Your Xmas plans and traditions?

Giaguara

Giaguara

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So .. xmas is getting closer...
What are your family's / country's / city's etc christmas / kwanzaa / hanukah / whatever similar on the same time of year (december/january) traditions?
And plans as well...

If you have any fancy cookies or meal recipes running in hte family for christmas feel free to post those too so the others can try ... :D

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I normally don't like the xmas in the traditional way. So no trees home, no sending postcards .. my point is if my friends or relatives have nothing else to say to me in all hte year than 'merry xmas' they better find something else to say as well ... i do like some christmas sweets though..

But basically ... every few years i'm more or less obligued to stay with my parents around that time, but trying to spend most of hte christmas holidays (if i have holidays) the way i like them. That is do what you want ... play computer games, watch movies, eat what you want .. yes, that is going to ethnic restaurants and not the traditional turkeys / whatever family meals (when avoidable, and when not avoidable, picking at the vegetarian parts of the meals) .. and some traditional cookies or sweet stuff.

Normally those more or less traditional stuff include mainly gingerbread cookies .. I like also gluchwein, and since 4 of the 6 people in the house I live in, are german, there is going to be some 'burned punch' (i don't have a clue how its called in german, thats their own trasnalation), gluchwein, german cookies ...

And this year's specific plans .. going to go to far far away in a small island where there will not be hopefully any turists except me and a few selected friends .. even if it will be a mini weekend (friday afternoon to sunday evening) it still sounds fun, away of the computers for at least 2 days (unless we bring the laptops with us...) :)
 
Down here in Texas, there's a tradition of having a tamale dinner with the family on Christmas Eve, and opening all our presents as well... we're impatient, and Christmas morning just doesn't come fast enough.

For those that don't know, tamales are corn meal (masa) with beef, beans, pork or jalapeños wrapped in corn husks and then steamed. Usually served with chili or chili sauce, they're absolutely delicious. I feel for those that have never experienced a tamale.
 
We're actually joining some friends this year in their tradition of making tamales for the holidays.
so we're excited to do that in a couple nights (xmas eve eve)
And yeah elDiablo - tamales are awesome - pork and green chile are my favorite by far.

We always go to the mountains (here in colorado) and cut down our tree. (griswold style. ;))

And this year my wife started a new tradition for our little ones - she got 25 christmas/winter stories and we read a different one to them each night up till christmas.

tehn for new years eve, we get together with the same 4 or 5 couples and do a murder mystery dinner at one of our homes. it's a lot of fun, and not just boring sitting around waiting for the ball to drop.

man, we've got more traditions that I realized. I must be getting old. lol

oh, and all-nighters of halo (1 or 2 now) with my father in law and brother in law. that one's most near and dear to my heart. haha
 
Cranberry Orange Nut Muffins

1 cup apples (macs are best!), cored & diced
1 teaspoonful almond extract
juice 1/2 lemon
1 small can (6 oz) frozen orange juice concentrate
3/4 cups sugar

1 egg whisked

2 heaping cups all purpose flour
1/2 envelope powdered milk
2 Tablespoonfuls baking powder
1/2 Teaspoonful salt
1/2 teaspoonful baking soda
1/2 stick (2 oz) unsalted (sweet) butter

1/2 package (12 oz) fresh cranberries
1/2 cup chopped nuts*

Combine first group of ingredients and set aside.

Combine dry ingredients, cut in 3 1/2 tablespoon from stick of butter, reserving remaining 1/2 TBs butter to grease muffin pan.

Mix egg into apple mixture, add cranberries and nuts. Stir this into flour mixture just until moistened.

Now pre-heat oven at 350 F

Spoon mix into greased 12-muffin pan, gently swirl muffin tops to uniform appearance.

Bake about 20 minutes (muffins in middle of pan should have just begun to brown)
Test for done (clean knife.) Let cool down slowly in oven another 20 minutes or so...

Happy Holidays everybody!

* You can use salted nuts but then omit salt from recipe.
 
Ack, don't talk about tamales, elDiablo. I moved up to Delaware from Texas (Corpus) 5 years ago - there's just no decent place to get 'em around here. I quite miss the Mexican food.
The chili around here is pretty terrible too. No one makes it hot enough. ;)
 
Mmmhh ... Texan xmas invasion :D .. there's a Texan in my bed here right now. Heh. No tamales though, just exploring some Irish seaside ...
 
My brothers and their wives thought up a plan a few years ago. On Christmas everybody in the family (we are all grown up) put our names into a hat on the US holiday of Thanksgiving and then just get the one person a gift. We thought it would be the best way to do it. It allows us to go higher in the style of gift and no one knows who is getting them a gift from whom. It's kind of a secret Santa deal. We get together just after Christmas. It gives us a chance to do things with Christmas with our own families. Now with kids (nieces and nephews ), that is a different story all together. We have been doing this for about ten years now.
 
We're going to have a Christmas Eve dinner at my in-laws. Nothing traditional. It's going to be your typical Cuban Christmas dinner: lechon (pork), moro (dark rice with black beans), & yuca with mojo (have to see and taste to know what it is). We live in Miami, so this is a common thing. No, I am not Cuban but my wife is (I am of Argentine descent).

On Christmas day, we wake up early in the morning and head over to the in-laws to open up the Christmas gifts. Then we sleep some more and wake up later to have a brunch, and then we meet with other family for Christmas night dinner, which tends to be more of the same. :p
 
have to work 'round Christmas too (friday and sunday), so no trips to see the relatives. even my girlfriend is going away to her folks house. (all alone, sniffle :( ). so my brother and i are going to make the turkey and fixings ourselves and have a quiet Christmas, probably watch movies and play video games. The dinner fare will consist of turkey, mashed potatoes, corn, etc. He's out there making cookies right now, so we'll see how those come out.

Usual holiday traditions include going to a relatives house, and watching tv (i dunno, weird family), since my relatives are boring and cannot carry on a conversation. Everyone separates into their little groups, usually to talk about and make fun of the other groups (like i said, weird).
 
I don't like the year-end holidays and one of the worse feelings I get is being told "Merry Christmas" or "Happy New Year." It's all over the damn place. I'm jollier than most people, just not around this time. I sense too much hypocrisy. I should move-in with a groundhog...

Down here in Texas, there's a tradition of having a tamale dinner with the family on Christmas Eve
Click to expand...

Diablo, what's your background?
 
My grandparents and great-grandparents on both my mother's and father's side are pretty much pure German, and I was born and raised in San Antonio and the surrounding area (New Branfels, Nacogdoches, etc.). I'm probably the 3rd or 4th generation in the US from Germany...

I would suspect that any southern, Hispanic-dominated area like southern Texas, California and Florida would have heard of the tradition of tamales on Christmas... I'm one happy German about tamales, man!
 
There ya go, mentioning them again. :p

I'm not doing anything special this year, either. Most of my family is in Texas, so I can't really do anything with the family. I'm probably going to visit with some friends later in the evening, but other than that I don't really have any plans.
 
My Girlfriend and I will be hosting Christmas for our families this year, making it the first time either of us has actually celebrated Christmas in our own house.

She has made paper chains to hang over the doors, and so on, and wrapped all of the paintings on the walls in christmas wrap so it looks like we have Christmas presents hanging around everywhere.

One important tradition thats come in in recent years is to drive around town just after sunset and check out all the Christmas lights -- a lot of people really put in a lot of work to get their houses decorated, and you'll see a fair few Santas waving from rooftops, and so on.

Since Australian Christmases tend to be in very hot weather, our traditional Christmas fair is cold ham, turkey and seafood served with lots of salads, followed by a noisy barbeque in the evenings.
 
Well, we did the tamale dinner tonight, and all went well (sorry to bring it up yet again, Darkshadow!), besides the fact that my mother was a day off in her head and thought that Christmas Eve was tomorrow, instead of today! Ack. Weird family.

At any rate, I'd like to share with y'all one of my Christmas Eve gifts (yep, we open all our presents on Xmas Eve instead of Xmas morning!)... a brand, spankin'-new iPod Photo 60GB. Boy, was I ever surprised! The giver barely knew what an iPod was, but knew they were "all the rage" and decided to splurge and get one for the one Apple fanatic in the family (uhh, that would be me...).

I am VERY pleased with it, and plan to write a short review here soon, if anyone's interested.

So, in addition to your Christmas traditions and plans, did you receive any Apple gear? Did you get anything unexpected? Any gifts that stand out or have special meaning?
 
even though for several years now I have been a buddhist I still celebrate the spirit of xmas. my family has always come together in a special way each xmas and it always leaves me with lots of memories for the rest of the year.

I live in vancouver and my family in near toronto. its just like going from seattle to Detroit distance wise. i'm here with my wife's ibook.
 
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