Thread: Tell us your favorite holiday traditions!

I am interested in hearing everyone's holiday traditions from our world wide TI family. We have people from so many unique walks of life and I think it would be quite interesting in hearing how different people celebrate. If you have pictures please share them!

My family celebrates Christmas in the traditional American way - lots of rich food, a beautifully decorated tree, and lots and lots of presents. Every Christmas Eve, at our annual party, we let the children pick out a present to open. This year one of the kids got a miniature video camera from Sharper Image and spent the evening playing the paparazzi by video taping the entire event. There's lots of eggnog and laughter and usually at least one drunken family argument. Good times. We also go to Christmas Eve Mass to celebrate the immaculate conception of Christ.

Christmas morning is spent eating a huge breakfast with eggs, bacon, sausage, pancakes, raisin bread and sticky buns. Then we give each other our gifts and finally check the stockings. Around 1 pm we all crash, exhausted. Its really fun and I love it.



What about your guys? What are your traditions? Please lets preserve the integrity of this thread and not turn it into a spam fest.

Our family does absolutely nothing on Christmas Eve, but once the 25th of December comes along, we'll start our morning off with Dim Sum (around 10:30 am) at whatever Chinese restaurant we happen to think is good at the time. Afterwards, the majority of the older ladies will prepare our dinner while all the kids/teenagers/what-have-you go play ice hockey. I don't know how or why this tradition started, but we've been doing this for as long as I remember. The game is not always competitive, but it can be.

We don't open our gifts until 4 or 5 - usually just before dinner. This year the majority of the adults opted to play White Elephant Gift Exchange while only spending money to purchase gifts for the children. We spend our holidays with a fair number of family members so it can get pretty expensive when you're purchasing gifts for EVERYBODY. Anyways, this white elephant game was actually the highlight of my Christmas. Over 20 people participated and it was ridiculously awesome trying to steal presents from other people. I recommend this to everyone for their next Christmas get-together; it's much more entertaining than your average Secret Santa.

Dinner is pretty much like any other festive holiday. You have the turkey, the stuffing, the mash potatoes, your veggies, your gravy, your sweet-sweet desserts. Oh, and you can't forget all the liquor and alcohol. Yes, it's happy time before the New Year's.

After dinner, we all gather in the living room and just have conversations about whatever, but my sister decided to turn on the karaoke machine and everyone had a blast. Since people were either buzzed or drunk, everyone participated. Sang me some Backstreet Boys and N'Sync. It was hilarious.

All in all, this was a great Christmas for me so hopefully it was just as amazing for all our T-I members.

Well here in Greece we decorate christmas tree although our tradition is to decorate a ship.At December 24th we open our presents after dinner but first we cense the whole house.Some families open their presents at January 1st.At December 25th all the family gathers and we it either turkey or duck or chicken,which are served with potatoes or with rice mixed with che***uts.And of course there is planty of wine :D.I forgot the most important and funnier part.In the morning of 24th all kids go from house to house saying Christmas carols and everyone gives them candies or money!!That's how we celebrate Christmas in Greece :)

My family isn't that big about Christmas (we are Korean American). It seems that every year we try to do something different because that's what happens!

This year we visited Korea and went to a ski resort which was pretty fun.

We have a funny tradition ( baba marta) when we put red and white strings on trees and ourselves :D