Old Fashioned CHRISTmas traditions, Please share, weather you go to the TLM or the NO Mass

[Megan7]

Hi,

I would like to know what you do on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day,
and throughout the Christmas Season, do you also celebrate Jan. 6th Epiphany,
in the same fashion?

Please share your family traditions, the more traditional, old fashioned the better!

What day do you open up gifts, after Christmas Day Mass?
Do you also have gifts on the day of Epiphany Jan 6th?

Please share!

I have a non Catholic relative, that would like to know what Catholics do, the old fashioned,
traditional families & if you know where that tradition came from,etc.

And if you do go to the TLM, how is the celebration there compared to a NO Mass

(PLEASE no arguments of what is better or not, PLEASE just share what
your Church does & how it celebrates Christmas! I do not want the thread to get closed)

Peace!

Thanks:thumbsup:

 

[utah_rose]

Hi,

I would like to know what you do on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day,
and throughout the Christmas Season, do you also celebrate Jan. 6th Epiphany,
in the same fashion?

Please share your family traditions, the more traditional, old fashioned the better!

What day do you open up gifts, after Christmas Day Mass?
Do you also have gifts on the day of Epiphany Jan 6th?

Please share!

I have a non Catholic relative, that would like to know what Catholics do, the old fashioned,
traditional families & if you know where that tradition came from,etc.

And if you do go to the TLM, how is the celebration there compared to a NO Mass

(PLEASE no arguments of what is better or not, PLEASE just share what
your Church does & how it celebrates Christmas! I do not want the thread to get closed)

Peace!

Thanks:thumbsup:

We are seniors but when our daughter was growing up we put stockings up on St. Nicholas Day. Then, on Christmas Eve, we first went to Mass. Then we trimmed the tree while my husband whipped up some (spiked)egg nog. We’d open our gifts on Christmas Day.

Now my tradition is to make fruitcake (my son-in-law and husband loves it) and bourbon balls for Christmas and New Years. My Nativity set goes up minus the child Jesus about a week before Christmas, and no Santa Claus decorations either.

 

[Megan7]

We are seniors but when our daughter was growing up we put stockings up on St. Nicholas Day. Then, on Christmas Eve, we first went to Mass. Then we trimmed the tree while my husband whipped up some (spiked)egg nog. We’d open our gifts on Christmas Day.

Now my tradition is to make fruitcake (my son-in-law and husband loves it) and bourbon balls for Christmas and New Years. My Nativity set goes up minus the child Jesus about a week before Christmas, and no Santa Claus decorations either.

Thank you for your post!
Do you have a special meal on Christmas Day ? What do you have,
turkey or something else ?
Do you do something special on the Epiphany ?
Thanks!
Peace!

P.S: Sorry, I meant to say whether (instead of weather) in the title, its too late to edit

 

[beth40n2]

I am a convert of 6 years and the rest of my family are United Methodist, but this is what we do.

At church Father will not allow any Christmas decorations until after Mass on the 4th Sunday of Advent, so anyone who wants to stays after Mass to decorate. We have a big manger we put up on one side and on the other side we put a Christmas tree and lots of poinsettas. Some poinsettas are put under the altar, but nothing can detract from the altar.

At home for years, even before becoming a Catholic I have an Advent candle I put on my coffee table and light them and do the devotions all through Advent.

On Christmas eve I go to church with my husband and then I go to Mass afterwards. I love the midnight Mass. Both of my sons are grown, so it changes each year as to when we open gifts, sometimes Christmas Eve, sometimes Christmas Eve.

I put up my olive wood nativity set I bought in Bethlehem in 1987 during the 3rd week of advent or later and it does stay up unitl Epiphany.

We put up our tree about a week or two before Christmas as we always get a real tree and it needs to be down by New Years. My tree has lots of religous ornaments. Bulbs that say Jesus is the reason for the season, keep Christ in Christmas, nativity sets, angels etc.

I have some small nativity sets up and one of my favorite is my statue of Jesus on his knees praying to Jesus. I have a stuffed nativity set I put on the floor in front of the tree and my grandsons play with it. In fact last night my 3 grandsons were helping me decorate and the 7 year old and the 5 year old were telling their brother 2 1/2 about Jesus being born in the manger telling him who Mary and Joseph are. I am so glad that they are learning that in their United Methodist Sunday school and at home.

I know we could be more religious. I hope this helps.

 

[SeekingHisHeart]

For the past few years I’ve been doing Oplatki a beautiful Polish Christmas Eve Tradition that a priest friend introduced me to. “Families of Polish, Slovak and Lithuanian background observe this Christmas Eve Tradition. Family members and guests each are handed an oplatek and they each break off a piece from one another and eat it, expressing best wishes and blessings to each other, and asking for forgiveness
This is a tender, touching family celebration of love and forgiveness. oplatki.com/.”

Here’s an in depth explanation

aquinasandmore.com/catholic-articles/The-Oplatki-Tradition-of-Eastern-Europe/article/314

 

[roveau]

In the really old days as a four year old in Holland, I remember that we opened our ‘Christmas’ presents on the Eve of the feast of St Nicholas (feast day being 6 December). Christmas Eve and the Day were mainly for visiting family and friends, and going to church.

When we got to Australia, it all shifted to Christmas Day. The presents would already be under the Christmas tree when we woke up. It was Mass first, and then we opened the presents in an orderly fashion after parents had a coffee and cake. Only one present was handed out and unwrapped at a time while we all looked on. This allowed us all to appreciate each other’s gifts. The presents were only labelled with the name of the receiver, it was assumed that St Nicholas (Sinter Klaas) had given us the presents. Santa Claus never took hold in our family, strangely enough.

One unusual thing about the Christmas tree which often attracted comments from visitors were the oranges (along with nuts in their shells) under the Christmas tree on a white linen cloth. The oranges were an old Dutch custom which represented loyalty to the beloved the royal House of Orange.

 

[ConstantineTG]

In the Philippines we have Simbang Gabi. Pre-daw Masses, its a novena Mass. Starts on the 16th until the 24th. Usually around 4-4:30am. This tradition has been around for a long time. And we have packed churches. Usually 1/3 of the people stand outside the church because the entire inside is full.

 

[Megan7]

Hi,

All of your traditions sound lovely, please keep them coming!
Thank you for sharing!
Peace!

 

[corsair]

We all used to attend Mid-night Mass. when we got home, the kids (7) were sent off to bed ASAP. Then my wife and I would wait until all were asleep before setting out the presents. By 5:00 am I was up again getting the house warmed up while the wife started breakfast. Then by 6:00am the kids would be begging to come down. Surprise!!! Santa had been there.

After present were exchanged the wife would serve our family special Christmas breads that she had prepared earlier in December.

Now that we are grandparents 18 times plus, we see our kids still carrying on most of these family traditions but blended with their spouses traditions.

Once in a while, during Christmas, the grand kids want to know about various ancestors, so I’ll breakout the large family tree chart (it goes back to 1535). And then its story telling time.
Those are the really special fun times.

By the way, we always went as a family into the mountains to cut our own Christmas tree. I used to work for a large timber company as a logging supervisor so I knew where all the good tree patches were located.

 

[CB_Catholic]

Since the entire family is either scattered around the country or have sadly passed on, we don’t have too many traditions any more. Also I am either working or on call every other year so at times there is only my husband and me. This year I work Christmas Eve, am on call Christmas Eve night, and on call the day after Christmas. I put out a few decorations, but no tree. We will go to my mom’s on Christmas day for a small family dinner, but she lives 11/2 hours away. Will go to Mass on Christmas Eve. I will see my grandchildren this weekend. My children live about 3 hours away from us.

However, growing up in an Italian family in the 50’s and 60’s, we had some lovely traditions. We had the traditional “7-fish” Christmas Eve dinner with all kinds of goodies as side dishes and the whole family would gather at my grandmother’s house. Santa Claus always made an appearance for us children and passed out presents and candies. Then we would go to Midnight Mass. No meat would be eaten on Christmas Eve, but I don’t remember how long we fasted before Communion after our meal. We had a huge real tree which my grandmother made my grandfather spray paint pink. It was lovely all decorated.
We opened one present after Mass. (I lived with my grandparents).

Christmas Day began early with a nice breakfast, and the cooking began. The relatives would come over and all the aunts would bring food and start cooking sauce, turkey with stuffing, roast, wedding soup, etc. I remember there was usually a cauldron of spaghetti sauce and another one of soup. All the pasta was homemade. There was a kitchen in the basement, so there was lots of stove room. We opened our presents in the morning after Santa had come, and the cousins would bring over their toys and we would play all day. The house was overflowing. The adults would play Tripoly or Poker, and usually the men would fall asleep in a chair for a short nap. The adults would drink highballs and homemade wine, but nobody ever got drunk, just jolly. Later on we might go visiting people, and that visiting usually went on for most of the week after Christmas in the evenings, or people would come over. So we sort of celebrated Christmas the whole week, and basically ate our way through Christmas week

We had another smaller celebration on “Little Christmas”–the Epiphany. After that, the tree came down and the decorations were put away for another year. Lovely memories.