[X] My Assistant

[ustrax]

This is really a topic that has nothing to do with Unmanned Spaceflight, or maybe we can find some links to it...

The question is more to see how we celebrate Christmas to see the differences between our national and local traditions.

Where do you, how do you, with who do you celebrate Christmas?
Any place for space in there?

I'll spend mine at my sister's home (the biggest of all) in Queluz, the city where I lived untill left my parents house, it's an opportunity to review old friends, smells and places, to walk through the palace gardens with my nephews...
The Christmas evening starts in the afternoon when everybody starts gathering, my sister, brother-in-law, nephews, my parents, my b-i-l dad and sister, me, my woman, my dog, my sister's dog...
This year there will be no grandparents, one died in August and the other is in the hospital and not very well and no one could convince my grandmother to gather for Christmas...I hope things get really better for 2007, that's one of my strongest wishes...
We eat a lot, as everyone, before dinner, talk a lot, laugh a lot, discuss a lot (we're latins you know...), watch all the classics, and for dinner the tradition is to eat this great codfish with tons of vegetables and potatoes and egg, all drowned in massive doses of olive oil...
Then the indispensable coffee with digestive and more talk, and more digestive, and more food.
At midnight we go to the church's ceremony in the middle of the cold with the kids protesting and, finally, in the return, we open the presents (there will be some Hawking book for me, and socks too...) and drink and eat and sing some songs...
Now it is time to each return to their houses, to have some sleep to gather again in the morning after with the kids displaying their new toys and clothes.
Everyone smells nice and we visit other relatives to...eat! This time lamb...
That's it...Untill we meet all again for King's Day (January, 6th) to eat King's Cake...
The New Year will be in the North of Portugal, in the Minho region, but that's another story...
Man...I'm hungry!...

[Marz]

Sorry to hear this is your first Christmas without the grandparents, ustrax. Life sure does bring changes.

As a child, we would always gather at my grandparents farm in the middle of Texas. Ususally, my brothers family would be there too. The tradition in the USA is Santa comes during the night on Christmas Eve and places gifts under a decorated tree (for good children, of course). So that night, us kids would have a hard time falling asleep, since we kept waiting to hear some fat man land on the roof in a sleigh.

Early in the morning, the kids would rush to the tree to see what was there, and then wake up everyone to get breakfast over fast! We'd open gifts and fill the house up with noise as the sleepy parents had to begin making the Christmas dinner, which was a roasted turkey and baked ham. That evening, we'd sing carols (badly), and then eat lots of cake and cookies.

As we grew older, my Mom had to be clever hiding the gifts so we wouldn't find them before Christmas morning. She would also label the gifts with each of us having a code name, so we could not tell which gift was ours. So a unique family tradition we had was The Guessing of Names.

My wife's family had a slightly different tradition, where presents were opened on Christmas Eve so that they could attend Mass on Christmas morning, and then come home for the big feast. That is also how my German cousins celebrate; except instead of gifts, you leave your shoes out so Kris Kringle can fill them with chocolate. Their dinner would be fish, except my aunt doesn't like it so now they eat pork roasted in a clay pot called a "romertopf"... which is probably a very old dinner tradition, since the word translates to "roman pot".

Happy Holidays and a wonderful new year to everyone!

[ustrax]

Happy Holidays and a wonderful new year to everyone!

Hi Marz!
Here traditions also variate, several people celebrate the ways you referred, we like to go to the midnight mass because we're celebrating Someone's Birth...It's like going to His birthday party...
And thank you for your kind words...Life goes, one way or the other, Onward...

[Stu]

Let's see.. elements of a traditional British Christmas Day...

Up early to unwrap pressies in bed and and have the first glass of Baileys... reluctantly get out of bed to find a church service on the TV, closely followed by a diabetes-inducing sickly-sweet "Make Dreams Come True" TV show - featuring Noel Edmonds or someone like that - in a hospital, or featuring a dozen or so street urchins who want to swim with dolphins or have a bath in Vimto or something... the long build-up to Christmas dinner, to the accompanying sounds of a "Carry On" film or "1976 Morecambe and Wise Christmas Special" in the background... again... then all round the table for a big Christmas Dinner, turkey, roasties, stuffing, the works... crackers are pulled, paper hats are donned, groans exchanged as bad jokes read out, and naff cheap Made In China plastic moustaches, compasses and the like are piled up on the table before the revelries stop to allow watching The Queens Speech and then "Top of The Pops" on the TV...

Then the afternoon, and the "After Eight" mints or "Fruit Jellies" come out, along with the Baileys and/or Advocat, as everyone settles on the sofa to watch The Big Film... then they wake up half an hour after it's finished, wondering what happened at the end...

Teatime: turkey sandwiches and reheated roasted potatoes... yummm! ... before going for a walk to get some badly-needed fresh air... then back inside and top up the Baileys or brandy glass and settle down to watch the Dr Who Christmas Special...

No?

Oh. Just me then...

Edit: Unless it's "Christmas 2004" in which case it would be "Check if there's any news about Beagle 2 yet... Check if there's any news about Beagle 2 yet... Check if there's any news about Beagle 2 yet... Check if there's any news about Beagle 2 yet... Check if there's any news about Beagle 2 yet... Check if there's any news about Beagle 2 yet... Check if there's any news about Beagle 2 yet... Check if there's any news about Beagle 2 yet... "

[volcanopele]

This year I am staying in Tucson, but growing up, we would open up one present during the evening on Christmas Eve. When I was a teenager, we went to midnight mass, but usually we went to the Christmas Eve mass (when they had the children's choir, thankfully I was never forced into that). Of course, I would get up as early as possible Christmas day to enjoy the unwrapped presents. I remember one Christmas when I got my first bike, I rode the bike around the 1st floor of our house for an hour before everyone else woke up. After opening up presents, we would sit around, watch TV, and then eat dinner, usually ham.

This Christmas, I'm hanging out with friends, probably go to mass Christmas morning, not sure yet.

[Guest_PhilCo126_*]

Staying at home both 24th + 25th December...
Sunday 24th we'll probably go to the midnight Catholic service
Monday 25th will start watching Urbi et Orbi 'LIVE' from the Vatican,
Christmas day dinner having the family over so that will be a meal with the 'traditional' lobster-soup, main dish of 'exotic' meat (ostrich or ostrich I believe) with Belgian fries, some Belgian Quality Ice cream dessert followed by 'Buche' cake and Senseo coffee

Then a walk on the beach to get every one's cheeks red, stopping by at the small local christmas open Air market to nip some lemon jenever... Back home everyone will have to wait another 4 hours before heading home due to all the 'alcohol road-blocks' by Belgian Police

[ElkGroveDan]

With five kids (13, 10, 5, 3 & 2) I think everyone can imagine what my house is like on Christmas . My family all live in Los Angeles, 5 hours away, and Allison only has her mother who lives nearby. So Grandma comes over Christmas Eve and all eight of us pile into the car and take up an entire pew at one of the Vigil masses. They have one as early as 3:30pm this year which works out great for us. At the later masses the kids (not just mine) get noisy and cranky. Grandma spends the night and Allison and I stay up until the late hours finishing our wrapping.

When I was a kid my parents used to simply pile the toys up in various corners of the living room and we would all come running downstairs and dive in. It went real fast that way. But Allison insists that everything must be wrapped, no matter how large or small. Moreover she was an only child of a single mother who used to spoil her with large amounts of gifts on Christmas. So my wife insists on dozens of presents for each child. That's why it takes weeks to wrap everything, and then it takes all Christmas morning to unwrap it all.

The kids usually get us out of bed at 5:00 am and we take a break for breakfast around 7:30 and resume the unwrapping again afterwards. Then I spend most of the morning assembling toys (Anyone here ever try to unwrap a Barbie doll??? They stitch the hair to the back of box!). We all settle down for dinner around 5:00 pm and it's usually ham. When I was growing up it was turkey, but my wife doesn't care for all the work on Christmas Day.

Later in the week I usually take the two oldest on an overnight trip to Los Angeles so I can see my Dad and give him his gifts, and visit family and old friends while my wife stays home with the little ones.

[nprev]

Me & my girlfriend this year: Lots of movies from Blockbuster, some good sushi, a few beers...and the whole week off. Thank God for "use-or-lose" leave!

[Stu]

Talking about things Christmassy, I wrote this festive martian story yonks ago, but thought some of you might like to read it...

"Christmas on Mars"

Merry Christmas everyone!

[Tesheiner]

It's interesting to see the differences between cultures... 4pm, 6pm: that's "siesta" time here in Spain!

We'll start the "activities" later. Dinner will be about 9:00pm with the children too (6,4, and 2 years old), and "Papa Noel" will come during the night. Tomorrow I'm pretty sure to be wake-up at 07:00am to see the little gremlinsangels unpacking the gifts for our rejoyness. Talking about gifts, the tradition here is to give them not on 24-25 Dic but on 6th Jan when the Kings come following the orient star. Times are changing and Santa is obviously taking its place (we celebrate both).

Well, time to send the last emails/cards before the celebrations and say to everebody

Merry Christmas!

[Adam]

Merry Christmas everyone! We have just finished our Christmas dinner over here and are going to open the presents soon. Here in Sweden Donald Duck is a Christmas tradition, it starts at 3PM, ends at 4PM. Then we eat dinner and open presents during the evening.

[Nix]

A Merry Christmas to all of you this year!

Anne, Louise, Mary, Nico

[Bob Shaw]

Personally, I observe (locally) the Winter Solstice; on a broader scale, Hogswatch Night remains a favourite. As a devotee of the Elder Ghods I have litttle reason, of course, to actually celebrate, as the best that one may hope for is delayed consumption rather than any of that roast fowl stuff.

Aiii Cthulhu!

Bob Shaw

[djellison]

This season - I will be mostly celebrating by......changing the UMSF banner logo

Doug

[Nix]

You're a freak

Nico