Observing the four week of Advent as an anticipatory liturgical season and Christmas Day as just the beginning of the Christmas season. Our tree and decorations go up just before Christmas and stay until Epiphany, January 6. We have an Advent wreath and calendar.

Lots of cookie baking and exchanges. Midnight Mass and a very long, lazy, brunch and gift exchange on Christmas Day. I am so looking forward to it!

Secret Santa with colleagues at work (maximum $10.00) and a Christmas workplace dinner. This is actually a lot of fun :)

I try to keep the tradition of Ukrainian Christmas Eve dinner with homemade pierogies, kapusta (saurkraut) and baked ham ( if I strictly followed the tradition there would be fish and no meat). I bake kolachki, lekvar bars and snowballs as well. The Eve is a candle lit family time to open the gifts we have for each. I have a miniature pressed glass punch bowl and tiny glass punch cups which I always put on the table with a fruit punch for the children.

Midnight Mass is a must since I love singing in the choir that night.

This year I enjoyed learning how to fold money into a star and will give one to each grandchild as well. Although they look complicated, it is really quite simple to do and you can use any denomination you wish :0)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhphDqFxfgk

I make cookies and Greek pastry for friends and family. Kids get new pajamas and a book on Christmas Eve. I make jammy scones Christmas morning. Christmas dinner varies but always includes a Greek spinach pie (spanakopita) and usually a buche de noel for dessert. We usually get our tree on my birthday, December 17. All decorations are down and put away by Twelfth Night. Along with the RP bookmark exchange, we participate in a worldwide Welsh Terrier Secret Santa Present Exchange.

yoyo, mulled wine should taste like a hot punch with a good red wine base to which has been added either brandy or port plus sliced oranges, lemons and a variety of spices, then warmed through. A recent 'tradition' in our village has been to sing carols round our ancient 14th C. preaching cross then go to the village Hall where mulled wine and mince pies are served.

DH used to be on the committee that 'ran' the Hall and noticed last year that the kitchen water-heater/boiler, which he had been planning to 'descale', was very shiny inside. Apparently it had been used to heat the wine. The bottles of 'ready spiced/mulled' booze had been poured straight into the heater and brought to the boil! Do NOT try this at home.

I had wondered about the strange taste and gritty texture. It would have made an excellent drain cleaner.

Vee...My grandmother had a big rounded iron spoon she used for stirring. One day she mentioned that the spoon had originally been pointed. Talk about "iron rations"! We must have slowly ingested the spoon over the years.

We don't really have traditions in our family but after returning to Australia from living in the UK, I found that the family had a system of holding the midday Christmas meal at one house, taking turns. Everyone brings food and drink so that the host family doesn't have to do more than set out a table and fire up the BBQ.

Most of the food is cold, of course. We stopped having a roast meal years ago although some die-hards stick to that tradition.

Ann, isn't there a saying about eating a peck of dirt before we die . . . ?!

I think virtually the only traditions English people have (and I can't speak for the Scots who were never 'into' Christmas until 30-40 years ago) are to do with this holiday season.

Even folk who cannot/will not cook manage to produce turkey, roast potatoes, sprouts, stuffing, gravy, Xmas pud, mince pies, stilton cheese etc. Of course these days almost ALL the ingredients are available virtually ready-made so it is just a case of reading the instructions on the packet and sticking them into the oven.

Christmas Markets are becoming big business with folk selling anything from wreathes, trees, 'home-made' chutneys/pickles, choccies, toys, jewellery, cheap tat. You name it someone will buy it.

Then there are the carol services held in all the churches. Over here people are far less 'into' religion than in the US but Advent/Christmas is the one time when many folk make an effort. There will be 6 services in this village which is rather too many for less than 300 households. What with a Christingle service and the various school nativity plays plus the occasional groups of 'carolers' that go door to door it might be considered a little over-the-top.

"Advent/Christmas is the one time when many folk make an effort" - Vee, we had a pastor at our church who called those folks "Creasters" (only attending church on Christmas & Easter). :)

Donna

One tradition of my own making happened yesterday. When we moved to this neighborhood in January nine years ago, it was mostly occupied by older people, many of whom were widows. I hadn't met many people, so at Christmastime I invited the few I knew and others who lived behind and close by me for cake and coffee a couple of weeks before Christmas.

It turned out to be a good way to make new friends, and I still am having them over. Yesterday there were seven ladies who came and made quite an inroad on single layers of jam cake, chocolate-mint cake, and gingerbread with whipped cream; and coffee, hot spiced cider, and eggnog. Insulin patches not available.

As for family, we have a huge breakfast and gift opening on Christmas morning now at a niece's house since my sister and I resigned; and, due to a declining number of relatives, we have ended the widespread invitations to Christmas dinner. For the past two years, we have all gone to one of my brother's for the roast beast meal in late afternoon..

That's lovely that you started a neighborhood tradition, Carolyn. I bet everyone looks forward to it.

As do I, Kathy. Thank you.

This is my first Christmas in Australia and is devoid of tradition. This woeful lack of festiveness is exacerbated by the necessity to move house on 21 December!

There is one cherished tradition that has survived my migration. The RP bookmark exchange! So glad I joined in this year! ❤️

Siobhan, if you have only a 12 months lease, moving house in December might become a tradition! Actually that is unusual to move just before Christmas.

One of my daughters used to be a real estate agent, and she tells me that it is difficult to rent, sell or buy property in December. People try not to move then.

I would say that the RP bookmarks are my most consistent Christmas tradition as well. There are lots of things I do - visit family, host family, put up a tree, travel or not, but they vary greatly from year to year. I do always buy gifts for children and grandchildren, but that is probably it.

Keeping Christ in Christmas...and donating where I feel it will do the most good.

My husband is in the military, they often end postings just before holiday stand down. Kind of inconvenient! People often skive off to visit family, alas we have none in this hemisphere. Hopefully we will purchase our own home next year and avoid this sort of thing!

Kat, that is lovely.

Oh, katmarie, what a wonderful tradition.

Kat, I do like that.

I was talking to Rouan on the phone last night, discussing this very thread. I suddenly remembered a new tradition (contradiction?) I began a few years ago. I'm not much of a baker, but I go to Whole Foods bakery around this time and buy a tin with I fill with a selection of cookies. Then I drop it off at my local neighborhood library branch for the staff there.

Rosefolly, that reminds me that when I worked in a subscription library, we were given big boxes and tins of chocolates at Christmas by the readers. We divided them up between the staff but my sister ran a small branch on her own and got to keep the lot! I think the clients thought we would save them the latest books if they kept in sweet with us!

(That is an English pun, sweets/candies!)

Katmarie, interesting you burn your bayberry on Christmas Eve. We usually burn ours on New Year's Eve. Either way, the saying goes, "a bayberry candle burned to the socket brings joy to the heart and gold to the pocket."

When my sons were little, I would wrap presents on Christmas Eve while watching Carols by Candlelight (this is before they turned into Songs with some vague link to Christmas by Candlelight).

I make shortbread and usually Christmas cakes, but last year I made extra of the latter and still have some frozen. I have, however, made extra shortbread.

My family likes to have different things for Christmas lunch. Since it is often hot here, we don't go in for turkey and roast vegetables, usually preferring something lighter. This year will be ham and salads, and possibly a baked fish. After lunch we have presents, and the youngest person hands each one out. We do this slowly and watch each one get unwrapped, rather than the mayhem that my DH's family had when they were all handed out at once and you didn't get to see anyone's reaction.

I have always enjoyed joining in the bookmark exchange, but working in retail at this time of year leaves me short on time, so this year I opted out. I think next year I will start working on it in October.

Kath, that was something I did too, getting the presents from the hiding places to wrap while Carols by Candlelight was on!

I like to watch people's reactions to my gifts and leave mine to unwrap later but sometimes get a reproachful look from someone wanting to see my reaction!

This year I am giving cash as I don't know what the adults and children, of all ages, want any more. With five grandchildren and six (Next year eight) great-grandchildren, I am taking the easy way out!

I have a collection of nearly 75 copies of Night Before Christmas all by different illustrators which I keep in an antique camelback trunk in the guest bedroom.

I open it wide at Christmas time and years ago I used to tuck copies all throughout the house.

Now I simply put a few on the hearth including a copy I had purchased when my children were babies. I always wish that I could snuggle down with the grandchildren at some point Christmas Eve and read it to them as a tradition. It is a fantasy that is never quite realized and I feel I get lost in the whirlwind of gift-grabbing and playing . No one is interested in anything quiet or traditional at that point.

Perhaps I should hunker off to a corner and read it aloud to myself ! ( with a mug of hot toddy ...whatever that is !

One of my favorites is the very funny and touching The Night Before The Night Before Christmas by Natasha Wing.

Merry, I found out a few years ago that New Year's Eve was a traditional day for the bayberry candle too. I rarely hear of anyone else burning the bayberry anymore, so it is nice to hear from someone else who does it.

Rosefolly, I like the idea of taking a tin of cookies around to the local library branch. It would have to be purchased, my cookie making skills are not the best.

What has become the newest "tradition" in my family was begun by my newest sister-in-law. My brother, who really hates to be alone, remarried a year after his wonderful first wife died to a bit of consternation, I'm afraid, so this one has had a her work cut out for her. We are a very nice family and have been welcoming to her, but it was an adjustment for everyone.

She is a very creative person, and before her second Christmas with us she invited us to a candy-making party that has continued with this one, the sixth, being held yesterday. Everyone who wants to participate takes his or her recipes and favorite candy pan and supplies and shares the stove burners, chopping knives, and wooden spoons to turn out a table full of luscious candies and cookies. Cries may be heard of "Does anyone have anymore butter?" Those who don't cook sit at the table and sample. Only favorable comments are allowed.

SIL says candy party day is her favorite day of the season, feeds us a good lunch, and every year comes up with a unique gift like an apron embroidered with the family name, the next year an apron with a photo of people wearing their first-year aprons, 1,000-piece puzzles of candid photos of the cooks, etc. Yesterday's was a small circular ceramic disk with our individual photos, cooking, on one side and host brother cooking with a very serious look on his face on the other. It sits on a little wooden tripod and is just delightful. (P.S., no one has completed his/her puzzle. My daughter is using hers as a Christmas decoration since the box cover is so Christmassy.)

Carolyn, what a lovely idea that brings the family together. I always told my husband that if something happened to me, he should marry again quickly. He was 20 when we married and had been used to having a woman wanting to fuss over him all his life! Your SiL sounds like a wonderful lady.

I had no desire to remarry in spite of someone at the funeral telling me that I looked very smart and would get another man in no time! The things people come out with after a death! Luckily I have a sense of the ridiculous...

I suppose something I do at Christmas could be a tradition. My husband usually bought me a piece of jewellery then so I do the same for myself and wear it to the Christmas Day family lunch in his memory.

Ann, that is a lovely tradition. My last Christmas gift from my husband was a posthumous one. My daughter knew I wanted a topaz ring and found one on sale that was above her budget. She asked DH if he wanted to help her buy it for my Christmas gift from both of them. He did that, she gave it to him, and he cut two small, slim pieces of wood to make the little gift bag stand up nicely and put it away. He died that September (2016), so DD retrieved it and gave it to me at Christmas, complete with his Mr. Fixit gift bag. I treasure the little bag almost as much as the ring.

Aren't people strange with their matchmaking? I liked best a remark one woman in my age group made. At a luncheon table of ladies our age, she said we are too old to remarry because we don't have time to train another husband.

Carolyn, I love your story and the remark by your lunch companion. Having been married for 40 years plus, I must admit all attempts to 'train' my better half have failed miserably.

To continue the Christmas theme . . . we will have a full-house for the 25th but our large dining room has been out-of-use for a couple of years as the table is groaning under the weight of junk (ie DH's important documents), ditto the floor, the chimney is blocked by several jackdaw nests, the upright piano inherited from the previous home-owner is full of woodworm and there is an untraceable smell caused after the visit of the next door cat . . . otherwise everything is going swimmingly.

Vee, Start a good blaze in the fireplace with less important documents and the chopped up piano. That will sort out the jackdaw's nests and get rid of the smell.

Use the insurance money to rebuild. And a Happy New Year to you all!

Annpan!

Great idea except the room gets full of smoke as the chimney is blocked by so many twigs, feathers, dried-up dead jackdaw chicks and egg shells. The rods for DIY chimney sweeping lie in readiness, though had the roof and chimney stack been less high someone could have climbed up and dropped a dead pheasant down the hole; an old fashioned country remedy.

Burn the piano? Is there a society out there for the Protection of Woodworm?

Burn the house down? Pass me the matches and share Christmas with me in a tent in the garden.

Another one here who knows the tradition of burning bayberry candles at Noel. We always did this in my Atlanta girlhood and I loved the odor. I have not seen any of these for years, however.

Woodnymph , I ordered a real wax bayberry candle and holder on Amazon.

Somehow I skipped over my favorite Christmas tradition, the giving and receiving of books! My husband is a reader, so this is a natural for us both. Our children and grandchildren all receive books from us at least until the teen years.

yoyo, I just heard on this morning's radio about the Icelandic custom of Jolebokaflod (Yule Book Flood) which sounded like your idea of a book at the foot of every child's bed on Christmas morning (is it on another thread; can't find it here?)

Perhaps Netla can explain it in more detail.

Jolebokaflod

I just recently found out about Jolebokaflod too, and now I see references to it all over the place. I love it when that happens. Thank you for the link Vee. I shared this with my sister who just loved the whole thing. In our (small) family we'd be the only ones participating. Her DH and kids aren't big readers, my DH reads mostly research type information on the computer and our cats don't read at all. In my household I'd be the only one participating. Well, there's nothing wrong with that - maybe I'll do it anyway. Plenty of choices on my TBR shelves. (I could ask DH to pick some out at random so I'd be surprised) I might be able to find one for my sister too, although our reading tastes rarely overlap.

Sadly, other traditions we kept in the past have dwindled in the face of a shrinking family and other perfectly normal factors. When we opted out of gift giving altogether a few years ago I had planned to add some new traditions of my own but really haven't done so. One that I tried to introduce was having Shepard's pie on Christmas Eve. I thought I was being quite clever but it never really stuck.I'm enjoying this thread and it's giving me some food for thought, so thank you all.

I noticed that Jolebokaflod looks a lot like " Yule Book Flood".

So it does!

It also sounds just like "Yule Book Flood"

Oh we are amazingly astute !!

I just googled it and here's what I found in Wikipeida :

Jólabókaflóðið (Icelandic for "Yule book flood")

How clever you are, Yoyobon. I did not even notice.

My personal Yule book flood has begun, as part of our family had an early exchange of gifts. I gave my infant grandson a stack of new board books, much to the gratitude of his mother who has been reading him the same old ones over and over again. In my turn I received two garden books and two SF books, all from my wishlist. Not to mention that my DH Tom gave me DVDs of all ten seasons of Doctor Who. He's never seen it but admits to some curiosity. I don't think it's really his thing, though he did enjoy listening to the audio book of Cixin Liu's Death's End. Mysteries are more to his taste.

Rose....words and languages fascinate me so I guess I automatically try to figure out meanings :0)

This year the choir of King's College Cambridge is celebrating a hundred years since the service of nine lessons and carols was introduced by the Dean as a result of the horrors he had witnessed as a padre during WWI.

It was first broadcast by the BBC some years later and it has become a tradition to listen to this service 'live' from 3pm on Christmas Eve. The public often queue for over 24 hours to get in and is popular with many Americans visiting England at this time of year. It is also beamed out via the World Service to all corners of the globe.

Old and newly written works/carols make up the service which represents probably the best of traditional English church music.

Carols from King's College

Vee - Thank you for that information and the link. It's a lovely Christmas gift.