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littleironhorse wrote:mimitrek wrote:Nirvanacat13 wrote:
Mimi, what religion/holiday do you practice around Christmas time…..*don’t shoot* I was just curious, ’cause I’ve in the last few years experienced Chanuka, and it’s quite different from the normal Christmas think……This goes for all the rest of you too.
I’m not religious at all…but I do get together with family for Christmas and give gifts and things like that. I think the part I like best about Christmas is the baking! 🙂 I usually have a couple of weeks off (my company has a week of holidays, and I usually take another week of vacation) so its one of the few times during the year that I have a lot of time to bake! I also love Christmas decorations too and I have tons of them…the only problem is that I usually end up not having time to put them up before Christmas and then I end up not decorating at all, because it seems like wasted effort to just do it a couple of days before Christmas. And then if I do decorate sometimes it takes me forever to take everything down. A few years ago I put up my big artificial Christmas tree with a lot of decorations and that was in the living room till April… 😆
My Holidays are pretty much like Mimi’s, not religious at all, but lots of food, decorations, gifts and family gatherings! And I always take 2 weeks vacations during the holidays… It used to be because the company I worked for closed for 2 weeks every year, but even after I changed jobs, I kept up the tradition… Haven’t worked during the holidays in almost 10 years!
Ha ha! Me too! Its a very good tradition… 😀Our Christmases are always special in a couple ways. For one, we are religious, so we have Advent services and church on Christmas Eve, Christmas, and St. Stephen’s Day (the 26th, which is a holiday around here). Then we’ve got European traditions. On the 6th is St. Nicholas Day, when Samichlaus goes around, sometimes with a Schmutzli who carries switches for the bad kids, and tells everybody how they’ve been the past year and what to do better next year. It’s still fun for my youngest brother; for the rest of us it’s just cool for all the chocolate and candy.
In Europe Christmas is Heiligabend, so they open their gifts and all that on the 24th. We open our stockings then after church.
On the 25th we celebrate the real Christmas with a service, and then – every single year for the past 5 – we head out for the daily aerating.
Explanation: The family business involves building apartment complexes. Come winter, the new buildings are heated. So all the plaster and fixatives don’t get weak and damaged, the warm air needs to be let out, together with all the dampness and humidity. So every day we head out to building site and basically open and close windows. (Btw, it pays grandly.) This year the site has 520 apartments, so we’ll be at it for about 5 hours a day. Gah.
With that job out of the way, we all come home tired and happy, have a grand meal that Mom prepared while we were gone, and finally, when that’s all done – ideally around mid-afternoon, then we get to open our presents.
All in all there’s no rush, you feel excited all day, and I find it a very good system.We are not religious either, we will be going down to my BF’s mom and stepdads again this year. We have a party at his aunts and uncles with supper and presents, then usually open the our presents all on the 24th. Then on Christmas day we will be going to a movie, it is our little tradition, we go to the new big sci-fi fantasy flick, this year it is Eragon. Then the 26, in Canada it is also a holiday, called Boxing Day and there are all kinds of sales on, so I may go shopping, who knows. It is also BF’s birthday so we will do some stuff with him that he wants to do as well. I have a week off ths year, but normally only take 4 days maybe.
That sounds like alot of fun, GB. A good family day. My family always opened presents on Christmas Eve, but it was because she could not handle the begging of 5 children. We got stockings on Christmas morning. I make Justin wait till Christmas. I think its more fun to see him open presents while still in pajamas. Every year I tease him and tell him he has to wait untill after breakfast. (We dont, of course) Its a riot.
I don’t know about my brothers, but personally I usually like waiting for something better than having it. The fun’s all over then. Besides, wh’d want to go aerate once everybody’s got a dozen gifts calling for use now that we know what they are? The only person who always begs two weeks in advance to open his gifts is my 7-year-old brother. I don’t know how old Justin is, but I can imagine he’s the same way, so it makes sense why you let him open his right away. 🙂
Well then! It’s mandatory you come for a visit sometime. We already know who can keep Justin occupied!
Hey I wanna come too, I have a 7 yar old as well, a boy too, Alex is his name. With the 3 of hem we should be able to be free for a good fair time.
Ummm where am I coming too? I have to find out flight costs from my mother in law. Then save the money. 😉
Zürich Unique International Airport. And right now flights will be pretty expensive, I think. Christmas is a bad time to travel.:)
ruffian wrote:We are not religious either, we will be going down to my BF’s mom and stepdads again this year. We have a party at his aunts and uncles with supper and presents, then usually open the our presents all on the 24th. Then on Christmas day we will be going to a movie, it is our little tradition, we go to the new big sci-fi fantasy flick, this year it is Eragon. Then the 26, in Canada it is also a holiday, called Boxing Day and there are all kinds of sales on, so I may go shopping, who knows. It is also BF’s birthday so we will do some stuff with him that he wants to do as well. I have a week off ths year, but normally only take 4 days maybe.
HAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!! You go shopping on boxing day! You are either very brave or completely nuts! (no offense) You couldn’t PAY me enough to go near a store between Christmas and the New Year!.
I’m a Scrooge. Bah Humbug.
Well, not really. I just get VERY annoyed at the stupid, bad, pop singer Christmas music that takes over the radio. There are hundreds of amazingly good Christmas songs for choir, traditional and new, and every single one of them so much better than some wanna-be wailing their version of Little Drummer Boy, but they NEVER play the real Christmas music, just the Britney Spears mangled version. Ugh.
Other than that, I love Christmas! Candy and food and presents and all that stuff, love it! And I am fairly religious, the Christmas service is always a rather good one, (usually involving some of that good Christmas music I don’t get to hear anywhere else during the season.)
And the past several years I’ve been involved in performing Handel’s Messiah, speaking of music. That is one of the greatest peices of music ever written, and I love singing it! Though I won’t be doing it this year, sadly. Just having moved here, I don’t have my musical connections anymore, and I haven’t heard of any local performances.
Ooh, SPark! I love the Messiah, too! Though it was ages before I understood anything being sung… I don’t generally like much of Händel’s big long pieces besides that, but his short ones are great to play on the piano. His Bourrées are evergreens.
As for crappy Christmas “music” on the radio – I always switch to my CD collection around this time of year.
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