Christmas traditions and habits

The friendliest place on the web for anyone that enjoys cooking.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.

jusnikki

Head Chef
Joined
Aug 8, 2011
Messages
1,022
Location
Mississippi
I was wondering who has traditions or habbits they do every Christmas.

A few years ago me and my eleven year old daughter started building a gingerbread house. It's just the kit you get a WallyWorld but we now do it every year. And we make Christmas cookies.

I also don't feel like it's Christmas if I don't watch "A Christmas Story" on tv. You know they do a marathon every Christmas season so it's hard to miss it. It was one of the movies my oldest sister took me to see when I was a little girl. She's passed on now, so it makes me think of her. I always remember how she laughed through that movie... It's still hilarious to me.
 
Last edited:
I loved the Christmas Story, for at least the first 20 times I watched it and I still see lamps at stores and think they should label the box 'fragile'--that's italian. :LOL:

Mom make swiss cheese fondue every Christmas Eve.

for a while we had a chinese auction for the gifts, as a game to play amongst ourselves.

I have to make (with my son) cookies and bars for Christmas, and appetizers for New Years. Tons of leftovers to take us into January.

This year we may take the boys (all grown) and their girlfriends to a 'dinner and a movie' at a theater that has food served during the show. We'll have to go out afterwards to have time to 'chit chat', I'm looking forward to it.
 
For me the must see movie is The Bishops Wife.

A box of Guylian Belgian seashell shaped chocolates filled with praline cream.

I also have to fix a full cooked breakfast with Christmas fruit bread instead of toast and a shot of bourbon. The bourbon comes from a southern cookbook author named Edna Lewis and her book Taste of Country Cooking. Her descriptions of food in the old south always makes me want to start cooking.
 
My friend Mary always wanted to have mixed nuts coated in chocolate and butterscotch melted chips. She didn't like their smell but loved their taste and she made them every year. The smell reminded her of Christmas.

Aunt Bea, a shot of bourbon for breakfast, this sounds like a fun tradition!
 
For me the must see movie is The Bishops Wife.

A box of Guylian Belgian seashell shaped chocolates filled with praline cream.

I also have to fix a full cooked breakfast with Christmas fruit bread instead of toast and a shot of bourbon. The bourbon comes from a southern cookbook author named Edna Lewis and her book Taste of Country Cooking. Her descriptions of food in the old south always makes me want to start cooking.

I love Edna Lewis and her cornbread recipe is the only one I make. Sooooo good.
 
I loved the Christmas Story, for at least the first 20 times I watched it and I still see lamps at stores and think they should label the box 'fragile'--that's italian. :LOL:

Mom make swiss cheese fondue every Christmas Eve.

for a while we had a chinese auction for the gifts, as a game to play amongst ourselves.

I have to make (with my son) cookies and bars for Christmas, and appetizers for New Years. Tons of leftovers to take us into January.

This year we may take the boys (all grown) and their girlfriends to a 'dinner and a movie' at a theater that has food served during the show. We'll have to go out afterwards to have time to 'chit chat', I'm looking forward to it.


That was funny ..."Frah gee lee", lol.
 
Tourtiere. It fell out of favor with my family for many decades. Then I bought a cookbook from Avon that had recipes from Avon reps throughout the world. One was for Tourtiere. I didn't even know how to spell it, and the pies my grandmothers made weren't that great. I used that recipe as a starting point, and my husband fell in love with it. It was hugely successful when I took it to a Christmas midnight brunch at a local Hawaiian friends' place. I've lightened it and refined it, and now my sisters call me to guide them through making it, because everyone likes mine best. I think the best is when the two women who I'm named after had it for Boxing day brunch and were absolutely delighted with the taste of their childhood.
 
We always took ribbon and tied it to our floppy eared poodle's ears on Christmas morning, he looked so festive. He also had a wreath that held the small dog bones, that was his present.

My partner always buys special treats for the cat, he wants the cat to have a good christmas too!

My dad always made french toast after we opened presents. Then we would eat ourselves into a candy coma from the stuff in our stockings.

I have yet to make any traditions of my own, I just have a hard time getting into christmas the last few years, I usually don't have any christmas spirit until christmas eve.
 
We always took ribbon and tied it to our floppy eared poodle's ears on Christmas morning, he looked so festive. He also had a wreath that held the small dog bones, that was his present.

My partner always buys special treats for the cat, he wants the cat to have a good christmas too!

My dad always made french toast after we opened presents. Then we would eat ourselves into a candy coma from the stuff in our stockings.

I have yet to make any traditions of my own, I just have a hard time getting into christmas the last few years, I usually don't have any christmas spirit until christmas eve.


I used to get a small cat "pin-up" calendar and hang it up in the corner over the water dish and food bowl. The cat did not seem to care but everyone else got a kick out of it.
 
For me the must see movie is The Bishops Wife.

A box of Guylian Belgian seashell shaped chocolates filled with praline cream.

I also have to fix a full cooked breakfast with Christmas fruit bread instead of toast and a shot of bourbon. The bourbon comes from a southern cookbook author named Edna Lewis and her book Taste of Country Cooking. Her descriptions of food in the old south always makes me want to start cooking.


I love that book. I will have to pull it out again. Thanks for the reminder.:chef:
 
Christmas eve- kolaczki, mohnstrudel, lekvarstrudel, orechovnik, smoked sable, sturgeon, and whitefish, sauerkraut soup with mushrooms and egg barley, and oplatki.
Christmas day roast goose, dumplings, pickled red cabbage, and stewed apples.
 
Must watch the original "A Christmas Carol" with Alistair Sim, and "Love Actually," along with "A Christmas Story." Christmas eve snack buffet after Christmas carol services at the local church.

Christmas morning casserole brunch, and hopefully see the kids.
 
When I was growing up if times were tough and money was short my Grandparents would say that it was going to be a mitten Christmas. (It never was!)

My Mother and Grandmother always knitted mittens for our church as did all of the other ladies in town and they would put them on a "mitten tree" in the front of the church. At that church service each kid in the church would go up and get a pair of mittens and a scarf.

I wondered how that tradition came about so I started to google. I could not find the origin but, I did learn that December 6th is national mitten day. Did any of you folks have this custom growing up or do you know how it started?
 
We always watch Christmas Story too! Christmas Eve is a great munchie night with cheese, crackers, summer sausage, crab meat, shrimp, smoked salmon, and anything else we put out to munch on. I also bake all sorts of Christmas candy and cookies. In fact I have been doing a lot of that today. One night we usually drive around to look at all of the lights too! Christmas day I fix two ducks and we pig out on those.
 
chopper said:
We always watch Christmas Story too! Christmas Eve is a great munchie night with cheese, crackers, summer sausage, crab meat, shrimp, smoked salmon, and anything else we put out to munch on. I also bake all sorts of Christmas candy and cookies. In fact I have been doing a lot of that today. One night we usually drive around to look at all of the lights too! Christmas day I fix two ducks and we pig out on those.

Chopper! There you are!

We missed you!
 
Our tradition, if you can call it that is to be the First to call Mom. They ganged up on me and made the rule that we couldn't call before 6 am...I was working nights:ROFLMAO:
 
speaking of tying things to pets on christmas, i remember one year when one of our cats got his head stuck through the loop handle of a shopping bag while being too nosey, then got scared and freaked out and started running wildly through the house trying to get away from the evil bag.

he went crashing through all of the holiday nick-nacks that dw puts out, through the tree knocking off dozens of fragile ornaments, crashing into lamps and up and over furniture until he finally freed himself and hid under the bed.

it was a disaster scene, but we all had to laugh at the dumb cat.

and now we make sure there are no cat traps around on christmas morning. :cool:


as far as traditions go, about the only one i can think of is that we open gifts on christmas morning, not on christmas eve. i've been able to get up just before anyone else does and go get the video camera set up next to the tree every year. that way i've been able to record the joy and wonder on my son's face as he comes into the living room to discover his cookies and milk gone, and then all of the gifts under the tree.

then we proceed to open the gifts until we're knee deep in spent wrapping paper, and we find one of the cats snooping around, looking to create another disaster.
 
speaking of tying things to pets on christmas, i remember one year when one of our cats got his head stuck through the loop handle of a shopping bag while being too nosey, then got scared and freaked out and started running wildly through the house trying to get away from the evil bag.

he went crashing through all of the holiday nick-nacks that dw puts out, through the tree knocking off dozens of fragile ornaments, crashing into lamps and up and over furniture until he finally freed himself and hid under the bed.

it was a disaster scene, but we all had to laugh at the dumb cat.

and now we make sure there are no cat traps around on christmas morning. :cool:


as far as traditions go, about the only one i can think of is that we open gifts on christmas morning, not on christmas eve. i've been able to get up just before anyone else does and go get the video camera set up next to the tree every year. that way i've been able to record the joy and wonder on my son's face as he comes into the living room to discover his cookies and milk gone, and then all of the gifts under the tree.

then we proceed to open the gifts until we're knee deep in spent wrapping paper, and we find one of the cats snooping around, looking to create another disaster.

You shouldn't make me laugh this early in the morning, ruins my wake up, grouchy routine!:ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO:
 
Back
Top Bottom