How did traditional catholics around the world celebrate Christmas prior to the 60s?

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We actually sang O Come O Come Emmanuel during Advent. Traditional Christmas songs like Joy To The World, O Come All Ye Faithful, and Hark The Herald Angels Sing before the feminist psalter revised them.
 
many people work over religious holidays. But I hear you. My son works for the TSA. He’s never had Christmas Eve or Christmas off unless it falls on his designated day off and even they he can be mandated to work if they don’t have enough coverage.
 
As a non Christian, I have always volunteered to work Christian holidays so the Christians can have the day off. It’s my favorite time to work (hospital). All those patients that can be released are and no scheduled surgeries, etc. The floors tend to be quiet, the ER not so much but even there, there is a holiday spirit and everyone is in a good mood. Visitors bring treats for us and sympathize with us having to work…and everyone just helps each other so much more than usual! We decorate the floors and nursing stations, holiday music is playing quietly overhead and we have a Christmas tree on each floor decorate with a theme chosen and done by the floor. They are beautiful! The holiday pay is just an extra bonus, I’d do it for regular pay (but I wouldn’t tell management that) 😹
 
Does anyone have special dishes they eat on Christmas or other days of the feast? As a German/Austrian-American family, we tended to bake up a storm of stollen, gugelhupf, lebkuchen, springerle, etc. Christmas dinner was often duck or turkey. I know that Italians have the tradition of the 7 fishes and the ever-present panetone.
 
My dad made stollen only for Christmas. (He was not German, he just liked it.) We had a few kinds of fish for dinner on Christmas Eve, but not 7. (We couldn’t afford that.) And nothing else! We usually had lasagna for dinner on Christmas Day. My mom made macaroons, and date nut cookies, and brownies.

For my own family, we tried having 7 fishes on Christmas Eve. Even if one was fish sticks. 😊 And we added linguini with red clam sauce or marinara because “some people” don’t like fish. :roll_eyes:

Christmas Dinner is definitely Italian. Appetizers thru desserts.
Fuhgeddaboudit. 😱
 
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For my family Christmas dinner was turkey with all the trimmings. Turkey was not restricted to Christmas, New Years and Easter so it was the desserts that made it festive, mainly cookies and squares that Mom didn’t bake except then.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, the only time Mom and most of the women around made meat pies was for Christmas. That was the one dish that yelled “Christmas!!!” They were a lot of work to make and they’d usually make a couple of dozen at one time.

My kids never really liked meat pie so I didn’t start making them until hubby and I were on our own. I only make a few pot-pie-sized ones that go in the freezer until we return from our Christmas vacation to our daughter’s place.

The one thing I make every Christmas is cranberry cinnamon rolls. If it’s not a rushed job (as in we got off the plane at noon Christmas Eve) I’ll shape them into a Christmas tree and decorate with icing, silver balls, and cherries. If it’s a rushed job they get baked in a 9"X13" pan
 
As of Polish heritage, we usually had for Christmas breakfast keilbasa (smoked and fresh) from a local butcher shop, also ham, coffee cake, paczki, and kruschiki. Horseradish relish was available, though few of us would partake.
 
Horseradish, in small amounts, was great with ham. We bought such things as kielbasa locally. One store had his own smokehouse out back. Local butchers could not be beat. And local bakeries for rye bread with seeds, and French bread.
 
Reverent_Howler said:
As of Polish heritage, we usually had for Christmas breakfast keilbasa (smoked and fresh) from a local butcher shop, also ham, coffee cake, paczki, and kruschiki. Horseradish relish was available, though few of us would partake.
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Did you have a Holy Supper on Christmas Eve?
 
Can you tell me what Advent prayer book you have, please? I’m looking for one for my family.
 
Sorry, I hadn’t read down this far when I asked you about your prayer book! 🙂
 
I love this post! I’ve been looking for ways to create more Catholic traditions for the holidays, as my family are converts. We have a crèche that we add the baby Jesus to on Christmas Eve and the kids move the wise men until they reach the crèche on Epiphany…Where do people usually put their crèches? I’ve put mine under the Christmas tree but also on a table…we do an advent wreath too but we had always just lit the candles on sundays and done prayers then. I ordered the book up thread so we can do it daily. We also celebrate st Nicholas day and put candy in the kids church shoes. We’ve had a paper Jesse tree before, this year we will probably do that again plus I’m thinking getting a real tree to decorate for advent, so we would have 2 trees instead of the usual one. We always go to the family Christmas Eve vigil mass and my kids are in the nativity pageant. On Christmas Day I always make apple stuffed French toast and we open presents and hang out, then we eat a big Christmas dinner with family in the afternoon.
 
Limoncello4021 said:
Does anyone have special dishes they eat on Christmas or other days of the feast? As a German/Austrian-American family, we tended to bake up a storm of stollen, gugelhupf, lebkuchen, springerle, etc. Christmas dinner was often duck or turkey. I know that Italians have the tradition of the 7 fishes and the ever-present panetone.
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We try to have foods that celebrate our heritage.

As a child, it wasn’t unusual to see a German dish sitting alongside an Irish dish, an English dish, a Mexican dish (gotta have my tamales), a French dish, etc. The menu depended on who we were spending the holidays with since each branch of the family had a little something different in their line.

Now, my mother and I just celebrate by ourselves and our various health issues dictate a lot of what we can and cannot have on our holiday table. We aren’t able to be as adventurous as we used to be and now just decide which part of our heritage to focus on.
 
Advent candle question:

If I use tapers, how many should I buy to make it through the month (assuming we light candles nightly)?
 
I’m not sure. I’ve always used votive candles and we only light them for about 5-10 minutes a night. I’m not kidding when I say that in the last 18 years, I’ve only bought three sets.

If your tapers don’t list a burn time , I’d at least get two or four sets depending on how long you are going to burn them each evening. Whatever you don’t use can be stored for future years.

Another idea would be to buy an extra candle and light it for the amount of time you think you will burn your wreath candles each day and see how long it takes to burn down. The thing with predicting candle burn time is that some candles will burn all of advent and others will burn less because of only lighting a new one each week.
 
You just reminded me of the smells of my grandma’s kitchen. Boy do I miss that. Christmas Eve we have sloppy joes, little Smokey’s and meatballs. Something that was quick and easy to clean up since we opened presents on Christmas Eve after Grandpa then Dad got home from 2nd service and they’d be busy Christmas Day. Christmas Day we’d either have a turkey, ham or rib roast depending on who’s turn it was to cook.
 
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We did trees nativity, and yes I make my own limoncello and church on the vigil and presents that night on Befana on 6 JAN.
 
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