This year it looks like I will be cooking ALL holiday meals… Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Years Eve and New Years Day. I want to begin traditions my family can look forward to each year and remember for the rest of their lives. No pressure though!!!
So I want to know what YOU did/do with YOUR family that gives you the warm fuzzies. Help a new mama out and comment away!!!
Right, the Christmas tradition in the Penguin household is the German way, because we’re usually always in Germany then. On the 24th of December we decorate the Christmas tree and in the afternoon we prepare dinner (which is mainly sausages, potatoe salad and little canapees). After dinner we all sit in the living room and wait for Santa Claus (in Germany the kids get their presents on the 24th). Everyone has to sing a song or say a poem before he/she gets the present. When Santa’s gone we all sit together, play music and games and unwrap the rest of the presents. (A lot of people go to church in the evening as well, but we’re not that fussed with it).
)
On the 25th we have the big Christmas lunch, which is in our house turkey with dumplings and red cabbage. Other traditional German Christmas lunches are either duck or goose.
In the afternoon we all watch traditional German Christmas children films.
That’s our Christmas. Sort of.
Well. .from all Hallow’s Eve through NYE i make FREQUENT trips & an extended visit to Momz place, ’cause i LoVe her, she lives alone, & i cook frequently during this period right along side w/her. “It’s the most. .wonderfull time of the year. .” *giggle*
Momz bday happens to be Turkey Day as well [day b4 or after depending on the year], so i can honestly say. . although i’m exxtremely NON-religious, i make this time about much more and enjoy it thoroughly. Particularly for the wonderfull ‘Magic’ that u can feel all around, from even the most cynical skeptic, and the Stellar pound packing grub. [although i STRUGGLE to gain weight. .*siiigh*] Fingers crossed this year for at least 5-6 exxtra pounds resulting from the yearly enlarged tummy.
;o)
Cheers 4 this entry.
Christmas 1: My cousins and I all pile into my grandmas kitchen and “help” make Nicaraguan tamales. None of us can do it better than her…..so we watch and in the mean time she tells us everything about the year and throws in a bit of catholic guilt as why we don’t call her as much. Tamales remind of the holidays!!!! I wish I could give you a recipe, but I never really pay attention. I love my g-mas stories and asking her about her youth and what she remembers about the past (I am historian..remember).
Christmas 2: Involves multiple crazy aunts and LOTS of Filipino food. Laughing all night is a must….
xooxo
miss you
Christmas tradition for the Blackwood household is good food, great family and emotional breakdowns before the actual day. First we have to pick out the most perfect christmas tree which either a) does not fit through our front door which causes problems, b) is crooked when we put it in our living room or c) was not crooked but due to us trying to jam it into our tree stand as hard as possible chipping part of the trunk away making it crooked and then trying to figure out how to make it straight. Last year, my husband got so pissed he threw our first christmas tree out the back door. No joke, we bought it and it was 7 feet tall. We kept trying to fix it and by the time he threw it out it was about 3 1/2 feet tall. Before Christmas, the kids and I bake 3 different recipes and this is generally when I try to get creative and 9 times out of 10 I fail. Last year I tried to make homemade sugar cookies and twist them into candy canes and used red dye on half of the strands when twisting them. They turned out looking like half red poops. Oh well. If you need any baking recipes for the holiday let me know and I will send this great email I got with 100 different recipes.
On to Santa, usually stand in line for oh, I don’t know, 3 days it feels like to get up to Santa to have one or both of my kids begin crying in hysterics. Every Xmas picture I have has at least one of the kids screaming in terror. God, I love those pictures. Think I may be disappointed if I get two smiling this year.
Christmas Eve, we do midnight mass at 7pm. Don’t know why they continue to call it midnight mass during that time, but they do. I really enjoy this one though and it is probably the only time during the year I go to church and don’t daydream or do mental list of things I need to do for the hour.
Get home and put cookies and milk out and write letters to Santa. Then it is off to bed for the kiddies and our work is cut out for us. Usually we are putting something together with no directions and full panic that we will either a) be found out by a waking child or b) be found out by not have a large toy completed in time. Usually we make it into bed at 3am to be awaken by the children at 5am to see what Santa got them. The looks on their faces and the excitement they have makes up for everything we have to deal with to prepare and makes it one of my most favorite holidays.
Gr8t blog by the way!
Christmas and New Year’s are the big ones in my family, and only just recently Thanksgiving. lol I don’t know why – it was never a big holiday in our Filipino household, but since all of my cousins have been raised here in the States, it’s gained some status. But Christmas and New Year’s are still top holidays – food, family, laughter.
Oh, and we tend to combine lots of filipino foods with some American ones – but no one is satisfied if there isn’t any Filipino food around, that is for sure!