What are your favorite Christmas traditions?

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Yotsubauniverse@reddit

The Parade of bears. Every year since before I was born we'd get a new snowflake teddy as a tribute to my great grandfather, who gave one to my big sister the first year my parents were married. We line them up EVERYWHERE. They line the stairs, the hallway, dressers, the living room. It's just a fun and wholesome tradition.

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Human_Management8541@reddit

I bake hundreds of cookies. About 20 different kinds. All in one day. We call it cookiepalooza. It's whenever I wake up in the mood. I put out a fb post, that it has arrived, and people stop over all the next day and eat cookies. Friends, family, neighbors... the local police, mailman, highway guys, whoever... I put on coffee, cocoa, hot cider. People bring wine, Baileys, etc. It's a weird cookie fest that has been going on for 25 years. (I live in a tiny town, and know everyone.)

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SuperPomegranate7933@reddit

That sounds delightful!

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Human_Management8541@reddit

It is.

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ididreadittoo@reddit

I like the lights. It is just about the only thing I like about it anymore

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Arleare13@reddit

Chinese food and a movie

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rebelopie@reddit

Bumpus hounds ate your turkey, too?

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Rough_Air_1318@reddit

As a former movie theater employee, don't be surprised if the staff is pissed. Due to the fact that this became tradition in your family, working is now mandatory at most if not all theater companies. This means that if you don't show up, you are fired.

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Arleare13@reddit

Is that supposed to make me feel bad?

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Rough_Air_1318@reddit

No, just don't expect the best service on that day. Recognize the sacrifice that was made and try to show leniency.

In my experience, too many walk into a theater with the attitude of entitlement. And treat everyone as if they are beneath him/her. By everyone, I mean other customers, staff, and management. If there is even a slight glitch, people need to be fired, and "how dare you mess up my perfectly planned experience?"

Mistakes happen, everybody makes them, no one needs to be fired because of one. Perfection is unachievable, why plan for it?

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Arleare13@reddit

In my experience, too many walk into a theater with the attitude of entitlement. And treat everyone as if they are beneath him/her. By everyone, I mean other customers, staff, and management. If there is even a slight glitch, people need to be fired, and "how dare you mess up my perfectly planned experience?"

I’ve never once acted like that. I’m always appreciative of employees, not limited to but particularly when they’re working on holidays.

It just seems weird for you to go after me for this, like we’re doing something wrong by going to the movies.

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Crayshack@reddit

Same here. It's one of the few Jewish holiday traditions I still keep up with.

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asteriskelipses@reddit

Are you Jewish, or just a savvy christian?

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Meattyloaf@reddit

Its cheesy but sentimental. Mine is pizza on Christmas Eve. Pizza Hut specifically for authenticity. My great grandfather started doing it so my great grandmother didn't feel bad about not being able to make Christmas dinner due to her dwindling sight. The man also loved Pizza and could throw down a large pie. After he passed my grandfather continued it as my great grandmother loved the fact that it reminded her of him. Then after my grandfather passed, I've continued the tradition.

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Eureecka@reddit

We do cookie bake sometime after Thanksgiving (so beginning of December). My friends come over and we bake 7 or 8 kinds of cookies and each take some home. We call it cookie bake and it started 50+ years ago with my mom’s mom and family. My family is mostly gone and far flung so now I do it with friends.

We’re outside Chicago so we go to the museum of science & industry’s trees of the world exhibit every year, and also the China lights festival in Milwaukee and also the Brookfield zoo lights and also Morton arboretum’s illumination. We usually hit a Kriskringlemart too.

Our suburb has the believe house which publishes a map of the best decorated houses so we’ll make hot chocolate and drive around to look at lights. (There’s a trolley that goes around too.)

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AdelleDeWitt@reddit

Baking cookies for the neighbors.

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Squidgie1@reddit

My Dad and Aunt were first generation American with Danish parents. Our Christmases were very traditional Danish, and my favorite parts were dancing around the tree singing Nu er det Jul igen (Christmas is here again) and, when I was old enough, plenty of Akvavit 🤪

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Building_a_life@reddit

Seven fishes paella on Christmas eve. We have a paella pan which we use once a year. It's so wide that it covers all 4 burners, To cook it evenly, we rotate the pan frequently. In our family, Christmas Eve is when the whole extended family gets together.

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gdubh@reddit

Watching Christian’s revel in all of the pagan practices.

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qu33nof5pad35@reddit

No invites in December. I want to be left alone during the holidays.

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Sad_bippy@reddit

My family almost NEVER did any kind of special Christmas dinner. The special meal at Christmas was Christmas breakfast. After we had all opened presents early in the morning, my mom would churn out huge plates of pancakes, blueberry pancakes, bacon, and sausage. We’d all sit at the table, still in our Christmas pajamas, and eat together, talking about which new toys we were most excited to spend the afternoon playing with. To this day Christmas dinners have no appeal to me, I’ll take a Christmas breakfast any day.

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Phoenix_Court@reddit

When I was growing up my family would take blankets and pillows and such into the living room on Christmas Eve and lay around the tree watching the lights, and then just open the presents as soon as we woke up.

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ITrCool@reddit

Mostly just being together as a family. We have so much fun with a full house of nieces and nephews, siblings, spouses, and the grandparents (my folks). It's like a family reunion for a couple days (most of us just get hotels and stay for the holiday weekend).

We enjoy some good foods, board games, open gifts, read the Christmas story from the Bible, and watch a fun Christmas movie together.

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Rockfell3351@reddit

Driving around looking at Christmas lights! A local family puts out a list every year of the best decorated houses within about a half-hour radius. Then a visit to Larsen Light Show

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Jdawn82@reddit

Up until my grandpa died a few years ago, we would get together every year at his house and he’d make spaghetti

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MountainTomato9292@reddit

Chinese food Christmas Eve, and then on Christmas Day sausage balls, coffee with Irish cream, kids opening gifts, staying in our pjs all morning. At noon we go serve lunch at the children’s hospital (I work there), then back home, back into pjs, and watch A Christmas Story.

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mfigroid@reddit

Not celebrating it.

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maomaochong_@reddit

Nog

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ReeMayRe@reddit

walking around at night to see everyone's Christmas lights

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klenneth_@reddit

As someone who hates attention and performing, I love the tradition of not exchanging gifts. My immediate family doesn’t exchange gifts, we usually go to a nice dinner or show and it’s great. Sometimes if there’s something I know someone would truly enjoy, I give it to them as I’m leaving or I ship it to them.

My in laws do secret Santa where we go one by one and watch the one person open their gift and it is very stressful for me.

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q0vneob@reddit

We've phased this out too and its great, I never liked buying gifts just for the sake of buying gifts. I still get stuff for my niece and nephew cause they're kids but the adults mostly dont unless something really strikes one of us.

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GSilky@reddit

Enjoying a nice laid back Hanukkah while the Xmas folks get stressed out.

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goblin_hipster@reddit

Christmas pajamas. When I was a kid we got new jammies every year. Now as an adult I just lounge around in my favorites (I don't wear pajamas anymore, so Christmas is a special occasion).

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tn00bz@reddit

I go on long walks to look at christmas lights.

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mayonnaisejane@reddit

Walnut Jesus.

We had this little walnut shell manger with a cheep plastic baby Jesus laying in it. Jesus came unglued from the bits of straw in the walnut and went missing one Christmas season.

Apparently my mom found him but thought it would be cute to wait till Christmas morning to put him back.

Thenceforth the walnut always remained empty untill Christmas morning.

It was a stupid little bit of plastic and I'm not even religious anymore. But there was something sweet about Walnut Jesus arriving on Christmas morning.

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HarknessMushgrove3@reddit

Seven fish dinner and reading gift of the magi

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getElephantById@reddit

Decorating sugar cookies. Wrapping paper fights.

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unknowingbiped@reddit

Black sabbath blasting before opening presents with the immediate family, (feeding a box to our labrador, he loved shredding them RIP), then later in the day its gathering with the extended family to day drink and have dinner.

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DianneNettix@reddit

It takes forever to open presents with my family because we do them one at a time and the youngest person capable of picking up a box picks who goes next. Is this an excuse to extend the mimosa time? Of course it is! But it's also a lot of fun because we can all crack jokes about the presents.

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quitealargeorangecat@reddit

Chinese food

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tiny_bamboo@reddit

Progressive dinner party on Christmas Eve. So fun!

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SnapHackelPop@reddit

It’s so simple but my mom will make cinnamon rolls, just the Pillsbury ones. We’d pretty much never have them other than then, maybe at a diner once in a great while

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TimeProfessional7120@reddit

Family trip to see the holiday light show at our city's botanic gardens. It is spectacular!

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HonestExam4686@reddit

Im Jewish but ine of the things me and my family did growing up was on Christmas day we would have a BBQ. We would hang tropical lights all over the house, inflatable palm trees, Tiki torches on the lawn etc. The adults would have daiquiris and Pina Coladas. My dad would make a bunch of ribs/brisket/pulled pork in the summer, freeze it, and we would serve it at the party. We would invite family, friends who didn't celebrate Christmas, and to those of our friends that DID celebrate we would invite them to come over after they had their respective Christmas day celebrations with their families. We did it for like 15-20 years or so...it was a really fun time

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tasukiko@reddit

Decorating my home.

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Forward_Tank8310@reddit

In the midst of all the Christmas activity, my family always watches Christmas Vacation, and everyone says all the lines, usually in perfect synchrony.

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ancientastronaut2@reddit

Not having to work.

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SplitOpenAndMelt420@reddit

Channukah :)

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Impossible_Memory_85@reddit

Mine is not talking about Christmas until December.

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Prestigious-Name-323@reddit

Watching Will Vinton’s Claymation Christmas and singing along with the camels.

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tee142002@reddit

I've got two.

For Christmas Eve with my dad's side of the family, I always make old fashioneds for everyone. Got started maybe a decade or so ago, when I started making them one year and my great aunt (rip), who was maybe 100 pounds had like 5 and got loaded. Been a tradition since.

Christmas night after hanging out with my wife's family, my brother in law comes over to our house and we watch die hard. The end of Christmas is Hans gruber falling off of nakatomi plaza.

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backrow_nightmare@reddit

Watch Moonstruck ft. Cher!

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Mfees@reddit

You asking this question in April is why I hate Christmas.

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Not_a_Heptapod@reddit

Not working

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anneofgraygardens@reddit

Same. I take off all the days between Christmas and New Years and it rules.

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Practical-Ad6548@reddit

I make a popcorn garland for our Christmas tree every year. It takes five hours and it gets tangled really easily but I think it’s fun :)

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aleister94@reddit

Watching gremlins with my family

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Fly_Boy_1999@reddit

On Christmas Eve at about midnight we each get to open one present from under the tree.

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filkerdave@reddit

I'm Jewish, so it's always Chinese food and a movie

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brUn3tt3grl@reddit

Honestly Christmas feels stressful to me. Kids school has a lot going on that month to remember, someone is always sick, and there is a lot of pressure to make it feel magical. This past year we kept it lower key, but looking for easy traditions to begin.

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GreenBeanTM@reddit

There’s this place called “bright nights” that my family goes to every year. Seriously recommend googling it.

We didn’t go this year, but there’s also a Christmas Eve church service we went to every year when I was a kid. It’s mostly singing hymns and even tho I’m atheist I still like a lot of hymns so it’s fun.

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GlassFantastic7543@reddit

My family watches the Lord of the Rings trilogy every Christmas Eve. We usually break it up and start on the 22nd or something so we watch one movie a night. I don't even know why or how it started but it's my favorite thing.

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Princess_Parabellum@reddit

Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown! and making tamales.

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jennyx20@reddit

Pie, presents, travel to see friends and family

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Nelsqnwithacue@reddit

Drinking champagne as I help with the cooking.

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throwa1589876541525@reddit

Going to the Christmas tree farm, going on the tractor ride, cutting down the tree, and drinking hot cider in the barn.

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yuukosbooty@reddit

The Nine Lessons and Carols

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10thousndreflections@reddit

Christmas music and decorations

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Pirate_Lantern@reddit

My mom and I always drive around town and look at the different decorations people have.

There is one entire neighborhood that puts up different wooden cut outs of cartoon characters. (Disney, Peanuts, and things like that) They take donations and give out candy canes when you donate.

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