How do you decorate your Christmas tree and what are Christmas Eve traditions for you?

Rague
Rague Member Posts: 3,653 Member
edited December 2012 in Breast Cancer #1
For me they both gp back to when I was a child in France.

The most BEAUTIFUL Christmas tree I have ever seen was totally candle lit. I have been able to find candle holders for Christmas trees so we always light the candles for a while every Christmas Eve.

I will admit I was a spoiled brat back then and had my electically lit tree in front of the window on the Promanade from the time I was home from school til the shutters had to be closed. One afternoon getting close to sunset, aouple of Nuns from the local Orphanage knocked and asked our maid if they hurried back and got the kids would it be possible for the kids to see the lights. Of course and Mom insisted that had to get hot cider/chocolate and cookies ready for them. It took a lot of convincing to gtet the Nuns to let the kids have what was ready for them - they did. Not want tò take anything we needed to eat.

Christmas Eve - Again this goes back to my early days in France. My French friends would put out grass/hay for Pere Noel's horse. Well if the horse needs hay - then the reindeers need it too. So always have put hay out for them. Even when we had no chimney when the boys were little - Hubby had to put hay on the roof before they went to bed - it was always gone in the morning. Now I had sign that is lit that goes out in front every Christmas Eve that says 'Reindeer Fuel Stop'. There are hay bales there- there is never any hay left the next morning.

So what do you do -especially diffrent 'things'

Winyan - The Power Within

Susan

Comments

  • desertgirl947
    desertgirl947 Member Posts: 653 Member
    #2
    Traditions
    A tradition of my husband and me is that we like to go to a Christmas Eve service at church. This helps us focus our thoughts on why we have Christmas, something becoming more and more lost as time goes on.

    As for tree decorating, I recently switched back to using colored lights instead of white ones. I generally prefer non-breakable ornaments, and so there are little stuffed bears, little silk poinsettias, wooden ornaments, light metal ornaments, etc. The topper is a star with lights. Our house is split level, and so we set it in front of the big window in the downstairs family room.
  • mommaellen
    mommaellen Member Posts: 195
    #3
    Christmas
    I usually spend Christmas eve with my son and his family. I spend Christmas day with my daughter and grandson.

    My tree is decorated with special ornaments that my kids made for me when they were in school and ornaments that have been given to me over the years by friends and family. I have colored lights on it. I have a 4 foot tree that sits on a table in front of the window.

    Ellen
  • BlownAway60
    BlownAway60 Member Posts: 851
    #4
    All the kids, grandkids and
    All the kids, grandkids and friends come here Christmas Eve and then the kids go to there mother's on Christmas Day.

    It's all special to me.

    My tree is a collage of all kinds of ornaments. We have special ornaments for each year that we have been together. We have special ornaments for each of the grandkids and they check to make sure their ornament is on the tree. What is really special is the few ornaments that I was able to recover from my destroyed mobil home after Hurricane Andrew. I found them in a small box between the wall and the floor. Of course the wall was laying on the ground, so finding any of them was a miracle.

    Hugs
    Donna
  • disneyfan2008
    disneyfan2008 Member Posts: 6,583 Member
    #5
    Christmas Eve we go to
    Christmas Eve we go to cousins (local) and see all cousins, aunts etc. we dont' see often tough local...been doing that for 30 yrs..

    Christmas Day we stay home my daughters and 2 young grandsons all live home. I make simple meal since no one wants to sit when new toys to play with...on occassion we go to family for dessert...

    Mid day granson goes to the other mema...

    Denise
  • Dakota128
    Dakota128 Member Posts: 14
    #6
    Our Christmas Eve
    Our tree is decorated with ornaments from years gone by and handmade ones from our children. I craft a great deal and have created multiple ornaments with pictures and paintings inside that depict our family. The tree has beautiful colored lights and rotates, I just love to sit in our parlor at night watching the twinkling lights, enjoying the quiet and dreaming of my childhood days with my parents.
    I miss them both dearly. Christmas is my favorite time of year.

    Our family has a traditional Polish Christmas Eve dinner of: Potatoe soup w dumplings, Baked Haddock, Fried Shrimp, homemade Pierogi and homemade Cole Slaw. We have a small family of 14 the smallest is 2 months old, and my daughter is pregnant with my first grandchild. After dinner, we all gather around the tree and Santa Claus comes to our house with multi bags of goodies. My niece(12) and nephew(9) have been Santa's Elves since they were small. They help him hand out gifts that we exchange with each other because we won't be together on Christmas Day (we all visit extended family members). We open gifts, have cookies and such, drink and just enjoy each other's company until around 10pm or so. Then off to midnight mass.

    One other thing we do, we leave an empty place setting and chair for any of our family that have passed on in case they would like to join us in the feast and fun. It may sound strange, but we're very into spiritual energy during the holidays.

    I hope everyone has wonderful Christmas and Happy New Year.

    Hugs
    Daktoa aka Deborah
  • Margeaux
    Margeaux Member Posts: 84
    #7
    Christmas traditions
    Ah, Susan, now you got me crying. I grew up in Germany, my childhood memories are those of WWII and the horrible years after the war. Still, no matter how hard, we tried to maintain the old German Christmas traditions, a tree, however skimpy, decorated on the morning of the 24th with old carefully preserved ornaments, tinsel that was removed and reused the following year, candles lit after dark on Christmas Eve. Dinner was sausage and bread (tasted like Manna from heaven) and Mother somehow managed to bake some cookies, for once an evening without hunger. The wood burning stove in the parlor was lit Christmas eve morning, it took all day to heat the room, usually we only managed to keep the cook stove lit in the kitchen. Gifts were brought by the Christchild and opened on Christmas Eve. No matter how difficult the times, there was always a little something for me. Christmas day we went to Aunt's house, everybody contributed some food for a midday meal, traditionally goose with dumplings and red cabbage. On the 26th Mother and I made the rounds of relatives where I had to recite a poem, or even worse, sing something, then I was given a plate with cookies, apples and nuts. I particularly remember 2 old uncles who had a farm, they made sure Mother never left without such treasures as flour, butter and some meat.
    Hugs to you and Frohe Weihnachten

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