FT: Holiday Traditions - Forum

Hailee
International star

Hailee wrote:

Claire wrote:
On Christmas Eve my dad always took me and my sister to see a movie so that my mother could wrap our gifts without us bothering her. Then things changed a bit as we got older and my mom got sick. My dad did most of the wrapping AFTER he took us to the movie.

When I worked at the movie theatre, our tradition was free with my employee movie pass. It's a long story, (that's in my blog if anyone cares) but my mom got help and she got better a couple years ago. Now, the whole family goes together to the movies. My sister and I bring our boyfriends. I try to buy the tickets in advance. It's kind of an 'easy gift' for me to just show up with the tickets. Nothing to wrap lol.

The last few years with my mom joining us have been the best. She was nervous about being included, because it was a "dad and girls" tradition for like 20 years, but after her being so ill for so long we're just so happy to include her in anything. This year I'm voting for Star Wars, because my mom really loved the last Star Wars.

A couple years ago I went through all the movies that were in theaters on Christmas Eve to try and compile a list of the movies we saw. Some were better than others. Some of them in the early years my dad absolutely HATED. He HATES cartoons, but he kept taking us to see them anyways.

Here's my list.

93 dad thinks we probably started after 1993
94 probably miracle on 34th st remake, chitty chitty bang bang or lion king. we can't recall.
95 toy story
96 101 dalmatians w real people
97 flubber
98 a bugs life
99 stuart little.
00 the rugrats in paris
01 jimmy nuetron
02 lotr (dads guess) or harry potter
03 lord of the rings
04 the polar express
05 Rent
06 the pursuit of happyness
07 Sweeny Todd
08 Slumdog Millionaire
09 Up In The Air
10 True Grit
11 Hugo
12 Flight
13 American Hustle
14 Big Eyes (THIS IS THE YEAR MOM JOINED US FOR THE FIRST TIME!!!!)
15 Star Wars FORCE AWAKENS
16 Passengers

I can't wait for Christmas Eve this year. We have other traditions. But this is the one I really care about.

awe this is a lovely tradition, I'm so glad that your mom was able to start joining you guys <3
I hope you guys go and see the new Star Wars too

(I get to go see it on the 15th)

Adelaide
Karaoke star

Adelaide wrote:
I love how our mornings go down, we slowly get up and have breakfast while listening to music and once everyone is done we get to go open presents !!

Private
World famous

Claire wrote:

Hailee wrote:

Claire wrote:

awe this is a lovely tradition, I'm so glad that your mom was able to start joining you guys <3
I hope you guys go and see the new Star Wars too

(I get to go see it on the 15th)

I've already talked to mom. We kind of have let her pick the movie since she joined us. It's Star Wars this year for sure. I told my boyfriend we could see it twice if he want's to see it sooner. Star Wars is to Doug as Anime is to Claire.

Hailee
International star

Hailee wrote:

Adelaide wrote:
I love how our mornings go down, we slowly get up and have breakfast while listening to music and once everyone is done we get to go open presents !!

I love taking it easy during the morning, I know my boyfriend and his family try to rush everything so they can rest later on in the day. They wake up at like 5 and everyone opens a gift at once, it's hectic.

Hailee
International star

Hailee wrote:

Claire wrote:

Hailee wrote:

Claire wrote:

awe this is a lovely tradition, I'm so glad that your mom was able to start joining you guys <3
I hope you guys go and see the new Star Wars too

(I get to go see it on the 15th)

I've already talked to mom. We kind of have let her pick the movie since she joined us. It's Star Wars this year for sure. I told my boyfriend we could see it twice if he want's to see it sooner. Star Wars is to Doug as Anime is to Claire.

same with my boyfriend, it was his birthday earlier in the month and I bought him tickets for opening night

Hailee
International star

Hailee wrote:
boop :3

Godis
Minister of Pop

Godis wrote:
Did you think of the plot before you were less?

Hailee
International star

Hailee wrote:

Godis wrote:
Did you think of the plot before you were less?

I'm not quite sure I understand what you mean (:

Pastelice
National star

pastelice wrote:
We have two christmas trees, where one is in our house and another is in this house we call the "gameroom". We eat Thanksgiving in there, as well as Christmas. That's where the family gathers to unwrap presents. Anyways, the little kids decorate the tree in the house, and I decorate the big gameroom tree. Whoever wakes up first on Christmas gets to wake everyone else to go to the gameroom, and then we unwrap presents. We then have homemade french toast (YUM!!) and start cooking for Christmas dinner. Everyone comes over (if they weren't with us when we unwrapped presents) and we eat. It's great.

Hailee
International star

Hailee wrote:

pastelice wrote:
We have two christmas trees, where one is in our house and another is in this house we call the "gameroom". We eat Thanksgiving in there, as well as Christmas. That's where the family gathers to unwrap presents. Anyways, the little kids decorate the tree in the house, and I decorate the big gameroom tree. Whoever wakes up first on Christmas gets to wake everyone else to go to the gameroom, and then we unwrap presents. We then have homemade french toast (YUM!!) and start cooking for Christmas dinner. Everyone comes over (if they weren't with us when we unwrapped presents) and we eat. It's great.

sounds like a fun time! You have me craving french toast now LOL I'll see if my mom can make some for us this year

Godis
Minister of Pop

Godis wrote:

Hailee wrote:

Godis wrote:
Did you think of the plot before you were less?

I'm not quite sure I understand what you mean (:

I mean if you believed in Santa Claus when you were younger in the age?

Private
National star

scoff wrote:
My mom and I usually spend an evening together wrapping christmas gifts and drinking wine. We've done it since I was like 13, and this year I don't live at home anymore and she called me today and she was like "how am I gonna wrap all the presents this year?" and I was like "you know, mom, I can come over for a few hours, share a bottle with you, and we can wrap the presents like we do every year even though I've moved out" lmao

Private
National star

scoff wrote:
Also in Sweden we celebrate christmas on the 24th, and people usually open their gifts after Donald Duck on tv, so around five pm or so. In my family, however, we always did it the other way around.

I guess when you have six kids like my mom does, you learn that it's better to let the fun come first because it won't leave you with six impatient little shitheads.

Glowed
World famous

glowed wrote:
(i'm so late o well)

christmas here is celebrated on 7th january, and it's the most important and loved holiday
the traditions are mainly connected to the countryside because serbia is a very behind country compared to the world and half of the people still live in the countryside, and people started moving to towns for real only around the beginning of 2000's (of course, it's not like that in the whole country, just saying from the stories i know)

so, the christmas eve (or badnji dan), the man who's the head of the family goes to the forest really early in the morning and cuts a young oak tree called badnjak (but yeah, nowdays people in cities just buy them in markets..)
there are often large bonfires in churches when badnjak is being burned

(edit - first we go to our grandparents in the countryside and do this, then come home to our other grandparents and do it again)

on christmas eve night (badnje veče), the elders make the kids go to the room while they put straw on the floor and put down candies, walnuts, money etc
the oldest man imitates a hen, and the kids search for the goods in the straw while imitating little chicks
^ i've always found this part super embarrassing because i'm the oldest among the kids, and they're little and can embarrass themselves and i'm old and serious and stuff hahah

then we have dinner, but the eve is a fasting day, so there's no meat
(but each year we wait for the clock to strike 12am so we can eat the pork //well, they do, i dislike meat cx)

ahh the christmas day
the thing i hate the most is getting up early
we greet each other with 'Hristos se rodi' and 'Vaistinu se rodi'
my little brother is a 'položajnik' at our cousins' house down the street, so first we go there, he does his thing, gets some presents, then we eat there
we go home, and eat, again
the fun thing is the special bread -- česnica, which grandma makes. inside you put a coin, piece of meat, and a little part of badnjak // i've seen people put walnuts and some other things too, but i'm not sure what's the meaning. anyway, the bread is cut and everyone takes a piece and who finds the coin is believed to have the most luck for the whole year (it's been 15 years and i never found it. ever. sad..)

then we go to the other grandparents, do the same again cx
and that's all we do on the first day !
christmas is celebrated for 3 days here,
on day 2 friends and naighbours visit each other, and on day 3 the straw is taken out of the house
and the third day is our slava, which means more food and people again

basically, i gain like, a ton each january

ahh this was long but so fun to write, i'm super excited for christmas !!

i dislike serbia as a country, but our traditions are just amazing
here's a link if you want to read a bit more ; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serbian_Christmas_traditions

(now i can't wait for easter bc it's even more fun ha)

Glowed
World famous

glowed wrote:
bump