Christmas Traditions

What are your "traditions" on christmas?
Which traditions are popular in your country? What are YOU doing on christmas? (For example: What are you eating?)

Tell me everything you want I'm just curious

On christmas eve morning (24th Dec) children go out on the streets and sing christmas carol and people give them money and candy. On the 25th, we have family meals, we have chicken, turkey, lamp, meat in general, usually roasted, salads etc, and of course pies, greek pies are awesome, cheese pie (feta, you know!), meat pie, ham pie, pumpkin pie, any kind of pie! Our traditional "sweet" of these days are "melomakarona" and "kourabiedes"..Melomakarona are made of flour, lemon, nuts, and other stuff, and are based on honey..Really sweet. Kourabiedes are so yummmy..And they're so white, because on top are covered with rosewater and sugar. On New year's eve, kids also go to sing carol (different from the others), the meals are the same, and we open the presents as soon as the new year comes. The main desert is "vasilopita" which is kinda like a cake, and inside it there's a coin, we cut our pieces, we take our piece, and whoever finds the coin is supposed to be the luckiest guy for the year to come.....

Here are some photos:

These are "melomakarona"


These are "kourabiedes"


And this is "vasilopita"

This sounds really good. I want to try those food...especially the kourabiedes look so tasty


Maybe I should say something about christmas in germany

The most important day for us is the christmas eve (24th Dec). It's not really a holiday - the stores are still open until noon. But most of the people have a day of.
In the morning and afternoon the whole family prepares the celebration in the evening... I think the jobs are different distributed in every family...but it's preferable that every family member helps (some jobs can be done before of course) The jobs are: Arrange and decorate the christmas tree, prepare the dinner and maybe do a plate with all kind of sweets. And there's the "Present-Mission" (I just don't know how to call this ): Bring the presents under the tree without getting the attention from the kids. In family's without little children it's not that secret...everyone just brings the presents and put them under the tree - or give them personally to each other.
Every family does something else for christmas dinner. But some traditionall ones are for exampel: Potato salad with sausages, filled goose or duck with dumplings and red cabbage, fish or any other meat. The only thing I can say easily is: We eat a lot on christmas A lot of people go to the church before dinner aswell.
After church and dinner follows the gift giving. That's it for the 24th December: Preparing, maybe going to the church, having dinner and the gift giving.
On the 25th (First Christmas-Day) and 26th (Second Christmas-Day), which are official holidays, you visit friends and family. And you eat again for exampel some familys do the simple potato salad with sausages on the 24th and have a big meal on the 25th...
What I can say in the end: Every family has their own little christmas tradition!!

Oh, maybe this is interesting too: From the 1st December until the 24th December the children have an advent calendar...where you can open a "door" each day and then you get chocolate (sometimes there are calendars with little presents too).
The new years eve has nothing to do with christmas... people just a have a party where they drink a lot and do a firework at midnight. A lot of people do "Bleigießen" in the evening: Lead (or tin) is melted and then poured into cold water. Your future is then read from the shapes formed in the water...


Some pictures:

These are some plates with sweets (contains for example Dominosteine, Zimtsterne, Spekulatius, Lebkuchen, cookies, mandarins or oranges, nuts, marzipan and chocolate)




This is a Christmas-Goose with dumplings and red cabbage (Luckily my family eats something else )


This is Bleigießen


If I have to explain something...just tell me

Oh my... I'm a "sugar" person, the photo with all the sweets..OH MY GOD!!! i'm melting!!! hahaha....many of my family members grew up and live in germany.. They do all these, and i heard it before...it all looks really nice and warm <3 yeah...explain please...i hope it's nothing yiak!!! Anyway, i think i could live in germany , all the sausages and beers....ohhh heaven <3

I don't like beer and sausages much Well some more some less

My family eats Raclette on christmas



I don't know if it's known It's AWESOME


And yup, all the sweets on christmas are great
My favourites areee:
- Chocolate
- Lebkuchen (https://2img.net/h/oi54.tinypic.com/2llcccl.jpg)
- Mozartkugeln (http://www.travel-pictures-gallery.com/images/austria/salzburg/salzburg-0036.jpg >> chocolate, marzipan and nougat)
- Marzipanbrote (http://www.koeser.com/shop/produkte/images/v1/43004_v1.jpg the ones who also are filled with nougat are awesome too)
- Marzipankartoffeln (http://www.zentis.de/cms/var/zentis_website/storage/images/markenwelt/suesswarenwelt/weihnachts-sortiment/marzipan-kartoffeln-dose/marzipan-kartoffeln/48735-1-ger-DE/Marzipan-Kartoffeln_bild_sortiment_default_241.jpg)
- Chocolate-Balls filled with milk-cream or hazelnut-cream and crisp
...

On the christmasmarket you get also schmalzkuchen (http://shop.emk-online.de/backmischungen-und-backtechnik/bakers-secret-schmalzkuchen-b-2152_1.gif), glühwein (http://www.co-box.de/images/gluehwein.jpg / http://hafenbar-berlin.de/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/gluehwein.jpg), hot chocolate...and a looooot more...

oh stop it....i'm drooling.........

We have turkey for dinner. stuffing. veggs, potao's. carrots. ECT turkey gravey. Then pumpkin pies, apple pies, cake, chocolate, cookies, candy.

open gifts,

My family goes to church and then my dad's parents christmas eve. we open presents christmas morning then we have brisket for lunch then for supper we go to my mom's family. Um as for tradition well we get really drunk and usual watch one of the lord of the rings movies. It's totally a sacred act, my mom was hardore hungover this morning. And 24 hours of A Christmas Story on tbs we watch a few hours every year ^.^

Christmas is over again I hope you had a great time



I thought we could post some pictures of our christmas trees or other christmas decorations




And some sweets