All Things Holiday Thread!

[Medusa]

Well, Thanksgiving and the Christmas, Chanukah, Kwanzaa, Solstice and New Year's Holidays are upon us.

Do you celebrate? What are some of your favorite foods? Do you think this time of year is too commercialized? Care to share a favorite recipe? Plans for New Year's?

This thread is for all things Holidays! or "Holidaze" if you get especially chaotic!

[Gemme]

Soooooooo overly commercialized.

I celebrate anything with food and pressies and people taking 15 minutes out of their lives to not be dickwads.

I plan to decorate for Xmas. I have plans for New Year's. I'm set!

FRUITCAKE!!! I freakin' LOVE those lil buckeyes. OMG, I haven't had them in forever but they are super yummy as well as rumballs. Real rumballs. My Gran kept all the kids happy and quiet with those rumballs. Good times.

[Medusa]

I LOVE this time of year because it means that all things pumpkin-flavored are available in quantity!!!

Pumpkin pies! Pumpkin lattes! Pumpkin bread!! Pumpkin-scented candles!! Pumpkin-colored throws!

YAY!

[ahk]

Thanksgiving is a big holiday for my wife and I-- we love to cook. Though we don't really have folks come over due to previous b.s. This year will be our first Paleo/Primal meal and I'm a bit anxious because we'll not have stuffing/or bread. lol.

I love my wife's cheese ball and deviled eggs-- I'll share one of the recipes later.

I have always felt that holidays are over commercialized-- we (family, both sides) buy 1 gift and then make all others or donate to others who need.

Christmas, not sure what's happening may be going to AZ -- and if not, then New Year's we'll travel somewhere, possibly Ruidoso-- we've been really talking about that. It'll be nice to get out of town for the holiday.

[Heavenleahangel]

I love this time of year, also because it means the holidays are upon us and I get to decorate for my son who is 6! I start with Halloween for him but get serious about things after the 1st of November getting ready for my Thanksgiving dinner. I am the cook for my entire family up here and any friends who want to come eat. Turkey and dressing of course with green bean casserole, rolls, etc.
I decorate my home and yard for Christmas and put apple/fruit pieces on my trees for the animals to have a treat. I also cook this meal for my family which will be a ham with southern trimmings. Mac n cheese, yams, corn on cob, etc. Always a red velvet cake and other goodies.
Sadly, the retailers make it too commercial and put pressure on us to spend, spend, spend. I do not get into hype of "If you love someone you will buy them..........!" It's more important for me to have family and close friends nearby and being able to celebrate another year.

[Ciaran]

I love Christmas.

Here in the UK, we (obviously) don't celebrate Thanksgiving and the other celebrations are fairly contained within the respective ethnic / religious communities.

Christmas is different. Unlike the US where many aspects still operate as normal, most things stop completely here on Christmas Day (and, often, Boxing Day too). No buses or other public transport. Very few, if any, shops open on Christmas Day etc.

During my younger adult life, I used the Christmas holidays as an opportunity to travel a lot. I think, between 1998 and 2007, I spent one Christmas back home. The others were spent in Rome, Manila, San Francisco et al.

I didn't regret it at the time - but, as I've been living the past 5 to 6 years in London away from my family, I do now.

These days, for me, Christmas is about family and my close, life-long friends back home. It's not about religion (well, it is but that's a 365 day a year thing), at least not in any meaningful sense. It's all about being back home.

After recent months, I'm very much looking forward to getting back home this year. Last year, Christmas was hectic and noisy - Tmbyfem was here, alongside my brother and his young family. This year, Tmbyfem won't arrive until post-Christmas and my brother will be celebrating Christmas with his young family in their new London home.

So there'll be fewer people which means less noise and more turkey for me. My family and friends will be around me. I'll eat and drink more than I should, probably go to mass 6 of the 7 days I'm there, reiterate to my parents and my friends how much I love them and return to London with a smile inside.

That's my Christmas.

[Jar]

I plan to decorate for Christmas. My favorite food for Christmas and thanksgiving is turkey, cranberry sauce, asparagus casserole AND my mom's dressing. My sister used to call it wet cornbread so my mom would make both dressing and stuffing. Good memories.....

[Jar]

The past few years my mom and I go shopping for toys and food. A few days before Christmas we go to several charities and make deliveries. It gives me the true feeling of the holiday. I want to carry on this new tradition this year too.

[PinkieLee]

YAY for holidays

For the last 10 years or so, we've gone out to eat for Thanksgiving. Now, with only me, my mom & my brother, it's actually cheaper and less wasteful to go somewhere like Cracker Barrel or Black Eyed Pea. Of course, there is no cleanup too! D has a huge family get together at her grandmother's house and I usually go over there for dessert (or round 2 for food) with them.

Just like Medusa, I love anything PUMPKIN flavored and have been secretly stocking up on my pumpkin spice coffee creamer!

I am fighting every urge I have right now... not so patiently waiting for the day after Thanksgiving so I can put up MY tree. Yes, in our house we have 2 trees (my girlie tree that has more bling on than should be allowed, and D's UT & camo tree complete with shot gun shell lights Yes, even our wrapping paper matches our trees!!

We (meaning me) are actually thinking about making gifts for folks this year. I normally do some baking to give but I'm thinking about doing some kind of craft. I've just gotta do some digging around on Etsy or Pintrest

[Gemme]

Originally Posted by Jar

The past few years my mom and I go shopping for toys and food. A few days before Christmas we go to several charities and make deliveries. It gives me the true feeling of the holiday. I want to carry on this new tradition this year too.

Love this.

I enjoy going to the stores that still participate in the Tree Angel program, where local kids in the system have cards with 'wants' (usually electronics or toys) and 'needs' (usually clothes) listed, along with their sizes and preferences. I pick a couple of angels when I can swing it and have a ball shopping for them.

For those that don't know, I was in the system for a couple of years and there was one children's home that I was assigned to that was absolutely fantastic for things like this. They had fundraisers and sent out the kids' 'wish lists' (we could put 10 things on the list and at least 5 of them HAD to be clothes/necessary things but the others could be anything we wanted to ask for) to their benefactors and for weeks before Christmas the kids would have to go to the mail center and bring back boxes and bags of stuff. The anticipation nearly drove us mad, especially the younger kids and first timers, but it really made us feel as if we weren't alone in this world; that people outside of our immediate families (for those that still had family members they were in contact with) knew we existed and cared if us kids had a 'good Christmas' or not.

It kind of brings up the whole over-commercialization of Christmas debate, but when you're 8 and your life has brought you to the point where you are basically a number in a file, just like everyone else, knowing that someone took a few minutes out of their day and a few bucks out of their pocket to do something FOR YOU, that's fucking amazing. And we were far more grateful for the things we received than most kids were.

[Rockinonahigh]

The hollidays will usely be a small family thing,with the exception of my pool team christmas gift exchange then my son has a get together with frinds.Most of my family has either gone over the bridge or live a long way off
in this case we exchange cards plus phone calls.I do decorate a bit but don't go over bord with it,I also do some charity/volunteer work when I can to help the season be better for folks who are in need.I find the hollidays a lot over done with commershalism and the gimmie gimmie thing.All the hollidays use to be a big thing in my family with a big tree,gift giveing,fancy meals and all.But without the folks that made it special it has dwindled to what it is.AS for special recepies I try to do something diffrent now and then even tho I still bake to many things that either end up in the freezer or trash if we cant eat it all.I like apple pies,James(my son) likes cherry so there is one of each the at some point a make a butter rum cake then som italian pastries.By then all the health changes we have made to get in better health and lose weight have gone right out the window.Oh heck thats what new years is for,to start all over again.

[WingsOnFire]

Most definitely over commercialized...

I love love love Thanksgiving and a huge dinner with family and friends... Not sure yet this year what my plans will be but I am sure I will be partaking in several dinners with friends. I love the smell of Turkey baking in the oven, my favorite foods are stuffing, mashed potatoes and sweet potatoes.. mmmmm and all the fixings in between....

I want to decorate my house this year for Christmas. It will be my first year living on my own but I am sure I will be celebrating it with everyone who cares to share their time with me.

I am with Gemme... I ALWAYS participate in the angel tree service... my employer has always had that for their employees and I absolutely love participating.

[CA_BabyCakes]

I love the holidays!! Love having the whole family over and doing different holiday themed activities with my kids on the weekends! I especially love baking with my brother and helping my grandma make tamales, Mmmmmm....

[easygoingfemme]

Love the holidays! Over commercial or not, I don't have to buy into the hype but choose to celebrate my own way and have fun.

Halloween is a great kick off. My daughter usually plans a costume a year in advance and has been known to spend months and months sewing and creating. Then we usually have a party with our collective homeschooling families. When the kids were younger, they would go out treating, but now they hang out in their costumes and watch a semi-spooky movie and just be themselves. The parents hang out in another room with wine and snacks and relax. We're also taking the kids ice skating in the afternoon this year for "Halloween on ice"

Thanksgiving has changed a lot over the years. About 20 years ago my mother started making it really big after recovering from breast cancer treatment. For a while we'd have extended family travel and come and we'd have up to 30 people together for the meal. Then older generations started getting older and the party dwindled because it was too hard to travel. Last year my grandmother died a few days before Thanksgiving and that was hard. She loved Thanksgiving so much. This year, as I did last year, I will take over making the dishes my Grandmother made (Corn bread pudding, Indian pudding, chocolate cream pie, pumpkin pie, sweet potatoes...) and my mom will make an entree and we will get together for a nice big meal.

The day after Thanksgiving we stay home and play board games and avoid the crazy outside...

Someday between Thanksgiving and Christmas (which we celebrate) my daughter wakes up to find I've cancelled everything so that we can have an all out crafting blitz and we start playing holiday music and make wintery crafts all day.

Christmas eve we have dinner at my parents house, usually something simple like quiche and salad (My mom doesn't like to cook and my dad doesn't think to take over) and we just visit.

I host Christmas day at my house. Overnight I make steel cut oats in the crockpot, and then in the morning my daughter and I make a few quiche. Usually my daughter spends the week before baking sweet breads and muffins. I put all that out with a big bowl of fruit and a lot of coffee and family comes. It's sort of small, my parents, and by brother, his wife, and their son who will be 1 1/2 this year. Everyone eats a lot and there is an exchange of gifts, largely centered around the kids. My family is pretty practical and other than my brother, most of us are not too into tangible goods as gifts, so often gifts are things like registrations for a class someone wants to take, or tickets to a play, or a gift certificate to go somewhere special. I make a huge dinner with shellfish, some sort of poultry, loads of vegetables, etc. Then we bring out the pies and cocktails. We usually run well into the evening once we've gotten through it all.

The day after Christmas my daughter and I play whatever new games might have come into the house and eat leftovers and do not leave home.

My guy and his kids will get here a day or two after Christmas, so they can spend the actual holiday with family who lives right there near them. We will take a few (home based) vacation days to go snow tubing, have board game marathons, and relax. Don't tell, but my father is building all of the kids wooden stilts, because they experienced them at a festival over the summer and loved them. So I foresee a fair amount of time being spent watching the kids master the art of stilt walking. Depending on how much snow and ice we get, this could be very interesting, or scary.

New years, last year my guy and I went to dinner at an Irish pub, followed by an awesome stand up comedy night at a local theater. We're going to do that again this year. My daughter will visit with my parents while we're out and then we'll all be home probably an hour or so before midnight. I don't have a television so we might put on a computer to watch a ball drop somewhere, or not, not a big deal.

Fun to read everyone's holiday plans!

[Jar]

ahk... wanted to know what asparagus casserole was ..... My mom makes it (I've never attempted it yet). In a casserole dish she layers asparagus, sliced boiled eggs, mushroom soup and cheese. She makes 2 or 3 of these layers and tops it with crumbled crackers, then bakes it for about half hour or a little more. Good stuff!

[Gráinne]

The kids already "did" Halloween at Magic Screams, a sort of haunted amusement park (Magic Springs). It's a good thing, as there's supposed to be bad weather moving in by then.

For Thanksgiving, I'd hoped to work at the food bank or a serving before having dinner at home. With my family gone, it's all on me.

Christmas, the kids and I are going to Oregon for my brother.

[Soft*Silver]

my holidays have changed over the years. I use to go all out decorating, inviting family over for get togethers and meals, etc when my daughter lived with me. As she matured and moved on, my health also started to decline so I had less ability to decorate but I still held dinners. Then even that changed. I went to people's houses instead. I was too poor to afford to make meals and frankly, had no one left in my life. Its amazing what poor health does to a social registry.

I met chrissy, and in the beginning, I wanted to do the holidays again because he was with me. But alas, he was still so hurt over the trauma from his past around holidays, that he could not enjoy them. He helped me put some things up for decor' but I forfeited alot because I knew it was hard on him. But, over the past few years he has come to see these holidays in a new Present light. He is beginning to enjoy it now.

And now, I am back together with my daughter, and she is pregnant. I will have a grandchild to enjoy Christmas with! We are invited to their house for Thanksgiving and they are coming to our for Christmas. I am ready to pull out all the decorations again and burst open the holiday dinnerware! A baby!!! A BABY!

life has its ebbs and flows. When I was most desolate and depressed living away from Ohio, I never thought I would feel loved again. I feared I would leave there and be unconnected to anyone ever again. My heart was broken at so many different levels, but on the larger scale, that sense of having a place in the world, was shattered. I was without family, friends, a lover, a home, no horses, no god, no job, no health, no nothing. Never have I been closer to the edge of my world than then. And now, I am celebrating again. I am at the top of my mountain and singing like that crazy nun.

So, for some, holidays might be very dark times, a candid snapshot of all that is lost or never had. Life can change tho, as it did in mine. It took everything bit of courage I had to go on, inch by inch, but it worked. So I guess I am saying this...that if your holidays are dark moments, lift them up however you need to, in order to put that tinsel on your tree...

[Corkey]

We went to a pumpkin patch, they had a corn maze that was of the Brig Niagara. We didn't do the maze because it was too much walking for us. But they had a college student who painted the pumpkins, we got one and the stand made of iron that looks like arms holding the gourd. We showed up a day early, oh yes we did! (Ami wondered why we were the only ones there).
Does not mind supporting our local farmers.

[GeorgiaMa'am]

Originally Posted by Gemme

Love this.

I enjoy going to the stores that still participate in the Tree Angel program, where local kids in the system have cards with 'wants' (usually electronics or toys) and 'needs' (usually clothes) listed, along with their sizes and preferences. I pick a couple of angels when I can swing it and have a ball shopping for them.

Thanks Gemme, I'm going to make it a point to do this for at least one kid this year. I don't have any kids younger than teens to shop for any longer, and somehow shopping for a little kid just makes Christmas that much more Christmas-ier.

-Georgia

[GeorgiaMa'am]

Originally Posted by Miss_Tia

I will have a grandchild to enjoy Christmas with!

Grandbabies change everything, especially at holidays. In my extended family when there are babies and little kids, everyone just _tries_ harder to be better, to get along, to be less cynical . . . I think we all want the kids to have happy memories. [Now my cynical side is creeping up to think some disparaging remarks, but I won't do it! I will not! I'll remember that it's good to have regular reminders (like holidays) to do the right things, lest we all forget their importance.]

Congratulations on the new grandbaby, Miss Tia!

-Georgia