When we were first married, we always went to my parents’ house on Christmas Day. All of us (my parents, me, my husband, brothers, SIL, nieces, nephew) would open our gifts and then have a Christmas dinner. My husband and I started a tradition of having a Christmas Eve dinner together, just the two of us, and exchanging our gifts to each other after dinner. After a couple of years, we switched from a Baptist church to a Methodist church that has a Christmas Eve service (the Baptist church never had a service on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day unless one of those days happened to be Sunday). The pattern for Christmas Eve then became church, dinner, gifts (and, for some years, a second late evening church service). Meanwhile, my mother finally had to admit pulling off a Christmas dinner was too much, and we went to finger foods or sandwiches. Then she decided that getting everything wrapped and ready by the 25th was too hard, and my brother and his family kept arriving later and later every year because they would spend the afternoon at her mother’s house 120 miles away, so the family Christmas get-together got moved to the Saturday after Christmas, then to the Saturday after New Year’s, then to the second Saturday in January. Christmas Day itself became a non-event. We still keep our tradition of having our dinner and gift exchange on Christmas Eve, and of course, the church service is still that evening as well. Christmas Day is now just a nice day off from work to relax.
()
I think that it depends per country. In my country we have a NCAA Oregon Ducks Hawaiian Shirt Summer Beach Gift of Saint Nicolas. His day on the ecclesiastical calendar is the 6th of December. But the Saintly Bishop arrives in our country around the 15th of November. That is also the moment that the High Streets get their decorating lights. Days are short it gets dark shortly after four o’clock. The decorations in the shops are focused on Saint Nicholas. Special sweets and presents for children. There are special children shows on television. When I was a child we were invited to come to the head office of my father’s employer, Unilever, for a special afternoon with a magician and of course a visit by the saint Nicholas himself, with his assistants Zwarte Piet. (Black Peter) At the end we were given a nice small present, chosen of course by our parents (but of course we did not know). After the 6th of December when Saint Nicholas had returned to Spain or Heaven, the shops turn on to Christmas decorations. Some times we see some imported Fathers Christmas but we do not have narratives about father Christmas.
Home page: teeclover
Comments