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Nontraditional Holiday Traditions
Dec. 24th, 2006 10:43 pmChikuru teaches us about Festivus and invites us to join in an airing of grievances.
Madame X tells us about some of her family's traditions:
In my family we celebrated Christmas for the first ten years of my life. I think the most unusual tradition we had was getting the tree on Christmas Eve and leaving it up for the twelve days of Christmas (until January 6). Apparently normal people get theirs closer to the day after Thanksgiving and take it down much closer to the day after Christmas.
After this we celebrated Chanukkah at home and went to the grandparents' for Christmas. I'm not sure what the traditional Chanukkah traditions are other than lighting the menorah, exchanging (small except in the US) gifts, and eating latkahs (potato pancakes), but I suspect our dreydels were nontraditional. Mom sewed us dreydel-shaped pockets to hang on the mantlepiece into which would go Chanukkah gelt (gold foil-covered chocolate coins) and other stocking stuffers.
In college I changed religions again--to no religion--and continued the tradition of joining others for Christmas, generally at the relatives of a boyfriend or roommate.
Now most of my holiday celebrations take place at pre-Christmas parties with friends and co-workers. I've written about some of these traditions such as singing carols in the stairwell, inviting people from all over campus to a gigantic potluck, and the gift exchange for charity.
Now on the actual day of Christmas, I like to go for a walk on the hike-and-bike trail along the river if nothing else is going on.
Have any nontraditional holiday traditions you'd like to share?
Since I'm being all generic with the term "holiday," I think I may as well mention some good birthday traditions. When my brother's birthday falls during Passover, he gets birthday pie. I think lime meringue pie was typical.
In one family, they always make a little more frosting than is needed for the birthday cake, and that extra frosting is put in a bowl and served to the birthday person with a spoon, thus taking the honor of licking the bowl to whole new heights.
Madame X tells us about some of her family's traditions:
Silent night, holy night
Santa Claus comes tonight
Salted peanuts and chocolate ice cream
Trick or treat on Halloween
Hurrah for the pumpkin pie
Hurrah for the 4th of July.
In my family we celebrated Christmas for the first ten years of my life. I think the most unusual tradition we had was getting the tree on Christmas Eve and leaving it up for the twelve days of Christmas (until January 6). Apparently normal people get theirs closer to the day after Thanksgiving and take it down much closer to the day after Christmas.
After this we celebrated Chanukkah at home and went to the grandparents' for Christmas. I'm not sure what the traditional Chanukkah traditions are other than lighting the menorah, exchanging (small except in the US) gifts, and eating latkahs (potato pancakes), but I suspect our dreydels were nontraditional. Mom sewed us dreydel-shaped pockets to hang on the mantlepiece into which would go Chanukkah gelt (gold foil-covered chocolate coins) and other stocking stuffers.
In college I changed religions again--to no religion--and continued the tradition of joining others for Christmas, generally at the relatives of a boyfriend or roommate.
Now most of my holiday celebrations take place at pre-Christmas parties with friends and co-workers. I've written about some of these traditions such as singing carols in the stairwell, inviting people from all over campus to a gigantic potluck, and the gift exchange for charity.
Now on the actual day of Christmas, I like to go for a walk on the hike-and-bike trail along the river if nothing else is going on.
Have any nontraditional holiday traditions you'd like to share?
Since I'm being all generic with the term "holiday," I think I may as well mention some good birthday traditions. When my brother's birthday falls during Passover, he gets birthday pie. I think lime meringue pie was typical.
In one family, they always make a little more frosting than is needed for the birthday cake, and that extra frosting is put in a bowl and served to the birthday person with a spoon, thus taking the honor of licking the bowl to whole new heights.