How do you celebrate the December holidays?

[Carmen Lopez]

Yes, I know Alex might eat me because he hates it when Americans say 'holidays.' But I think it's only fair because December contains multiple holidays ~~

For me the only holiday I celebrate in December is Christmas (I've gone to Kwanzaa events but I've never celebrated the whole thing). In the past, my cousin and I would get a ton of presents and have a good time playing with them on Christmas day. We'd get a lot of extended family coming in as well to reminisce about the past and just be hilarious together.

But...that was then and now my Christmases are a lot quieter. I go to my church's special Christmas Eve/Day celebration which is always a good time. We still go to my grandparents house, but it's nothing like what we did when I was younger. As far as a presents go? Nope, nobody has money this time a year. We wait till January for that. In a way it's a little better because you don't get so wrapped up in the material stuff...

So yeah, nothing out of the ordinary~

 

[Coreysawrus]

I wake up just before 7am then me and my sister sit on my parents bed, empty our stockings and then we all head downstairs together. Open our presents, go round and see family then have homecooked Christmas dinner, we then set up a buffet and family come to see us and we sit in front of the TV and watch Christmas specials or watch the films.

However my parents split up on New Years Day so I don't know what is happening this year

 

[Dark Soul]

See, we don't have the tradition of putting the presents under the tree at night and unpacking them the next morning. We just wake up, sleep in for a bit, and once we're all downstairs we have a nice light brunch. If there's snow we might go out for a walk in the forest, if not we'll probably be watching Serious Request on the telly and drinking tea the entire day. The presents are opened in the evening, usually with other family who live in this town with us there as well.

This particular Christmas, though, we're heading East to my German Uncle's new home he recently moved up. It's nice! I get to hang out with the German side of my family, and only two of the five (My uncle and four kids), being my Uncle and his eldest son, actually speak Dutch. So it's going to be a lot of pointing, making gestures and trying to speak garbled German. And, of course, Christmas!

 

[ShinyZekrom009]

We do the traditional "Go to sleep before 'Santa' gets here, wake up the next day, there's presents under the tree and stuff in our stockings" thing. Then, our house is a wreck, and we spend pretty much all day in our pajamas, messing with the new stuff we got at home all day.

 

[Magpie]

My brother and I are both older now, so we tend to surface from sleep at a more sociable hour than we did when we were younger. We wake up, I go and make us all a cup of tea and we all open each others presents and such. At around 1PM my mum's side of the family come down for Christmas Dinner (Grandma, Auntie, Uncle and two cousins). We all have dinner and play some daft Christmas games (I think we're racing wind-up penguins this year) and do a quiz. After dinner has settled the women of the family (Grandma, Mum, Auntie and my female cousin) all drive over to where my Grandad is buried and give him some Christmas flowers Everyone leaves around 6/7PM and then me and my family generally sit and watch some old movie. I love Christmas ♥

The women of the family go to Chatsworth the week before Christmas. It's tradition. We're doing that this Thursday. The men tend to go for an Indian and a booze fest xD

Boxing Day is chips, gravy and leftover turkey day. Nom nom nom ♥

The day after that we go and have a massive Christmassy dinner at my other Grandma's house with all Dad's side of the family.

We don't really celebrate New Year, it's just the start of a new year after all. I don't drink alcohol so I'm not one for wild New Year's parties either

 

[Demelza]

Christmas used to be a really routine thing, but as me and my brother have gotten older it seems to have changed a fair amount. Christmas Eve has always been the same in that me and my brother head to bed at an early hour and then wake up at a silly time in the morning, something I've protested to in recent years, but always quit grumbling about when I remember my presents and the stocking which likely includes a plush Pokémon. Generally we're awake before mum and always sit watching whatever movies happen to be on TV while we wait for her to wake up so we can open any presents under the Christmas tree.

Once mum wakes up we open our presents and are then set for the day happily amusing ourselves with whatever we've gotten. In the afternoon dad will come over and stay for Christmas dinner (because mum always cooks too much), but him aside we don't have a huge family thing, so Christmas is always quiet. Me and my brother attempt to watch Doctor Who, but most of the time one of us will fall asleep due to waking up so early.

Christmas day is the only eventful day of the holidays, the rest are spent peacefully. We don't normally make much fuss on New Year's either~

 

[Shiny Motley]

Parties every day for two weeks: a few days before Christmas to a few days after New Years. This means I actually lose weight, because I hype up and tend to avoid all the Asian cuisine present at the parties and just eat a little before hanging out with my friends. XD

And on those one or two days we don't have a party, we eat Asian cuisine leftovers. Ick. :< And this year, we're not planning to give presents to each other because my mom's been out of work for a few months now, though we're still giving gifts to our friends and stuff~

I think I might spend most of this winter either sleeping, recording, or applying for scholarships. ♥

 

[StellarWind Elsydeon]

By smashing skulls and being pious about it. What better way to celebrate the month of Dismember?

... wait. I think I heard that wrong.

Oh. DECEMBER. Right.

I don't celebrate any of the 'December Holidays', per se, as none of them are really a thing over here. Well, except Hannukah, and I don't particularly care about/do anything special for it anyway.

(Plus it was over a week ago.)

Tl;dr, Bah Humbug-type.

 

[Linkachu]

Like most of you, the major holiday that my family celebrates in December is Christmas. Our routines have changed a bit over the years but surprisingly much has stayed the same too.

Christmas eve can both be an incredibly relaxing, family-oriented day or an somewhat stressful family-oriented day. It all depends on whether we've been good about getting everything organised for Christmas in advance (tree up, presents sorted, plans for Christmas day ironed out, etc.) or too busy/lazy to do so. However, even during our more busy Christmas eve's we'll try to fit in at least one or two holiday movies to get into the spirit of things.

On Christmas morning, everyone whom I currently live with (ie. my mother and two younger sisters) spends the morning seeing what "Santa" brought them, chomping on treats from our stockings (I buy for Mom's and she buys for mine), and unwrapping presents. We also have a "Christmas breakfast", as Mom likes to call it, of orange juice, eggs, bacon, and toast.

In the early afternoon the lot of us head down to my grandmother's house and spend the rest of the day with her. While we're there we prepare a turkey dinner for the rest of my immediate family and their partners (if they have any at the time), who tend to drop by around 4-5 PM or so. This year we're also having my uncle's partner over for supper too because my uncle can't get home for Christmas. After the meal's over the lot of us either head home for the night or a few people may spend the night at my grandmother's house (usually myself, my mother, and my younger siblings, but sometimes my brother and his wife will stay too).

Personally, Christmas is my favourite holiday of the year and while I can't see our same routines lasting forever (nothing ever does), I enjoy how we celebrate it now.

 

[Stark]

We tend to just keep it simple and eat too much x.x

 

[Teapot]

I celebrate Christmas the same way I celebrate every other day.

I try to take over the world.

 

[StellarWind Elsydeon]

Get in -eff!-ing line. >>

 

[Stark]

I thought it was already agreed in chat around two weeks ago that Petey and I would rule under Stel in our attempt to free the world of dumb people.