is about family and not presents. It is too commercialized so far and the fucking TV has nothing but Christmas commercial trying to sell shit. So me personally, don't do it anymore. Waste of time and money.
 
Besides, Christmas isn't important. You know what is? MY BIRTHDAY! December 24th!!! :banana: :bunny: :mouse: :p
 
http://img361.imageshack.**/img361/8072/happyeverythingac2.jpg

Sorry, anymore I hate what Christmas has become. I hate the commercialization, I hate the ads. I was at the Hallmark shop to get a birthday card for my mom and noticed that there were only about a half dozen ornaments that were actually Christmas related. There were space-ship ornaments, Hot Wheels ornaments, and about a dozen name-brand ornaments including a coffee cup. What the hell does a disposable coffee cup have to do with Christmas?

I'm going to go watch It's a Wonderful Life and The Bishop's Wife now.

Oh, and you can stuff A Christmas Story
 
The tradition here is that everyone knows Christmas is coming 364 days ahead of time, then they then proceed to wait until there are mere hours left before embarking on the quest to find gifts.

I'm in the same boat as you BlaRo, mine's just 5 days after Christmas. And it can't come soon enough!
 
The commercialisation of christmas reallly sucks indeed. But that won't stop me from celebrating christmas in my own way, without all that commercial stuff. For me christmas is a perfect opportunity to play host and such for my loved ones (i love hosting dinners and parties and such (NO I AM NOT GAY)). For decorations i only decorate the table and have a christmas tree that has to wait until Saint Nicholas' Day (dec 6th) before i set it up.
 
Just another reason to get drunk here....


Not a big fan of it. I hate it when you get presents (lame) from people you don't like and you are, for whatever reason, obliged to thank them.

Our family dislikes x-mas so much, we tend to regect all x-mas day invitations and instead we stay home and have what is now an annual family x-mas lunch at home, which is far better than anything else.

Lets face it, during the year we're all too busy to have time together so it's nice to use that one day we don't want to leave the house to be together.

*i feel all weird and funny now* :|
 
Christmas is never routine for me. Being off to college the only routine is that I come home from school. My parents are divorced, so I go back and forth between my parents' houses. My dad's birthday is on the 27th, so I usually hang out with him then (BlaRo...sucks to be you, only one set of presents a year, j/k :p)

Presents aren't really that important, and my family understands that I don't have the funds for that stuff anyways. I like being able to get one or two things for everyone, but I just like being home for the short break before I'm off to Daytona again.

I usually go to Midnight Mass (I'm Catholic) with my dad at the base chapel. This year my grandmother (dad's side) is going to be visiting, so I'll probably be spending more time at my dad's house. Other than that, my mom always gets this "newsletter" that my Aunt and Uncle always send out, about the only communication we ever get with them. Pretentious and spoiled lot they are...


Well, I'll be celebrating Christmas how it should be done. With my family, and with God.
 
Adunaphel said:
(i love hosting dinners and parties and such (NO I AM NOT GAY)).
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:lol: Thanks for putting that out for us, just in case we thought the opposite...:tease:
 
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As other have said - the commercialisation of Christmas bites, it's really out of control - and of course as soon as stores put away the Christmas goods it seems they pull all the Easter stuff out (not that I'm averse to some chocolate...).

Christmas for me is a total family deal - probably the only time during the year the entire family gets together. Christmas Day lunch is with immediate family, then that evening and Boxing Day it's extended family celebrations.
 
I have spent every Christmas possible in Malaysia regardless of where I lived and it has always been with family. Our extended family including girlfriends/boyfriends comes up to about 25-26 people and we usually take a holiday (Domestic one) where we just drive in about 6 cars or so to one of the beach or mountain resort, have some fun playing golf, beach activities... etc, have a nice meal and stuff.

I always think Christmas is about family, I personally cannot stand how some of my friends don't hang out with family at Christmas at all, I personally think its the 1 time in the year that should be spent with family, well, being Asian we have another time to get into that which is Chinese New year, but I won't get into that. And somehow I do enjoy spending time with my family, I don't know if its the fact that I've been living away from my parents since the age of 15 or the fact that my moms travelling 3 days a week and my dad spends 2-3weeks in a month in Las Vegas, but I've always felt that I've had a stronger family connection than most of my peers.
 
I only really think about Christmas around the 20th when I realise it's probably time to start buying presents and all the work Christmas functions start occurring.

We celebrate Christmas Eve (like good Europeans) but it usually involves getting pissed. We hand out presents then too. Christmas Day is more of a quiet affair at the folks' place.

Boxing Day is usually spent at a mates house, in the pool, sinking piss and watching the cricket.
 
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