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[spiffy]

Well, since a lot of people on this forum are from all over the world, I thought it would be interesting to see how everybody celebrated their holidays (some people celebrate Hannukah, others Xmas, others Yuletide...) and what you did exactly in your house to celebrate it.


Here in Spain - the South of Spain at least - kids don't often get their presents on the 25th of December, so although the 24th and the 25th of December are always days off, the holidays always start any day between the 19th to the 23rd. This year unfortunately the hols begin on the 23rd.

In Spain most kids (not me ) get their presents from the 3 wise kings on the 6th of January. The 3 wise men are called in Spanish "the Reyes Magos" (the wizard kings), and they are Baltasar, Melchor and Gaspar, and they come on Camels. My friend Elisenda, whose parents come from Catalonia (and speak Catalonian, which is somewhat similar to Spanish, because I can understand it) said that in Cataluña Santa Claus did not come, but someone they call "El Tío que caga los regalos" (the uncle/guy who pooped the presents O_o)

In the streets, for Christmas, they often hang up these lights over the roads, and they take them down in about February (they are too lazy to take them down at the end of Christmas ^_^)
Right now too, we are setting up the Christmas tree, so I might have some pictures very soon. No Tamagotchis dangling off them though!

[webster04]

My family does the usual holiday things, putting up lights around the house, decorating the inside and putting up the artificial tree (i like real ones better though). And the week before Christmas eve my dad makes chex mix and the night before makes his homemade cinnamon rolls (mmmmmmmm, my mouths watering allready!). Christmas eve we go to my families house in Knox and go to mass for a hour and eat a big spaghetti dinner followed by opening 1 gift (which is always a good gift).

Christmas day though i always wake up too early, and after being awake for a few hours my parents wake up, we eat rolls and my dad has to have his 2 cups of coffee before we even go into the living room to open our stocking and gifts.

After opening everything we clean up the wrapping paper and head off to my grandma's house for dinner and more gift opening and there ya go! My disfunctional family tradition!

[Elana]

My family celebrates Hannukah. The family comes over, and at sundown, we light the Hannukiah, which is a nine-branched candelabra.

Here's a fairly traditional-looking one, although they can come in almost any design:


There are eight nights of Hannukah. On the first night you put a candle in the rightmost branch, and one in the middle branch. The middle candle, the one that is taller than the others,  is called the "shamash" and it is used to light the rest of the candles. On the second night you light two candles on the right, on the third you light three, and it progresses like that until on the eighth night, all eight candles are lit.

Then we eat traditional Hannukah foods, which are by far the most delicious holiday foods of the Jewish calendar. It is traditional on Hannukah to eat lots of foods fried in oil, so we eat these unbelievably delicious potato pancakes called latkes ("LAT-kuhs"), and for dessert, we eat doughnuts with fruit filling called sufganiot ("soof-ga-ni-OT"). Yummy yum yum yum!

Kids get presents from their parents/older family members for each night of Hannukah, but that's just a recent thing to compensate for living in a world saturated with Christmas (so that Jewish kids don't feel sad/embarrassed/jealous when their Christian schoolmates get all sorts of loot and they don't). I still get gifts from my family. My mom just loves giving me stuff. But they're little things like cookbooks or gift certificates to a bookstore. My grandmother and aunt just give me cheques.

There are a lot of Hannukah songs that some families sing together after dinner, but my family is not very good at keeping traditions. 

Tonight is the fourth night of Hannukah, so we'll be lighting four candles tonight (plus the shamash).

In my family, my extended family only comes over for one night, when we have a Hannukah party and light the candles all together. All the other nights, it's just whoever's at home.

[spiffy]

Oh, thats really cool Elana! That was so interesting to read! ^_^

Plus, you reminded me of the typical Spanish Christmas food - it is great!

Mantecados They are made of "manteca" and are absolutely delicious. They can come in all sorts of ways, may have a lemony taste, or a winy taste, or be traditional, but they often have sesame seeds on top, and always delicious to eat.

Turrón Special thick chocolate which will have almonds or cherries in, and is often quite tasty, and only sold round Christmas.

Roscón de Reyes Best of all! It is a big - huge - donut type thing whose centre has a lot of cream inside and the top has lots of glazed fruit. The main attraction with it is that you cut it up in pieces, and you have some bits throughout January (they can last nearly a week - they are so big) and inside some of those pieces there is a little figurine for the "Belén" (most Spaniards build a Belén, which is a recreation of Bethlehem, but since my family is not very religious, we don't do that) and whoever gets it gets good luck during the year. There is also a black eyed bean inside, and whoever gets that must pay next years Roscón de Reyes, hehe.


Another typical thing is the "Cabalgata", where a load of "coaches" go round the street with people tossing sweets for all the kids. They have lots of lighta and are very pretty, like carnaval, but with sweets. ^_^  The streets end up very sticky afterwards!!

And on New Years Day, most Spaniards (but not me) sit in front of the TV at 12am waiting for the 12 bell rings announcing the new year, and they have 12 grapes. With each bell chime, they eat one grape, so you have to eat them very fast! For the occasion, many brands sell these grapes already ready with no skins on and no pips in so people can swallow them quicker. =) I Prefer doing it with chocolate or rice grains though.

And that is the Spanish Xmas gastronomy!

[Bojko]

Christmas at home used to be alright, we used to put the decorations up in the first weekend of December, and my brother and I always saved the tree till last.

Christmas morning we had to wait till Mum got up and ready before we moved into the loungeroom. I can remember a few Christmas mornings, the ones as we got older weren't as memorable due to silly reasons. But I always looked forward to them.

We used to have Christmas lunch at about 2pm after Mum slaved away in the kitchen while my brother and I were hanging out with our Uncle Arthur. Sometimes family dropped by every now and then.

I remember one Christmas we hosted the family get-together. My only memory from that was my cousin standing on the chairs inside and shouting "DIG IN, GENERAL" just before we ate. (General was the nickname of our Uncle Arthur, and he eats sooooooo much without gaining a kilo, I swear he could probably eat the entire contents of the McDonalds menu and still want seconds... I wish I had inherited such a talent  ).

In the evenings we all just relaxed. My family really isn't one for traditions, and Christmas lunch was the only time we ate a meal together in the entire year, so it made it more special. We used to have ham, pork and chicken, roast potatoes, mashed potatoes, salad oh.. and always the cheap but entertaining Christmas crackers with paper hats inside. =)

[TigerLily013]

Well for a few years, my mother and myself would go over to our friend Toni's for an open house party, where all are invited. Since Toni isn't doing an open house party this year we're going to hamilton to see rest of my family on mom's side and going to the Mandarin. Mom even got a camera to take pictures since we don't get to see everyone again for a little while.

[ginjirotchi]

We celebrate Christmas every year! It is one of my families all time favorite holidays. This year my aunt, uncle and two cousins came down from Ontario for Christmas. On Christmas eve both sides of my family come and visit and there is lots of activity going on. Then on Christmas day all my aunts, uncles and cousins go to my grandparents house for lunch and then they all come back to our house for dinner. We still have several family christmas parties to go to before Christmas eve even comes. Lots of parties to go to I really love Christmas

[alicetwasbrillig]

On Christmas Eve we go to my Grandparent's house with all the family (My dad's side) and open presents while my grandpa is dressed up like Santa.  Then we drive to where my aunt lives and we go to midnight mass at the Abbey (which sounds boring but is pretty cool because they do all the monk chants and stuff).

On Christmas (after opening our own presents under the tree) we go to someone on my mom's side of the family's house.  This year we are going to my grandpa's cousin's house (Sounds like a very distant relation but I just call her aunt)