Tell us about your Holiday traditions!

[VortexDragon]

All day Christmas Eve I look at the NORAD Santa Tracker. On Christmas Eve night I set out cookies for Santa and I put a stocking on my doorknob. When I wake up on Christmas morning, I send my mom a message on my phone to tell her I am awake, and then I come outside. I open my presents (i am an only child) and my cats open their presents too. (Well I open them for my cats haha) Then I have breakfast and go about my day. This year I am going to my godfather's house on Christmas day and we are going to his friend's house for a Christmas party.
Also, my mom and grandma (who I live with) are Russian, so we keep the Christmas tree up until January 10th or so.

[farawaytree]

Well, the 22nd is my birthday, and then we unwrap 1 Christmas present each day leading up to Christmas.

[Boxen.]

Well first I bounce into both my mum and my dad's rooms (they like to sleep separately) and wake them up before getting my stocking and opening that usually in my dad's room. We then all get up, showered and dressed before going downstairs to open the main presents that are under the tree. Our breakfast usually consists of chocolate and lunch is the Christmas dinner. We normally just have a snack in the evening if we're hungry. This years gonna be my first Christmas without my sister as she moved out, but we'll see her in the afternoon and all day boxing day .

[Tomura]

I'm going to separate my traditions into three different sections: "Before", "Middle", and "After". I won't tell you before or after what, but just think of it as "Before 2012", "During 2012", and "After 2012", okay? Okay!

Before:
With this, I would usually wake up in bed, beside my older brother and older sister. Occasionally, I would wake up a bit too early, and hear lots of shuffling and stuff, from my mother and father wrapping presents. Sometimes I would lie there listening to it for a while, until I fell asleep and woke up on time. Then everyone would gather near the front door (no one would ever come in, so... there was no problem with it. Besides, the living room was always crowded), where we would see the same tiny fake Christmas tree on the dresser, while in front of the dresser were dozens of brightly colored gifts -- at least four or five a person.

Everyone would open their presents and eat the candy from their stockings. We'd play with our presents until it was time to eat Christmas dinner, and then we'd eat and play some more. Except, of course, my oldest brothers cleaned up first. But afterward, we all had fun and played until it was time for the worst part of Christmas -- bed time. What, did you think I didn't like Christmas? :p

Middle:
Since it's only one year, I'll just explain what happened. The reason this is separate is because it's so much different than the others. Anyway, I woke up, my sister beside me on the bed and my brother on the couch. We played on our laptops like we did every day, until our father got home from doing whatever. The four of us gathered around the living room area, with that same old fake Christmas tree on the table. We were each given a stocking with lots of different snacks and candies, and then we resumed playing on our laptops. Then we got an e-mail from our mother, saying that she was going to drop off the presents at the entrance of the hotel. We went downstairs to greet her, as well as take the large bag of unwrapped presents. Which remained unwrapped.

Anyway, we hugged her and said we missed her. Well, my father didn't because he was avoiding my mother, sitting at the nearby table instead. My step father was probably looking inside the lobby from inside his black truck, hoping for his soon-to-be wife to finish. (He wasn't my step father yet, but he is in the "After"!) Then we went back to our hotel room, opening the presents as well as getting another stocking. We ate spaghetti for our dinner, while our father went out again.

After:
This time period is a bit wavering on how it usually goes. But my grandfather usually visits, we watch the Christmas parade, my new little brother and sister have fun being silly... good news is that we always get a REAL tree for our Christmas tree now! We decorate it with cute little ornaments(but this is the days before Christmas!). And then on Christmas morning, I'm usually very tired, but I manage to wake my sister up and enter the living room. There's usually the large pine tree in the room, flashing bright colors. There's a bunch of presents gathered under the tree (two or three a person) for everyone when we all gather.

There's stockings full of candy, obviously, and then Christmas dinner comes around in the afternoon, after everyone is finished using their toys. Then we all (not the adults) help clean up (instead of just my two oldest brothers doing it all) and then play more. Sometimes my step father and grandfather play chess or card games during the night as well. Anyway, at the end of the day, I'm always actually glad to be sleeping, after a long and exhausting day.

[alpenglw]

Since my parents are divorced and my dad's parents live up in Oregon, every other year I go up to Oregon for Christmas and in the years between we either go to NorCal where my mom's parents live or stay at home. This year, I'm in Oregon.

When I'm with my mom's side of the family, we all get to open one present on Christmas Eve, and have a stocking for basically every living thing in the house (there's one for the fish in the aquarium and one for my newt, and the cats and dogs each have their own individual stockings).

With my dad's family, every year on the drive up to Oregon we take a picture with my sister, step-mom, dad, and I in front of the car (which always has antlers and a red nose or a wreath on the front during this time of year), and we all play White Elephant on Christmas.

I guess those are the most note-worthy things we do. ^-^

[Rizzoli & Isles]

Ah like you Tess & Nick I also celebrate Christmas in the summer here in Australia.

Now usally it is impossible for me to sleep during Christmas Eve, so I have collected a whole bunch of Christmas movies and I'm gonna roleplay until I get to sleep.

On Christmas morning I am always up so early unlike the rest of the family and I wake everyone up...So once everyone is awake we open up our presents and have breakfast. (Mine consist of toast with vegimite and hot chocolate or coffee.. Fair chance I will be drinking coffee) and then we head over to my uncles place to meet the rest of the family and have a good old Aussie Barbaque.. And then start packing because I'm going on a mini holiday for 5 days... Yay...

[xie lian's heart]

Well first things first
I wake up and scream "cHRISTMASSSSSSSSSSSSSSS" which alarms my mom and dad and that wakes them up.
Then, we go to eat breakfast and after that we go open presents.
Seeing as this year I have only 3 presents :c We are REALLY broke this year......

[bear]

We usually wake up semi-early usually because it's pretty hot (Aussie heat mm yea), and we usually have basic breakfast, open one gift each and then head off to Church. And then we head home pretty quick because we usually have to do all the cooking for guests that come over for lunch! Before that though, we open the rest of the presents, and then start cooking stuff. After guests are gone and we have finished opening more presents we usually just chill and do whatever for the afternoon, which might be swim in pool, piggy out on leftovers, etc.

And then on boxing day we usually have/or go to more guests houses/our home and we have lunch again, receive presents. Yep.

[Guest]

Well, Filipinos have this tradition, called Noche Buena where we stay up on Christmas Eve waiting for midnight. On Christmas Day itself, we go house to house collecting money and sweets (much like Halloween, minus the dressups).

[howlingwolfsouls]

Tell us about your Holiday traditions!


Tess and Nick celebrate Christmas on the beach, since it's Summer time in New Zealand!

We start the morning by opening our Christmas stockings to see what Santa has brought us. Then after everyone has eaten breakfast we can all open our presents! We have a big Christmas lunch as a family, and then our friend Dianne joins us at the beach in the afternoon. I usually spend all day eating chocolate and spoiling my appetite for dinner

What do you usually do to celebrate the Holidays?

i give to my family