120 replies to this topic

[Sweeney]

We don't have any traditions yet... but I'm sure we shall begin a few this year.

[Adam]

My immediate family is pretty plain when it comes to 'traditions' - our small family of 5 (mom, step-dad, 2 sisters, and myself) would gather to my parents house, help my mom cook, get all fat and lethargic, 'cuz turkey, and leave. Now that both my sisters are married, and I'm off in a different state, we all just kind of do our own things. This year one of my good friends from work is having me over to his family's house - that's one great thing about being in the military, people you meet are often in or have been in your situation of being alone, and they invite you to their home. I feel pretty blessed.

 

Oh geeze now for Christmas! My real dad is 1 of 9 children. Each of my aunts/uncles have between 3 and 6 children, and most of them are old enough to have their own kids...most of my cousins are horn-dogs and have spawned more babies. When our family size consisted of just my parents/aunts&uncles, the count was at 38 grandparents, kids and grandkids. Since said spawning occurred - the count of family members on my dad's side is 53, and we all gather in my grandparent's ranch style house for a gigantic meal. Oh...and one more tradition I forgot, this one mainly suits all of their alcohol addictions - all the of age kids take a shot of my grandpas liquor of choice and start yelling for no reason.  

 

My step-dad also comes from a family of 9 and their tradition is pretty much the same as my biological father's - however there's no taking shots and cheering like a bunch of animals...

 

I hope for orders to Japan so I can find a wife and start our own awkward traditions.

[Frizzle]

I have a tradition of working for double pay. That equates to about $100 an hour.

[Syntax]

My family doesn't celebrate Christmas to such a huge extent. Often there's just one dinner with my immediate aunts, which is just kinda like normal dinner cause I have three aunts with no kids on my dad's side. they're pretty close to my family (dad + mum + me + sis) cause me and my sister are the only children in the family, so they have a hand in raising us. No decorations or anything, cause there's no space for a tree and I don't think we even have one in storage. Plus christmas isn't really christmas without snow... and I have no snow.

Edited by Syntax, 17 November 2013 - 08:33 AM.

[Syntax]

Aww, I imagine we wouldn't go so crazy if there weren't so many children in the picture.  

Probably just a tree and some decorations and a small gift exchange between myself and my husband.
Since we have two kids we really go all out for them, present wise they don't get TOO much, we just like to get them excited about Christmas and family in general.

 

ahh, it's not that bad. for family reunions wise,  I have chinese new year instead. THAT'S when my family goes all out. We have multiple reunion dinners with different extended family, travel to visit my grandma, have decorations, red packets... so I don't feel so bad about not having a festive xmas.

[Elindoril]

When I was younger the family on my mother's side would all gather at my great grandmother's house for Christmas Eve where we would converse, have dinner, and finally open the presents that everyone had got for each other.

On Christmas Day my immediate family would all be at my grandmother's place and open our presents that good ol' Saint Nick brought for us. Usually I would be waiting impatiently at 6 AM for everyone to wake up. After ripping all the wrapping paper to shreds and going straight to playing my new video games there was a lunch and the rest of the family would gather once more for it.

Unfortunately with the death of my grandmother and the aging of my older family members no one has the energy to put together any Christmas events and so everyone just goes their separate ways now.

[Turnip]

Uhhh, mom and I just get each other presents and have christmas dinner but that's about it really hahaha~ I play fantastic holiday-y music all day too like Holy night's Dong and uh the music that plays on christmas day in Animal Crossing and other things~

 

(no really that's an actual cd)

Edited by Turnip, 17 November 2013 - 03:42 PM.

[Keil]

I'll give my traditions in the form of a song

 

On the 12th day of Christmas with my fucked up family...

 

12 texters texting

11 bins of food

10 rampaging cousins

9 puddles of wine  

8 TV's on 

7 Skypers skyping

6 bragging parents

5 CALLS TO THE PHILIPPINES

4 music prodigies

3 IOU's

2 Christmas crashers

And a toddler missing for hours~ (fell asleep under a bed)

[NapisaurusRex]

far away from me

Edited by Napiform, 06 March 2014 - 12:41 AM.

[Syntax]

Ohhh yeah that sounds neat, if you have time you should detail that (Chinese New Year festivities) for me

 

Yeah, so it's kinda like Christmas except it's all red and no green. Oh, but there's loads of gold, so Gryffindor colours!

 

On the days before Chinese New Year, depending on the circumstances of the year, we generally make the 5 hour trip into Malaysia to my maternal grandmother's house. There's usually CNY deco up already. It's normally red fish made from red packets, lanterns, loads of that fu thing, which is basically the Chinese word for fortune. On the first day of CNY, My grandma slaughters a few chickens (cause she lives in a village and actually raises and fattens chickens especially for CNY PLUS gardens and whatever, retirement seems really fun so...) and cooks them in her special garnish thingy. It's normally steamed instead of roasted, unlike the roasted turkey wiuth stuffing or whatever that I have never eaten in my entire life cause chicken's the only thing they import here which is silly. Then there's veggies and other meats, and then there's this thing where you have a bunch of stuff on a huge place (like carrots and radish and peanut sauce) and the tradition is that you use chopsticks and kinda... toss it. I don't remember the proper word for it. You toss it like you would a salad, everyone does it together, so it gets really messy. And while you're tossing it, you're supposed to raise your chopsticks as high as possible while shouting out wishes of good fortune for the next year. Stuff like GOOD GRADES, GOOD STOCK MARKET, HEALTH, LOVE, ETC.

 

It gets annoying the third or fourth time I have to do it. My extended family is large, so I typically have multiple reunion dinners with different segments of the family. My paternal grandma's dead, and like I said before my aunts have no kids (they're my aunts on my dad's side) so they're really close to the people on my mum's side. FAMILY BACKGROUND: So yeah my mum worked for my dad before and it was a family business so when they married everyone just kinda got to know each other. And especially since my aunts are all spinsters, so both sides of my family just became really close to each other. Anyway. So we generally converge on my maternal grandma's place for the first, most important day (includes most of my mum's sisters, they're mostly unmarried too, except for my first and last aunt, they're both married so by tradition they spend the first day with their husband's parents - PATRIARCHY FTL) and then the next few days involves us going around and getting money. Ahahaha.

 

No seriously, there's this tradition where you get money in red packets if you're unmarried and/or a child. The people who are married gives out the money. It's meant to symbolise good luck. You're given an even number (this varies between customs, but my family always does even numbers), so anywhere from $2 (cheapos) to $xxx amount. Depends on the relationship, really. $8 or $88 or $888 is basically the jackpot, 888 is a lucky number in Chinese mythology so it's plastered everywhere during CNY and an $888 ang bao is basically the epitome of awesomeness. Side note, lucky draws in Asia, especially during CNY, often has a pool of $8888 or a variation thereof, cause of the lucky connotation. Another side note, some times, especially in Hong Kong, I believe, people don't get $4 cause it sounds like sei, which is Cantonese for die. Mandarin as well, though to a smaller extent I think. Aaaaanyway. So we traditionally visit the elders, my grandma's the youngest so she has a bunch of aunts/brothers still alive and we use the remaining days in Malaysia to go visit them. My aunts who weren't there on the first day comes over too for the remaining days.

 

Then we go back to Singapore and we redo the entire thing, except with my dad's cousins. So yeah. That'll take about like a week overall. We often have a long holiday during that time cause it's a pretty important event. It's fairly normal to have kids not showing up in school in the CNY period cause they're travelling to visit relatives. This isn't prevalent, or at least, not really normal, but my mum makes me put my red packets under my pillow to sleep on them until the first 15 days of CNY are over. Then I'm allowed to open them. According to her, sleeping on the good fortune will multiply it. Loads of people don't do it (it's also normal to open it on the day you get it) but I'm used to it.

 

Another curious parallel - I'm not sure if it's just cause it's money, but it's considered rude to open red packets in front of people who give them to you, which is different from the concept of opening presents in front of people who give them to you, like Christmas Day. Pretty fascinating. Of course this is only my family's way of celebrating CNY. You can tell it's kinda like Christmas, except not.

[Dan]

I'm going to Kat's for Christmas, and she's told me they open gifts on Christmas Eve.

 

Am I the only one who thinks this is fucked up and shouldn't be allowed?

[Dan]

Lol! I've heard of that in a few of my friends' homes. If they open everything Christmas Eve, what do they do Christmas morning?

 

They apparently just laze around and chill out. They also eat Christmas Dinner on Christmas Eve.

 

I don't want to shit on any traditions here and that's not what I'm trying to do, but that's just so weird to me.

 

I'm used to chilling out on Christmas Eve, watching stupid family films until late at night and then going to bed to wake up to gifts and a stocking on my bed (magic) in the morning. The usual routine is to wake up whenever, open gifts and start cooking Christmas dinner together and then laze around for the rest of the day.

 

I wonder if it's different due to the fact we get the 26th (boxing day) off as a public holiday here in the UK. 

[Dan]

We have boxing day too. They don't have that in the U.S.?

 

Nope... back to work on the 26th.

[NapisaurusRex]

I'm used to chilling out on Christmas Eve, watching stupid family films until late at night and then going to bed to wake up to gifts and a stocking on my bed (magic) in the morning. The usual routine is to wake up whenever, open gifts and start cooking Christmas dinner together and then laze around for the rest of the day.

This is what I've done every single year until this one. This year, we're doing everything on Christmas eve at my mom's and then driving home (4+ hours) in order to get home by noon on Christmas Eve for Trinity's mom to pick her up. The glamorous life of a blended family.

[luvsmyncis]

Nope... back to work on the 26th.

Some of us work for evil companies that stay open on the 24th and 25th. So if someone has to work Christmas day, the Eve is the only time they can get together to open presents. Luckily for me, my department is closed on Thanksgiving and Christmas, so I don't have to worry about that anymore, but I still feel bad for the people on the sales floor cuz I been there before.

[Frizzle]

Yanks are stupid.

[Bone]

My family has a tradition of bitching and moaning about the extended family, then pretending to be happy on Christmas.