What do you celebrate (if you do)?

[graceanne]

What holiday do you celebrate this time of year, if you even celebrate? And what's a tradition your family has?

 

[graceanne]

We celebrate Christmas. We always have some pasta dish for Thanksgiving (cause we don't like turkey and I don't like ham). Then we read the story of Jesus' birth, and everyone gets to open one present. Then after much weedling, yelling, and coercing the kids go to sleep and Santa sets up the living room then goes to bed. In the morning my father and mother in law meet us here, and we open the rest of the presents and then have bisquits and gravy and scrambled eggs for breakfast. Then we have an open house.

 

[Essene]

My family celebrates Christmas, and therefore I do by default. I'm seriously considering looking into converting to Judaisim though, but I'll have to let that thought sit in my head for awhile before I start seeking out more information.

From a spiritual standpoint, I do my own pagan thing where I take stock of what I have and remind myself to be thankful.

Christmas is fun when you're watching your children enjoy it, and when the real heart-felt meaning is observed and felt, I love it; but otherwise it doesn't make for a happy time of year for me, and the commercialism disgusts me.

Our celebration changes every year. It used to be very structured, but this year it's just a small group.

There have been two deaths in the family this year, and my sister is currently on a ferry to Alaska.

*shrug*

 

[myinnerslut]

hannukah. it doesnt have a set date since it is based on a lunar caleneder. according to the lunar calender, it begins the 25th of kislev.

 

[Netzach]

I should be celebrating chanukah but I don't. I'm remarkably non-practicing, in fact I often forget and overlook most holidays. And this one is not a biggie, if you REALLY want to see guilt, see me tucking into a bagel and going oh SHIT it's pesach. Not because I think God will be mad, I'm not entirely sure he's there to give a shit, just that I feel like, you know, if several million of us got smoked over things like this in the 40's I can stand not to eat some fluffy bread for a week plus.

I do Christmas at my husband's house - if I weren't married, I don't think I'd be doing anything except sleeping in and loudly cursing everything being closed.

Honestly my stepdad died this time of year when I was 18, and that was kind of the end of holidays being a big deal for me. I find myself thinking of him a little, but I'm shitty at grief and more with a kind of perplexity.

My husband and his sister could not be more different. They lost their mom several years ago and my sister in law really scrambles for some tradition, something of what it was, my husband doesn't really want to do any of it at all - I think he's like I am and it's just kind of over as it was, but it's really nice to be with my father in law, my father in law's new partner, and with her, doing enough of whatever it is so she's not totally put out. It's not a bad time, but we probably won't be sad when the house is sold and it really has to roll over into something new.

 

[VelvetDarkness]

I celebrate Christmas but I don't actually believe it has any connection to the Birth of Christ. The date is wrong, most of the traditions are pagan and if Jesus is the intelligent minor deity that I believe him to be, he probably sees the holidays as a dichotomy of misguided but well meaning worship vs naked consumerism and the poverty of the majority of planet Earth.

I am cooking this year and we are exchanging presents etc but I think I am somewhat jaded. If it weren't for Master I really wouldn't bother at all. Christmas is a big family time for him and I'm more than willing to replicate that for the two of us and ensure he has a good time. Not least because his parents are a lot further away since he moved to live with me.

 

[bobshortforkate]

None. I'm a halfhearted, lazy Buddhist who doesn't do Holidays. Husband is an atheist who couldn't care less beyond swinging by his mother's on the 26th for some leftovers.

 

[Homburg]

Christmas. I'm not religious, and, as was said above, Christmas is mor epagan than Christian. For me it is an excuse to give presents, and I just love how much fun my kids have, Otherwise? Meh. Whatever.

 

[SubKekiLee]

I celebrate Christmas... and It is a great tradition for me... In fact thats why I am still awake now as I need to wrap"santa" presents and get then downstairs but needed to be at church tonight with 4 generations of my family... WOW...

 

[EmpressFi]

We celebrate Christmas, but I also celebrate Winter Solstice.

Usually, it's a big family thing here. My family are mostly in Ohio, but Malin's are all within 12 miles of our house so we get together for a big meal and more presents. It's fun seeing the kids open the presents and watching them grow from year to year, not just physically but into their own beings.

I used to be gung-ho, but it seems it's lost something since I found out I cant have children. It seems I spend most of the holiday missing my parents who died in '81 and '92 and reflecting on my life to really get "into the Spirit".

I can look past that point that the early Christian church picked Christmas as a date because it coincided with an existing festival and celebrate anyway. I keep my own Solstice traditions for me, leaving out food outside, lighting a candle, etc..

 

[DomWharfsBitch]

I celebrate Christmas....Had no routine but to open on Christmas eve til 2 years ago when we got some kids in the family...I lost my mamaw on Christmas Day 15 years ago today. Today we will be having Breakfast, open gifts and then eat dinner....

 

[Xelebes]

You forgot Yule!

I celebrated Christmas.

 

[m wisdom]

We celebrate Yule here with a bit of Christmas symbolism superimposed. A star at the top of the Christmas tree and some angels for decoration. We used to have a baby Jesus too but no one want to take the time to set up his crib anymore. But it's all for decoration, don't think anyone in my family puts any other value into it.

 

[DVS]

I celebrated that I didn't have to deal with my uppity sisters, this year. Thanksgiving, they pissed me off and maybe I pissed them off, too, because they didn't give me any convenient dates and times to meet for Chirstmas present exchange.

So, one sister suggested I leave my presents to them outside my back door and they would come by and pick those up and drop off their presents to me. It's a nice little arrangment that I'm celebrating today.

I celebrated Chirstmas day alone, watching TV and relaxing with my cats. I might even get out some catnip for the cats to get high on tonight or tomorrow. It's too late tonight. I want to watch them, and now I've got to get some sleep. Tomorrow morning will be just fine. They don't know Christmas is today. It could just as well be tomorrow, if you're a cat.

 

[professorquixote]

day of three kings (it's a Spanish thing)
around the beginning of March (i forget the exact day)
You get 3 gifts (symbolising the gifts of the 3 magi)

 

[graceanne]

I celebrated that I didn't have to deal with my uppity sisters, this year. Thanksgiving, they pissed me off and maybe I pissed them off, too, because they didn't give me any convenient dates and times to meet for Chirstmas present exchange.

So, one sister suggested I leave my presents to them outside my back door and they would come by and pick those up and drop off their presents to me. It's a nice little arrangment that I'm celebrating today.

I celebrated Chirstmas day alone, watching TV and relaxing with my cats. I might even get out some catnip for the cats to get high on tonight or tomorrow. It's too late tonight. I want to watch them, and now I've got to get some sleep. Tomorrow morning will be just fine. They don't know Christmas is today. It could just as well be tomorrow, if you're a cat.

I remember that joy. The year me and K decided to stop spending Christmas with our families . . . I had gotten to where I hated the holidays. It took a few years, but I'm back to where I love the holidays. It's relaxing, it's fun, and I DON'T HAVE TO DEAL WITH THEM. I mean, yeah, we have the open house but it's rare for anyone to come to it, and if they do it's at MY house, on MY terms. I can go in another room and read if they start their crap. Plus they don't stay very long.

 

[marieR19]

I celebrate Christmas, in that we have the tree and "Santa" comes and all that, but I don't go to church or do anything religious.

When I was young, me and mom and dad opened presents on Christmas Eve, because Christmas morning was the big family gathering and eating and present-opening at the grandparent's house. Mom and I still open a few presents on Christmas Eve. This year I went to the movies with my step-dad while mom cooked and did last minute present preperation on Christmas, then we opened presents and ate.


Heather

 

[LadyAria]

I celebrate gluttony and gross consumerism (a.k.a Christmas).

 

[jadefirefly]

I celebrate Solstice, inasmuch as I remember to celebrate ANY holiday, which is to say if I didn't have the time of year hammered into my head so heavily in December I'd probably remember it a day late. I'm good at that.

I buy gifts for my family and close friends, that's about as celebratory as I get. I call them christmas gifts when I give them to people who celebrate christmas. *shrug* And I complain when I don't get snow on christmas day.

 

[Blushing Bottom]

Ditto to that, but I add a bit of obnoxious family hopping and a hang over to top it all off.

I celebrate gluttony and gross consumerism (a.k.a Christmas).

 

[ShyGuy68]

This article describes how we celebrate it in Denmark

 

[Miss Diva]

Well we are Italian Catholic and we went to midnight mass. The choir was amazing.

My nephew fell asleep the minute he sat down.

I did nto put up a tree this year and only lights. Also we are not big on presents. The kids get what they ask for. My nephew wanted ice skates and we got them together and he made me wrap the box.

Other than that we over eat, over drink and under exercise...

 

[h_i_s]

graceanne's poll left me having to choose between Hanukkah and Christmas. I say no fair having to pick one over the other.. and choose 'other'.

 

[Luna_Wolf72]

I celebrate Winter Solstice for me..and Christmas for my children.

My kidlets all attend church with their dad..I happen to be pagan and proud of it...BUT my celebrations are private and NOT for family (or others)...

So I chose the solstice option but in reality, I actually celebrate both.

 

[graceanne]

graceanne's poll left me having to choose between Hanukkah and Christmas. I say no fair having to pick one over the other.. and choose 'other'.

Oh. Sorry.