Question of the Week: What holiday traditions have been passed down in your family?

Question

What holiday traditions have been passed down in your family?

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Answer 1

My Dad has been getting his children Andy's Candies chocolates for as long as I can remember. He would send me some every Christmas wherever I was stationed while in the Navy. His Mother, my Grandmother loved to play bingo and she would win seven baskets full of mixed chocolates to give to her children's families at Christmas. My Dad would have to hide his from us but a closet isn't the best hiding place and we would sneak in there and eat the best ones.

The town of Steubenville, Ohio is starting a wonderful tradition of displaying a Nutcracker Village for the season, which this town really needs some holiday cheer for the lumps it has taken.

Answer 2

So many things, and some have been left along the way.

Left-overs from my childhood: Christmas begins when the last person is in on Christmas Eve. We had cheese, crackers, kielbasa, pickles, family-recipe shortbread, butter tarts, and drinks Christmas Eve.

Now that I'm older, widowed, I go to spend Christmas Day with my son and daughter-in-law. I used to go Christmas Eve as well, but as I get older, its too hard to make the trip from Halifax to Dartmouth 2 days in a row. I go over early Christmas Morning. Its coffee and presents, TV movies, eating (my daughter-in-law is a wonderful cook!), and just a great day together. She is a musician, so we get to hear her holding forth on her piano, Christmas music, classical, and good old rock 'n' roll. I come home on the bus early evening. I used to donate shortbread, but my daughter-in-law's grandmother's recipe is as wonderful as mine, so I just take butter tarts, and some sort of chocolate slice. I'm so lucky to have such wonderful kids, who see that I have a great day, and send me home stuffed and ready for a nap!

Answer 3

We must be superstitious, but my family and my husband’s family absolutely have to eat black-eyed peas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black-eyed_pea on New Year’s Day. We have always believed it will not be a prosperous year if we do not have a large bowl. 

Answer 4

Christmas breakfast: Fried chicken, biscuits and gravy.

New Year's: Sugar cured ham, black-eyed peas, and cornbread!!! WooHoooooooo!!!! Holidays in the South. Gotta love 'em!!!

Answer 5

When we were little, the freshly-cut tree did not get put up and decorated til we kids were asleep.  What a magical Christmas morning! My "kids", who are now up to 52 yrs old, all get to decorate my tree with ornaments from as far back as WW2.  I can tell which ones I inherited from my mum, they all have elastic hangers rather than metal hooks!  We always have Christmas Crackers to pull at the supper table and everyone wears the silly paper hats.  Definitely have to "bake" Twinkles cookies, which are just sugar and cocoa, mixed with oats and cocoanut and dropped to cool on waxed paper.  Christmas Eve Service is a must; it's the one day of the year I can guarantee my husband will come to Church.  We open the smallest gift when we get home - it's a race to see who can buy a present that's smaller than anyone else's.  Then we eat Tourtiere, a meat pie made following my French-Canadian mother-in-law's recipe.  When she was alive, we sang all kinds of french Christmas carols, and had a shot of brandy to end the night. Merry Christmas to all Wiki members, however you celebrate the birth of Christ.  And Happy Hanukkah to our Jewish friends, whose festival falls about the same time of year.

Answer 6

My family has passed down a Danish tradition Aebleskivers (round pancakes).  The tradition came from my twice great grandmother (Ma) Katie Madsen formerly Sandberg who came to the United States from Denmark (Schleswig Holstein area) around 1890. She is thought to have arrived in New York where she met her husband Fred Madsen. We have faithfully continued the tradition of having round pancakes every year on Christmas morning originally it may have been another time of year. Now my family is vegan so we will need to find a source for very happy unfertile chicken eggs because they require many eggs to make.  I am trying  to convince my animal loving daughter to make an exception for Aebleskivers!

Answer 7

None! Christmas is hype.

Comments

This is a tradition? Did your family say "Christmas is hype"? or did they just go about their business as if December 25 was any old day?

Anyhow, the question was "holiday" not "Christmas".

Answer 8

For so many years Christmas was just me and my Grandma, with the same miserable little fake tree every year......the one redeeming tradition was.....the family recipe Christmas cake and especially Christmas pudding we would make them together....following the old family recipe's in her handwritten cook book.....I added to the traditions with my children, and now we put the fairly decent tree up on the 1st of Dec and we each add 1 decoration every day until Christmas....and I do a Christian version of Hanukkah which starts on 22nd Dec this year and goes for 8 days......so Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah to all.

Answer 9

Here's one that I've always found interesting, and I'd love to know if others have had it in their families:

Stuffed dates: dates with a hard sauce stuffing (similar to butter cream frosting)

I wonder if it's a Cape Cod tradition, as it came down from a great grandmother from Barnstable County?

Merry Christmas!

Bobbie

Answer 10

Since we've been married, my wife and I have usually put up our Christmas tree on Gaudete Sunday, the third Sunday of Advent (so two Sundays before Christmas). It can fall on any date from 11 December to 17 December. This year it was the 15th.

It's a compromise between our cultural traditions and religious ideals. We hold of on the tree for the first half of Advent, but we still put it up before Christmas - on Gaudete Sunday; Gaudete means rejoice, so we rejoice by putting up the Christmas tree after Holy Mass.

More aged family traditions are largely typical to American families. Lots of presents, lots of food. Nothing too unusual, except perhaps that the men of my dad's family are obsessively fond of chocolate covered cherries, and we all exchange boxes of them - and none of our wives like them.

Answer 11

Hiding Easter Baskets, and  xmas stockings are at foot of the bed when lil eyes wake surprised

Answer 12

Opening three gifts under the tree, one at 10:00 PM, 11:00 PM, and one at Midnight, then we go to bed and open the rest in the morning, this tradition started from my fifth great grandfather when he was a child in Germany, he didn’t have that much patience.

Answer 13

My dad always made a nut cake and we would have a piece of it and a hot cup of coffee for breakfast.  My son has now taken over that tradition and makes me a cake every year for Christmas!❤️