Christmas Traditions

[Marggy]

Hey Everybody!!

Since the holidays are approaching, I would like to take the time and
share something our family does for Christmas. First of all, I was
born in Colombia and my whole family is Colombian. We take Christmas
very seriously and so, on the 16th of December our Christmas begins!
As tradition, family gathers together that day around four or six and
we make Natilla and Bunuelos (colombian pastries)

At around eight or nine at night, we all gather around again and read
this little book with Christmas jingles called LA NOVENA. This is a
little book about the size of your palm that has prayers in it where
we call for the birth of little Jesus. We take turns reading it and
children usually take major part in this read aloud. While we sing, we
eat and make instruments out of home things such as a drum out of an
empty container. We put rice or lentils into a container and it
becomes a maraca. Things like these are used to make sounds and get
into the spirit of Christmas.

We gather the 16th with a whole bunch of people and for the rest of
the nights, we might just stay home and do the same thing privately
with our home family. This night event continues on until the twenty
fourth of December, when we once more gather together for the final
NOVENA reading and singing. On this day, we have a big dinner together
and a party like environment with loud music and a lot of dancing. At
exactly twelve midnight, the music is shut off and we exchange gifts.
Then, the party starts again and we party until like four in the
morning in tribute to the birth of Jesus.

[Miranda]

Your traditions are really cute, Marggy! That must be nice to have a
good, long celebration with your family. :)

Personally, though, my family celebrates Christmas Day only. We're a
rather small group, since most of my relatives recently moved to West
Virginia, so we typically have dinner together at our house and hang
out until my Nanny decides she wants to go home. (My immediate family
consists of myself, my sister, my Whooshie and my Nanny, and I live
with the former three, so once my great-grandma goes home, things go
back to "normal".) As far as gift-exchanging goes, we do some in the
morning and some after dinner. My Whooshie still labels a few of the
presents "FROM: SANTA" for some reason, but I think it's sweet. :D

[Robert Goodrich]

On Christmas Eve my two kids put out food for Santa's reindeer. And
then my brothers-in-law run around the outside of the house shaking
sleigh bells. Yes, we actually own sleigh bells.

[Lori]

I love reading about what people do for the holidays. I celebrate
Hanukkah. My parents and I light our candles every night. This year
I went to my grandparents house and had traditional Jewish food. I
used to get presents every night but this year we did not do that. My
mom surprised me with some clothes and such in a really casual way.
It was still really cute and nice : )

[Cassie]

I also celebrate Hanukkah. At my house, we light the Menorah (a
ceremonial candelabra) at sundown. We have three Menorahs, so each kid
in the family can light one. Then we have a nice family dinner with
traditional Jewish food, like latkes (potato pancakes). Once we clean
up from dinner, we all go into the living room and open presents. We
only open presents on the first night. For the rest of Hanukkah, we
still light the candles together. Celebrating Hanukkah together has
always been one of my favorite family traditions. :-)

[Robert Goodrich]

Last year my son Sebastian said he wanted to celebrate Hanukkah as
well as Christmas. I think he thought he would get more presents.

But I told him if he learned the traditions and history of Hanukkah we
would get him a menorah and he could celebrate. So he learned where
the celebration came from, and some of the practices. One of them
being making a gift to the poor. So I took him to a synagogue and he
gave his allowance to the poor box. The secretaries were so impressed
with him, and his knowledge of their tradition, that they gave him a
very nice menorah!