How do you do Xmas?
 

Ok so its the 24 over here in Sweden now wich mean it's Christames eve!!! ^.^

But I was wondering how do you celebrate christmas in your house?

Im my family its just the four of us Mother, Father, My kid brother and yours truly. And we wacth "Donald Ducks Christmas" ( A must see show in Sweden ) then we have coffee and enjoy the christmas feeling... As my brother goes throug his presents lika chainsaw. We dont have a Santa we just put our presents under the tree
Then later we eat our traditional "Jul bord" wich is a table filled with many diffrent types of food like meatballs, "prins korvar" wich is a kind of small sausage, ham, herring and many other things ^_^ I love it all!

After that we just spend the evning together and have a pleasent time and we might drink some "glögg" wish is a kind of mulled wine you might say, served hot and very good :D

Ok so thats my Christmas in post so now post yours! =^.^=

Merry Christmas You All!!!!

I've never celebrated a holiday in my life, not even a birthday :heh:

Personaly while I like getting the time off for Christmas, it pisses me off that EVERYTHING is closed, even 7-11 :mad: . I think they should at least keep 7-11 open.

In my family we go to my grandparents house, spend time there, and go home. Then we gather around a table of cookies and other assorted foods and open presents.

Actually, there are stores open on the 25th. Or atleast there are near my parents house. We needed butter to make cookies on year, and didn't have any so we went out looking for some. Took 3 hours to find a stick. But Walgreens, Drugmart, and a few gas stations will be open.

we eat, eat, eat, eat....and eat. Oh, and my relatives comes to my house to chat a while until it gets late. It is actually fun.

I always go to my Grandma's house, where i meet my cousin and aunt. Sometimes my dad comes over from Colorado with his family. We have a table too with lots of different food and goodies to munch on. When my father doesn't come down, we usually just open presents and chit chat since we are all over 21 and no kids. Always have to have pots and pots of coffee for us to drink. Also plenty of sparkling apple cider too. It's a good time and we catch up on what's going on lately with our lives and in the world of things. Gonna be difficult this year though, found out that our great grandpa has terminal cancer throughout his body and has a very short time to live. So we made sure that great grandma and great grandpa are coming down this year. Seeing as how it will probally be our last with him. It will be a hard time not to be sad while we are there with him, but we want to show him that we will have a great time with him still around.

in america, during this time of year, most people are either celebrating christmas, chanukah, or kawanza.

Christmas: people say it’s supposed to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, but it’s really celebrated by almost everyone who is and isn’t Christian. Also, people complain that Christmas is really just commercialized and achieve more of the image of just gifts, holiday parties, and having to spend a few days with relatives you don’t really get along with.

Chanukah: some people make fun of them cuz they seem to only get shitty little presents for 8 days, and this celebration seems to be more solemn than your jovial Christmas.

Kawanza: some people joke about how African-Americans just made this holiday up, so they didn’t have to celebrate “The Mans” holiday.

well, thats how it is in america, do you guys have more than 1 holiday during this time of year?

Sounds like an interesting theory. Well, it is in the border between theory and reality...










EDIT: This are facts!

Ofcourse, evryone here celebrates what their religion "tells" them to celebrate. In my place since were christian we do it christian style (None of us actually belive though :rolleyes: ) but Jew's celebrate Chanukah, Never heard of anyone celebrating Kawanza tho. People celbrate what they want to :)

Ok well seeing as you asked for it :p... In general I guess we don't do much different from any other semi-Christian-oriented family. In the details I'm sure we have our own little traditions I don't notice -- well it has always just been like that so why would I ;).

For me it all starts when we put the food in the oven and my mother "drags" (kind-a) us to church at midnight, Christmas-Eve ... Although for me these days it tends to be less dragging and more from habit -- it doesn't "feel" the same without "experiencing the ceremony of midnight mass"; so we all goes along to that. I don't really follow any faith myself :heh:; just go with the flow in the family...

That is followed by drinks, traditional snacks -- mince pies, etc -- and bed. Long lay in and up for a normally light family breakfast. This is followed by small exchange of gifts and a probably excessive lunch. The afternoons are rather random -- sometimes friends come around, sometimes we each go to friends (all but one of my siblings are 20+); other times we just sit around the house, play games, chat and the like.

Evenings are subdued affairs calling family to thank them and wish them good health followed by quiet drinks and a light meal. Probably a DVD too... I take this time to pursued my family to experience some of the better anime films I have recently acquired on DVD :D. As a family we tend to go to bed late on the day but I personally tend to spend even longer awake online, sending good wishes to friends further afield...

But enough about me... what I am more interested in is how people with other, non-Christian religious backgrounds spend their time? People have started to elude to it in posts before me but no real run down of what goes on? Chanukah / Hanukkah -- how is it spelt? I'm showing my ignorance here but, heh, I'm still interested??

Well, we wake up, open stockings, put on x-mas music, open gifts,
go to [my] grandmother's and wwatch my cousin open [or rather eat and tear] her gifts [only 1y ^^]

Then we go to one of two, great grandmother's or grandparents for x-mas dinner [they alternate each year]

Not too much excitement, but it is nice :)

Xmas is really just an occasion to open more beer :innocent:

Every Christmas, my relatives come to spend a week with us. Though we don't have any special Christmas dishes, we'd rather have a big dinner together with Chinese food :p After the meal, all the grown ups spend the night talking to each other, drinking some tea and having some snacks...while all the children ( including me :p ) spend the night playing video games, cards, etc...

Ahh!!! I love that cheerful atmosphere! ^__^

ermmm we just have dinner and apart from my little sister opening pressies its the same as any other day ^_^ but this year we are inviting my friend over coz his mum is on holiday ^___________^
Seasons Greetings All!

A lot lot of food ^_^ my weight gain shoots up on XMas same goes for Turkey Day though...

And I get a whole day off from practicing piano/violin/basketball/test preparation ... T_T so happy....but its only the 23rd here....1 more day.... I'll finally have time to attempt beating Zelda Majora's Mask in 3 game days...after getting the the oricana back ^_^;; (It came w/ the Gamecube lol XD XD even if I already have it on Nintendo...)

But then again I have high school exams on the way so tomorrow I might still get stuck in my room studying ~_~ stupid stupid school...

Nothing much... Sadly but true, we used to put up a xmas tree during every xmas. But now, it has died out. All we do now is to change xmas presents and wish each other merry christmas! :heh:

Well this year is a little special for me. I just bought a ring 4 my girl and a cute Gaara plush will be giving it to her (representing me of course). I like the whole "LOVE" Gaara tattoo. That would be my Christmas, empty pocket and corniness. :heh:

I just give presents to my friends and relatives and that's mostly it. Our family doesn't really do anything to celebrate Christmas.

I'm with FinFangFoom on this one. I really don't celebrate holidays. They tend to annoy me more and more as the years go by, but that's probably just me being the bitter person that I am.

Holiday season pretty much equates to a drunken stupor for me.

let's see.. normally exchange presents with friends before christmas eve as we all end up spending christmas eve, christmas day and boxing day with our families.

Christmas eve I end up spending far too much time in church (ended up at both services last night, 3 hours total.. oh yeah, fun).

Normally I end up staying up insanely late (last night I was up till 5am chatting with my one friend/girlfriend). And get woken up much much earlier than I would like (was woken up at 7am this morning by annoying people yelling and telling me to get out of bed).

Then my family opens our presents just after everyone gets up, have breakfast together which basically never happens otherwise, and just relax and enjoy the day.

Same here.
No traditions.