Merry Christmas everyone! Hope you enjoy your holidays.
I’ve written this post so that we can learn more about how each of us celebrates Christmas and the holiday in our part of the world.
If you get time would love it if you could:
- Share photos of how you celebrate Christmas and the holiday in your part of the world by uploading them to your photos to Flickr tagged them educhristmas08 and, if time, add a description to each photo.
- Leave a comment to tell us more about how you celebrate Christmas.
Below is a slideshow of the photos that have been uploaded so far:
Here in Western Australia catching up with family and friends for a meal on Christmas day is an important part of our tradition. Some people eat a traditional meal of cooked turkey, ham and roast, while others enjoy seafood and many enjoy a Christmas Day BBQ. Being summer it’s normally quite warm so people often eat their Christmas meals outdoors.
What are the Christmas traditions where you live or in your family?
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Here in Orange County, CA, USA, we are glad if it is a bit nippy to make us feel like winter. Unlike most of the rest of the country here, we don’t get a white Christmas so a cold one will do (50 def F is cold enough for us) Christians celebrate Christmas Eve service at the church and for some a midnight mass. There is also a Christmas Day service one can attend. For our family we open presents Christmas Eve, after church. We might save a few for Christmas morning and there may be treats in our stockings. We will have a nice meal Christmas day of ham or turkey. Since we just had turkey for Thanksgiving last Thursday of November, we’ll have ham. All our neighborhoods have lights on the houses and the front yards and it is very festive. We also have a neighborhood party each year where Santa Claus shows up and we have hay rides and sing Christmas carols. Christmas day is very quiet except for kids riding new bikes and playing with remote control cars in the streets. STores are getting ready for the BIG day after Christmas sales. I enjoy the peace and joy that most people want to share this time of year.
I usually have Xmas in Busselton Western Australia with my parents and our 40 year old sulphur-crested cockatoo Moe (yes, pics above
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We always have our Xmas dinner as a family on Xmas Eve as 40 years in the military and as a nurse generally made my father unavailable on Xmas Day. Since he has retired we have kept the tradition.
My parents get excited every year and buy more and more and more Xmas lights to decorate the house. I am sure that one year they are going to blackout the entire state. I nagged this year about how environmentally unfriendly they were
Xmas Day tends to be the beach (with cricket), botche on the front lawn, a few drinks and/or lunch with family friends and neighbours ….and we eat WAY too much.
Our family tradition has to do with writing: we all write little notes to out future selves, stick them in clear glass ornaments and then when the ornaments break (which happens inevitably), we read notes from our past selves.
A few years ago, I created this podcast for my students, explaining this tradition:
http://www.box.net/public/static/d9uzho66yy.mp3
Happy Holidays
Kevin
Ngā mihi o te Kirihimete Sue
Our Christmas is always centred around family. Very traditional, I know. Our tree, the Christmas dinner table, and the custom of sharing gifts are centre-points when our family come together at Christmas. This year my two sons and two oldest daughters are living overseas. They are nevertheless close to us all at Christmas.
My youngest son, Brodie (alias Jack), is featured twice in this set of slides, once in the toast to Mr Jack, and his wife Ailish who live in Dublin, and again when the family open the hamper that they sent all the way from Dublin City to Wellington.
Christmas in Middle-earth 2008
Best wishes to you and your family
from Middle-earth
Alan – I’ve always wondered how people who are used to a cold Christmas cope with our hot Christmas. My girlfriend is from the UK and it’s taken her years to get used to a Christmas without snow. She used to say it doesn’t feel like Christmas.
Last year was really hot on Christmas Day – it was 40 C (100 F). While some people will cook turkey and roasts; the idea of cooking hot food on a really hot day doesn’t work for me.
Some people do open presents on Christmas Eve but most open them Christmas morning. After Christmas sales start on Boxing Day here.
Sue – the Xmas dinner your parents provide looks amazing. Don’t believe I’ve seen so many nice looking chocolates. Which helped me out of a potentially nasty situation when the guests failed to bring the promised dessert. Remembering your photos I quickly raided all the chocolates I was given as a present and made up a chocolate tray from dessert.
Lights are definitely becoming more popular I’m just too lazy to put them up but enjoy seeing other people’s lights. Lets not talk about food — not feeling well from all my overeating.
Kevin – that is an amazing family tradition. Would really love to see a photo of what your tree looks like with all the glass ornaments.
I really enjoyed listening to your podcast. Although struggle still to visualize what each of you write to your future self – do you talk about where you are at in your life? Did many of them break this year?
PS any chance of you tagging some of the snowman photos with educhristmas08 – the Flickr stream is sadly lacking snow and as a person who never sees snow would love to see some.
Hope you are also have an Happy Holiday (mine goes until February).
Merry Christmas Ken.
Christmas for us has also always centered around family. Every year our entire family plus friends comes to our house for Christmas night dinner. We start with a massive present opening and then eating begins when our friends. This year we had over 20 people so I’ve become very efficient at catering for large numbers.
Your Christmas photos are lovely. If you would like them to appear in the educhristmas08 slideshow – just add the tag educhristmas08 to them.
Hi Sue,
Our family has exchanged children’s illustrated books for over 20 years. With 2 daughters in their upper twenties we still carry on the tradition. We have a library of at least 80 prized books that are used in the classroom for read alouds and other literacy activities. Happy New Year!
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Hi Paul C – your tradition sounds like a really lovely one. Sounds like we need a photo from our Flickr stream of all the books. I can see I need to work harder on having a family tradition here. Hope you also have a Happy New Year!
I am the most unlucky guy, I have spend the Christmas day alone in my room all day weeping. i have lost my girl at the day, when every one is happy and wanted to be with the ones home they love.
Sorry guyz i cant tell you what happened around me.
I just got married this summer so Christmas was a little different this year because I got to have two this year! We had a huge snow storm this year up in Washington state so we had a “White Christmas” this year. It was pretty neat. My wife and I went to her parents house on Christmas Eve, ate dinner, and then went to church. We then came back to our own house and opened a few gifts Christmas Eve. The next morning on Christmas Day, we opened up our stockings. The day after that, my wife and I drove down to my parents’ house so we could celebrate Christmas with my family. It was a lot of fun but it can be draining driving everywhere and having two Christmases. Next year, we might have both sides of our families meet at our house and have just one big Christmas with everyone.
Have to admit, I dig out a Star Wars computer game every year. It was Knights of the Old Republic this year. I need to finish it sometime….
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