Because of our traditions, we've kept our balance for many, many years. Here in Anatevka we have traditions for everything...how to eat, how to sleep, even how to wear clothes! For instance, we always keep our heads covered and always wear a little prayer shawl. This shows our constant devotion to God. You may ask, 'how did this tradition start?' I'll tell you! ... I don't know. But it's a tradition! Because of our traditions, everyone knows who he is and what God expects him to do. The holidays are a time of traditions. My family has a few traditions, but they've sort of waned over the years. We still get together on Thanksgiving and Christmas--at least the ones who haven't gone off on a ski holiday or something--and have all the usual fixings for dinner. But there's not much more pomp and circumstance than that. FOCUS: What are your holiday traditions? Have they changed over the years? Have you established new ones? Are they purposeful, like a solemn gathering around the table, or accidental, like Uncle Fred accidentally setting the backyard on fire every year while trying to deep-fry a turkey?
My parents always had a couple aunts, uncles and family friends over and everyone but me (because I was too young) would get hammered. The guys would watch the football game while the women cooked and talked about whatever it is women talk about. I was always the only kid so I would relegate myself to the basement playing video games until dinner time. The Thanksgiving where I would be 21 was coming up and I was super pumped to be able to party with everyone, but as luck would have it my parents decided to move to Florida that year and I've since been relegated to boring Thanksgivings where no one drinks with my friend's family or having to travel to see my parents who are nowhere near as fun as they use to be.
Me and the holidays have only recently reached detente and I finally figured out a way to enjoy Christmas. For the last few years I celebrate Jew-mas. My wife and I go to this ridiculous chinese food place two minutes from our apartment called Kow-Loon, then we see a movie and then head back home. We tell all our friends about our plans and invite them to join us. We usually get half a dozen or so people and that makes for a fun, relaxing, low-key time. The trick to it is that even if no one else shows up, it's a good day so I don't stress about who may or may not be there, it's up to them to show up at any given point if they want.
Besides the usual eating copious amounts of delicious food prepared by my Gram Gram, we have two main Christmas traditions: 1) We watch School of Rock and 2) We play hours of Around the World ping pong. Everyone gets super intense about the latter. As people get eliminated round by round they are made fun of heavily. One time my grandma threw her paddle in a fit of rage and stormed up the stairs after being eliminated.
I've posted before about our family Christmas Eve tradition. We have gathered together at the same home on Christmas Eve for about 50 years now. It was once my grandparents home, and was bought by my aunt and uncle when the grandfolks moved to Florida (go figure). There is always a stomach-busting spread of food. We usually start off with cocktails, shrimp, pepperoni bread, cheeses, etc. Then onto a buffet of more shrimp, sausage and peppers, meatballs, stuffed shells, eggplant parrmesan, baked ziti, chicken, clams, mussels, and eel. Followed by a spread of desserts, consisting mostly of italian pastry and cookies, followed by a big tray of nuts and fruits. Oh yeah - and more cocktails during the whole evening. For 44 years, every single year of my life, I have been at the exact same place on December 24, with basically the same people, minus those who've passed away, and plus the children that my cousins and I have had. And I'll be there again in another month. One day, my aunt just won't be able to handle the effort it takes to pull all of this together, including cooking for two straight days, and for the first time in my life I'll be elsewhere on December 24.
I have such happy memories of Christmas. My Dad's always been a big kid at heart, and Christmas is his favourite day of the year. Every Christmas Eve, Mom makes a huge ham dinner and we watch A Christmas Carol with Grandma - always with the same comments from the same people ("did you see the camera man in the mirror?" "There's no damn camera man.") - and then it's off to bed. The next morning, us kids wake up before the sun's up, and start shaking presents until Mom and Dad shout from their bedroom to "shut the hell up, we're trying to sleep". That's our cue to put on the coffee and the cinnamon rolls, and turn on the tv to the Yule Log! Once everyone's awake and caffeinated, we do a very organized one-present-at-a-time opening, to fully appreciate the bounty, and we place bets on what colour underwear my Dad gets from Grandma. It all inevitably ends up in a wrapping paper fight, started by my father, while Mom panicks that we're going to bring down the tree. Just over a month away... I can't wait!
Very well, where do I begin? My father was a relentlessly self-improving boulangerie owner from Belgium with low grade narcolepsy and a penchant for buggery. My mother was a fifteen year old French prostitute named Chloe with webbed feet. My father would womanize, he would drink, he would make outrageous claims like he invented the question mark. Some times he would accuse chestnuts of being lazy, the sort of general malaise that only the genius possess and the insane lament. My childhood was typical, summers in Rangoon, luge lessons. In the spring we'd make meat helmets. When I was insolent I was placed in a burlap bag and beaten with reeds, pretty standard really. At the age of 12 I received my first scribe. At the age of fourteen, a Zoroastrian named Vilma ritualistically shaved my testicles. There really is nothing like a shorn scrotum, it's breathtaking, I suggest you try it. My family Christmas is actually pretty boring. There's usually a quiet battle between two sides of the family: the laid back relatives like me who like to have a beer and visit, and my churchy, up-tight aunts who think there shouldn't be any drinking during Christmas, and everyone should be playing Christmas themed games, singing carols, and making ornaments. Picture Angela from The Office. That's what they're like. Luckily for me, the laid-back side of the family greatly outnumbers those bitches.
A few years back when four cousins and I had turned 19 we developed the "My dad gets plastared by 2pm" tradition - whenever he'd offer anyone a drink (prior to us becoming legal this was three people) he'd pour himself one instead of ever getting himself a drink independantly. He failed to account for the switch from four people drinking to eight, and still hasn't caught on as to why he has trouble remembering Christmas every boxing day.
Thanksgiving is truly unbeatable. We get stupid drunk before dinner, drink more during dinner, drink liquor in our coffee, drink more beer until we can barely stand up/. Then we start watching Cabin Boy. We fall asleep every year about 30 minutes in, but that's the best movie in the world.
I'll not be with family for Christmas this year, but I think I'll start up a new tradition. The Piping of the Beaver. I'll be standing on my dock, in a toque, and will serenade the beavers in my lake with a few bagpipe medleys. Sobriety will be vanquished.
Our traditions include a Christmas Eve party at my aunt's with appetizers and desserts. Afterwards we open presents one at a time so everyone can watch (this drove me crazy as a kid). Then, I usually go with my dad to Midnight Mass. I'm not Catholic, but I like going just to sing and so that my dad doesn't have to go alone. We sneak back in, rummage around the fridge for more dessert, and go to bed. Christmas Day includes seeing what "Santa" left in our stockings (my mom still insists on putting together stockings for everyone, including my dad), a huge mid-day Christmas dinner, and sitting by the tree visiting. My bachelor uncle has a big party the day after Christmas with more food, drinks, and music. The musicians in the family jam while the others chill. We usually watch Natl Lampoon's Christmas and a few classics. The crowd varies from year to year. Most of my mom's side is pretty small-town/blue collar, and that's okay. My aunt and uncle kind of adopted my brother and me as their grandkids. But, my aunt's son and his family live in east TX and are straight up trailer trash. That makes my immediate family really uncomfortable because we have very little to talk about and sometimes they get into fights/bring up inappropriate things that nobody wants to talk about at Christmas dinner. They've made some really bad decisions and are in less than stellar positions in life. School, work, activities and health are all touchy subjects as the three of them are either unemployed, on welfare, going to junior college in the middle of nowhere east TX, or stuck with a baby they had at age 18. We tend to stay in a hotel when they're coming for Christmas.
Both of my parent's families live with 2 hours, so ever since I have been little, I have had 2 Thanksgivings/Christmases. Thanksgiving Day is at my Uncle's house. I frankly despise this get together. I love my Uncle, but he lives in a tiny house in a crusty neighborhood in the middle of nowhere. Additionally it reeks of old smoke, their smelly and now deceased dog, and new smoke from his chimney of a mother in law. Its my parents, me and my 3 sisters, my uncle, his witch of a wife, his son (who at age 21 is already a manoerxic alcoholic who thinks he is smarter than everyone by using big words incorrectly and out of context and stealing away to his room to spike his drink from a flask), my other awesome uncle, my grandma, and aforementioned nasty mother in law. While some would call it sacrilege, I don't like traditional Thanksgiving food (Turkey, stuffing, green bean casserole), so I don't eat much, sit in a cloud of menthol smoke around people I don't much care for, especially when their redneck neighbors show up and the conversation devolves into white trash palooza. My dad's side of the family, however, is the Saturday after Thanksgiving. We have pork/beef tenderloin, cheesy scallion potatoes, seven layer salad, a complete spread of deliciousness. There are also way more awesome people there including my hilarious Uncles and cousins I consider my friends, not just family members. Needless to say, I enjoy this version of Thanksgiving much more. Christmas is similar. Christmas Day is at my parent's house, so while its still my Mom's side of the family (which for Christmas also includes my estranged alcoholic grandfather who once punched me in the stomach and told me "nobody likes a tough guy"...I was 6), at least its on my own turf so I can go into other rooms and amuse myself. Christmas Eve Day is my dad's side of the family. It always was held at my grandparent's house, but since they've moved into a retirement community, we now hold it in their party room at their building. Its not nearly as fun, especially since when I was growing up it was a giant sleepover with your cousins, but its still decent. The room has a Wii, so competitions break out, usually ending with young cousins dancing and gloating while older people have to be restrained from breaking controllers in a beer fueled rage. And there is a pretty spirited Secret Santa gift exchange in which about half of the people who could have your name put you in danger of a horrible gift like bath herbs or a tortilla press with a cookbook in languages other than English.
Must watch every single year. Christmas Eve used to be at my Grandmas. My Great Grandma would make minestrone soup, which I hated. Being the youngest I'd whine to my Great Grandpa until he'd say, "Let the baby open a gift. She's the baby!" Then I was happy. Having lost all of those wonderful unforgettable people it's now at my Moms. She cooks too much, stresses out way too much and then we open gifts and drink. Christmas Day is all about food, football and stockings. As for Gobble Day, I am cooking and it will be fat, coated with more fat, with a sprinkle of starch and a dallop if sugar. Good times.
At least they don't measure the diameter of hairbrushes and eyeball rubber trees. And I was only single in your dream last night. Don't derail a Holiday Tradition Thread you schmuck.
Generally, my mom volunteers to hold Thanksgiving at my parent's house and invite my douchebag uncle(her brother) every year. My dad hates this, but goes along with it anyway. He realizes that my mom's cooking is far superior to any other family member's and he would rather have good food over being totally happy. I go out and buy a bottle of liquor of my choice to help me get through the dinner. My favorite uncle and I share the bottle because he feels the same way about my mom's side of the family that I do. Around this time my mother accuses me of being an alcoholic because she doesn't drink and feels that anyone who does is automatically an alcoholic. This annual discussion spirals downward and makes my decision to drink a little easier. Its a motherfucker of a catch 22. Oh look, its time for appetizers! At this point, I am extremely hungry and combatively go through the cheese platter and other various dips and pastries while others watch in dismay. Whats that I hear? Oh, its my shit head uncle who just declared bankruptcy for the second time telling pity stories about himself to try and gain sympathy for his chronic bad decision-making skills and other various failures that make up his life. Everyone hates this man, but my mom insists on inviting him to everything. My other uncle, (favorite uncle) and I have a decent buzz going and are openly making fun of the other uncle. I am nearly full on appetizers but I don't care. Dinners ready! We all sit down and shithead uncle immediately starts asking people to pass him food and eating before everyone else has even sat down. Mom is still busy putting food on the table for everyone and shithead is already pigging out. I really hate this man. I switch to whiskey because why not? We have a whole night ahead of us. My other uncle has already polished off a bottle of wine. We are having a blast. I eat until I cannot breathe and then take some more stuffing. Cornbread stuffing with sausage. Shithead decides he is done eating and wants to leave. Most everyone is still eating but he doesn't seem to care. He goes into the kitchen and takes a gladware container. He starts putting food in it before people are even done. He says, "We have to go. Alice is tired and has to work tomorrow." Alice is his wife. Its about 6pm and evidently, she has to work on black Friday. He leaves. My dad is pissed as usual because uncle shithead is, well, a shithead. My dad is a real stickler for being considerate of others. Not really a bad a thing at all. I fall asleep on the couch for a bit, wake up, then smoke a pipe with a delicious English blend on the back porch with the good uncle. People are playing cards and bullshitting at the dinner table before dessert. All is right in the world. I eat about 3 slices of pie with some ice cream and call it a night. I'm not able to go home this year. So I will be cooking for me and the dog.
It's not fair. As per tradition, every Christmas I have to sit around doing nothing until my friends are done with their family business and then get pissed as they list off the awesome shit they got. Since I got nothing, I just get bitter and drunk. Fuck you guys and fuck Christmas.
I'm surprised there hasn't been a mention of Uno yet. That godforsaken card game is very important to my family's holidays. Uno: Our Thanksgiving :: genocide : national socialism. I'm just bitter because my dad always and I mean always wins. My little brother and I have gone so far as to actually cheat and he still beats us. I swear I'm going throw one of these on his grave:
My wife and I have established a few holiday traditions. Thanksgiving we go see her family (see here). The Saturday after Thanksgiving we decorate the house. She decorates inside, I decorate outside (this year is the first year we owned a house, so I finally get to hang lights on our house). I watch Christmas Vacation while putting up and decorating the Christmas tree (artificial tree, as a result of spending 6 years living in apartments that banned live trees). That night, the wife and I sit down and watch Love, Actually (fuck you, it is a guilty pleasure). The Sunday after Thanksgiving, we go to my parents' house for a turkey dinner with my parents, and my brothers, sisters-in-law, and the nieces and nephews. Leading up to Christmas, we watch a different Christmas movie every weekend, usually including Scrooged, and whatever my wife wants to watch (in the past it has been 'How the Grinch Stole Christmas,' 'Charlie Brown Christmas,' and other movies). This is also time I usually use to wrap gifts (my wife can't gift wrap for shit, so the duties usually fall to me). Christmas Eve night we visit my parents house, as Christmas Eve was always their big holiday. Its usually everyone at our post-Thanksgiving turkey dinner, plus my grandparents, and a few aunts, uncles, and cousins, and we have an extended family gift exchange (mostly us getting gifts for our grandparents at this point). More often than not, after the extended family leaves, my close family sits around and munches on leftovers while bullshitting. Christmas Day is a cluster fuck. Until last year, we lived far away, so we stayed the night at family's houses. Last year was our first official Christmas at our own place, and we started a new Christmas routine. We open presents from each other early in the morning (about 7 AM). We go to my in-laws house and open presents with them (around 8 AM) and eat some breakfast. We swing by my brother's house (usually right after they've finished breakfast, which they do before they open presents), where my family exchanges gifts. We then go to my wife's Aunt's house for dinner and another gift exchange, this time with her grandparents and extended family. Finally, we leave there around 5:30 or 6 and head BACK to my brother's house where we get shitfaced and play games (a new tradition that started two years ago and, in turn, has created a tradition of my brothers and I getting each other board or video games that we can play together). We spend a grand total of about 7 hours at our own home between 5 PM Christmas Eve and 1 AM the day after Christmas. Even though it looks like it is crazy stressful, Christmas remains my favorite holiday. Even with all the driving and running around, we have a blast. I honestly look forward to that craziness every single year, even if her family is just this side of batshit crazy and we spend almost as much time driving as we do relaxing. As for how they evolve, I see my Christmas Eve/Day evolving fairly soon. Within a few years, Christmas Eve at my parents house will end up just being the brothers, sisters-in-law, and our kids. At that point, we'll start exchanging gifts on Christmas Eve, and we'll stop getting together Christmas Morning. At that point (we'll probably have kids), my mother-in-law will probably start coming to our house Christmas morning and spending the entire day with us. I will still insist on having a game night at my brother's place, though.
We dont get along with 90 percent of our family, so the holidays are fairly quiet. My mom is crazy and decorates the house for christmas right around mid November. She usually starts nagging at me and my dad to hang the christmas lights at the beggining of November. Christmas eve my grandmother comes over for dinner, (which is always homemade fish and chips) gets hammered (shes a 64 year old alocholic, Ive watched her drink a 40ozer of Golden Wedding in a night) then my brother will drive her home. We watch A Christmas Story then open up our gifts after midnight. My grandparents will call from Quebec, and my uncle will call from Nova Scotia. Then well sit down and watch more christmas movies, my dad will put the turkey on, then call it a night. Christmas morning well wake up and open up our stockings. Well eat a nice breakfast then me and my bro will eaither meet my cousins for a Skidoo ride or well play ice hockey on our pond. Christmas dinner is quiet and well just have our grandmother over and a really good friend of the family. Boxing day well wake up early and hit up the sales in town. After that well get ready and make the trip to my cousins house about an hour away, eat dinner and get hammered with my uncle and dad. The days to New Years are spend hunting and skidooing, then Ill get hammered again on New Years eve. New Years day we head to Port Dover for the Polar Bear Dip and freeze our nuts off. After that is usually laze around the house then go back to work.