How Do You Celebrate Christmas?

[David In Indy]

It's almost Christmas! 

I thought it might be interesting if everyone would tell us how they celebrate Christmas in their families. I know there are people here from all over the world, and the way people celebrate the holiday can differ greatly from country to country. I'm sure many people would find it very interesting if others would tell us about some of their Christmas customs and memories. I know I would!

How do you celebrate Christmas where you live? Please tell us about some of your special Christmas memories!

Here are a few of mine....

I have always been a fanatic when it comes to Christmas. I made it a point to always decorate our house, inside and out, with as many lights and decorations as possible. After I landed my first real job at Hickory Farms back in 1978, I spent my entire first paycheck on Christmas lights. I decorated the entire roofline of our house with lights (the big ceramic ones). I covered every bush and pine tree in the yard with lights too. I lined our driveway and sidewalk in lights, and we had electric candles in every window! In fact, our house was so well decorated (much to the dismay of both my parents) WIBC, a local radio station in Indianapolis actually flew their helicopter over our house and announced it on the radio!

My family is of mixed heritage (Lakota Sioux, English, Dutch and French) and we always tried to incorporate the customs of those countries into our Christmas celebrations. Since my mother was 1/2 Lakota, we had many wooden and straw angels on our Christmas tree dressed in Sioux costumes. I use to pull those ornaments off the tree and play with them. In doing so, I broke many of those ornaments, and I haven't seen one for years now. We would also smudge the Nativity Scene with a small bundle of sage just before we went to bed on Christmas Eve.

My mother was also Creole, and we observed the Creole custom of lining our driveway and sidewalk with "Luminaries" to help Santa Claus find our house on Christmas Eve night! For many years, we also placed a Yule log in the fireplace, but we never lit it. Dad was afraid of leaving a fire burning in the fireplace unattended. So we would place holly and ornaments around the log instead.

My Great grandfather was from Arnhem Holland and we celebrated Sinterklaas day when I was young. Starting with the last week of November, I tried to be on my best behavior because I knew I could expect a visit from Sint Nicolaas. On Sint Nicolaas eve, we would sing "Sinterklaas liedjes" (Sinterklaas carols) and fill our shoes with a handful of straw and a shiny apple for Schimmel, Sinterklaas' beautiful white horse (mom would never let us use her carrots for some reason). The next morning our shoes would be sitting next to the fireplace filled with candy, small gifts and normally a $5.00 bill! Sinterklaas himself would also visit us. He would stand outside our front door, ring a handbell and then enter our home. After questioning us about our behavior during the year, he would toss a handful of candy and coins into the air and quickly leave. Only later did I find out Sinterklaas was actually my grandpa.

Quite often we would drive to Cincinnati on Christmas Eve, where we would visit relatives. After attending Christmas Mass the next morning, we would drive back to Indianapolis for our "private" Christmas.

I still remember the day I found out about Santa Claus. My sister and I were playing downstairs in the basement and she tossed a ball into my dad's office, located next to our playroom. As I walked into the office to retrieve the ball, I noticed some presents hidden inside a closet. When I opened the door and looked, I noticed the tags on many of the presents which read "To David From Santa" and "To Susan From Santa". Of course, I spent the next Christmas searching the house from top to bottom so I could find my Christmas presents ahead of time and peek inside of them! After a few years of this, Mom started hiding our Christmas presents at the neighbor's house! Mom was ALWAYS thinking one step ahead of me!

What are some of your best Christmas memories? How do you celebrate Christmas where you live?

[mvansand76]

My Great grandfather was from Arnhem Holland and we celebrated Sinterklaas day when I was young. Starting with the last week of November, I tried to be on my best behavior because I knew I could expect a visit from Sint Nicolaas. On Sint Nicolaas eve, we would sing "Sinterklaas liedjes" (Sinterklaas carols) and fill our shoes with a handful of straw and a shiny apple for Schimmel, Sinterklaas' beautiful white horse (mom would never let us use her carrots for some reason). The next morning our shoes would be sitting next to the fireplace filled with candy, small gifts and normally a $5.00 bill! Sinterklaas himself would also visit us. He would stand outside our front door, ring a handbell and then enter our home. After questioning us about our behavior during the year, he would toss a handful of candy and coins into the air and quickly leave. Only later did I find out Sinterklaas was actually my grandpa.

Oh that's lovely! We never really celebrate Christmas apart from going to see family and having fondue on Christmas day. I have so many good Sinterklaas memories though. I remember my mom and dad would tell us on 'pakjesavond' to look upstairs and we would walk into our rooms and see that everything in our room was a mess and the window was open and in the middle of the room would be two large bags of presents, they were brought there by Sinterklaas' not so tidy helpers. The 'schoen zetten' was a thing we did a few nights before 'pakjesavond', and in addition to setting one of our shoes in front of the door or the fireplace, we would sing songs for Sinterklaas before going to bed. The next morning there would be candy mice and small chocolate initials in it, as well as a handful of 'pepernoten' (tiny gingerbread cookies). Nowadays we make 'surprises' (pronounced SUHRPREESUH), we wrap the presents we get for each other in a special way, for instance we make a huge dog or cat or fantasy creature and we hide the present in it. Or we wrap it in different layers so the receiver of the present has to wade through layers and layers to get to the present.

[David In Indy]

Melissa! Thanks for posting this. I have so many happy memories of Sinterklaas from my childhood. I remember Zwarte Piet always scared me too. I never did see him (I never saw Schimmel either), but I remember what my grandpa told me would happen to me if I was naughty.

Thanks for telling us about your Sinterklaas memories Melissa!

Those "surprises" sound like a lot of fun too! 

Edit: Ooops! I just noticed a typo!

[dot-matrix]

We didn't have a lot when I was a child, but I always knew that my parents gave me all that they could. I knew they supported me in everything in I did. They were always there when I needed them. And, last but not least, I knew they loved me for who I am and all that I could be.

        I can remember going to the store one Christmas Eve and getting a pair of cowgirl boots. I must have been about 6 or 7 years old at the time. That was the only present frivolous present I had that year, but I didn't care. Just having a tree with lights was enough to make my brother and me happy.  I grew up on a small horse ranch in Montana and my Dad raised quarter horses for a while.  At Christmas he would hitch up this old sleigh if it wasn’t too cold and we would ride that the Church on Christmas Eve after dinner at Grandma’s house.  I always remember how warm and cozy it felt to come home in the sleigh piled high with blankets, singing carols.  Then coming around the bend in the road and seeing our house with the lights on and the lit tree in the window.  The house would be warm and snug and smell like the delicious things my Mother had been baking.

        One year times must have been really hard, because there weren't any store bought presents. My Dad made me a doll house and my brother a bookcase and Mom knitted us sweaters and made fudge and peppermint lollypops.  We always had a tree because my Dad and my brother would go out into the woods and just cut one.  I remember going to my Grandmother's house on Christmas Eve that year. Her tree was all decorated, and there were presents under it to all the family members. A short time later, my Mother told us she had to go home to get something she had forgotten. While she was gone, my brother and I decided we needed to put more presents under the tree, so we found some empty boxes and wrapping paper. We spent quite some time wrapping those boxes to put under the tree. In each box we would put a note promising a chore or some such thing, so it wouldn't be empty. When we came out to put the presents under the tree, boy did we get a surprise. Santa had been!!! There were toys and new clothes just for us. We knew Grandma had done, but we never said a word.
 
        Another memory is the gift I gave a teacher one year. I was in the second grade and ALL the children in my room were bringing the teacher a gift. I knew that I just had to bring her something too or I would die. I also knew things were tight at home and there was no money for such extra’s.  So I emptied my piggybank, looked under all the cushions on the sofa and in the bottom of all Mom’s old purses. I also collected old soda bottles one Saturday afternoon and turned them in for the deposit at the gas station. (really dating myself there ) Still all I could raise was 95 cents.  Now this was 1966 after all and 95 cents went further in those day but it still did not lend it self to elaborate gifts.  I went into to the five and dime and found that all I could get were 4 white linen handkerchiefs.  I was so upset, handkerchiefs, they were boring! They weren’t even the pretty ones with the embroidery.  But my Mama told me they were fine.  After supper that night she spent hours teaching me how to embroider little pink rose buds in the corner of each one.   I was less than satisfied with the results, it  was VERY obivious that some dumb kid had done the embroidery.  But my Mom was certain everything would be OK.  The next day when I went to school, I was nervous to give my teacher her gift. And I became even more so as I watched her open all the other gifts, I just wanted to run and hide. I realized that my gift was nothing but a tackily embroidered piece of junk compared to the others. I should have left them alone, now I had ruined them and she would never want them.  But, when she opened the box, you would have thought I had given her fine Egyptian cotton hankerchiefs embroidered by cloistered nuns. My teacher knew that I had made it, I'm sure, but she was a very gracious lady and told everyone how beautiful they were and then gently tucked one in her sleeve. I was on cloud 9.  God Bless Mrs. House.  I still remember her with love.


Nowadays, I try to spend Christmas with family no matter where we are, we try to get together.  This year my Dad and Bob and I are going to North Carolina to be with my brother and his family.   For me, family and love are what Christmas is all about.

[David In Indy]

Thanks for posting Dottie!

It sounds like you have some wonderful Christmas memories; the kind of memories money can't buy. Those are the best ones, in my opinion! 

[Ellemeno]

These are beautiful, beautiful stories.  If I may, I'm going to move this thread to the holiday forum, where I think it will get good holiday attention.

Reading your posts, David, Melissa, and Dottie, I was getting more and more emotional, so that by the time Mrs. House opened her beautiful handkerchiefs and tucked one in her sleeve, the tears spilled down.  God bless us, every one! 

 

[RouxB]

Oh so tough but here goes.

I have very mixed feelings about Christmas. We were not particularly monied-okay, we were not at all monied-but my mother always bought a nice tree with our meager funds and it was beatifully decorated. But something was always missing. My sister and I rarely had presents-my little brother pretty much got everything primary because my father had the money (my parents divorced when I was 10) and he doted on his only son.

My mother has a huge family and our Christmas dinners were fabulous-loud and rowdy and fun. Even with, I never attached to the holiday.
As an adult I try to add some festivity to my holiday self but it is a challenge.

 

[David In Indy]

These are beautiful, beautiful stories.  If I may, I'm going to move this thread to the holiday forum, where I think it will get good holiday attention.

Reading your posts, David, Melissa, and Dottie, I was getting more and more emotional, so that by the time Mrs. House opened her beautiful handkerchiefs and tucked one in her sleeve, the tears spilled down.  God bless us, every one! 

 

Thanks for moving this thread for me Clarissa! Ah... the power of an Administrator! 

Stupid me posted this thread in the most inappropriate folder I could find. 

[David In Indy]

Oh so tough but here goes.

I have very mixed feelings about Christmas. We were not particularly monied-okay, we were not at all monied-but my mother always bought a nice tree with our meager funds and it was beatifully decorated. But something was always missing. My sister and I rarely had presents-my little brother pretty much got everything primary because my father had the money (my parents divorced when I was 10) and he doted on his only son.

My mother has a huge family and our Christmas dinners were fabulous-loud and rowdy and fun. Even with, I never attached to the holiday.
As an adult I try to add some festivity to my holiday self but it is a challenge.

 

RouxB, those Christmas dinners of yours sound like they were a lot of fun!

Thanks for telling us about your Christmases when you were a child. 

[ednbarby]

I have mixed feelings about Christmas, too, mostly because I'm an atheist and I feel like a hypocrite celebrating it, and also because like RouxB, my childhood Christmases were lacking.  In my case, Dad left when I was two or three.  My Mom would go and pick up presents from him to us on Christmas Eve, but he would rarely actually make an appearance himself.  I have memories of my mother being visibly upset (Christmas and all the holidays in general were very important to her, and she never got over their break-up) and my brothers being none too thrilled that Daddy didn't show up yet again.

Christmases got better in my teen years - I lived with my father, but he would let me spend every weekend and holiday and half the summer with my mother.  My Mom was working during those years and loved to decorate her tree and buy my brothers and me really thoughtful and heartfelt presents.  Her Christmas dinners were always awesome, too.

I didn't really lose my religion until I was in my mid-20s.  It's always been a mixed bag since then - my husband and I would go be with family every year and take part in their traditions, but we didn't really decorate or exchange gifts ourselves.  Now that we have a son and he is at prime Santa age, we did up a tree and some wreaths last year and this year entirely for his benefit.  It's lovely when seen through the eyes of a happy child.  But we're trying not to overdo it too much because we don't want to have to explain to him someday why it is that we pull out all the stops when in fact we don't believe in any of it.  I've tried to rationalize it that I'm celebrating the birth of a great and obviously inspirational and influential man.  But we try to keep it low-key because it just doesn't feel right to all out for it, you know?  Same goes for Easter.