What makes Christmas the most beloved holiday all across the country? Do traditions vary when attending holiday get-togethers on separate sides of the family? Which side creates the most delicious food? Which side delivers the finest of gifts? With the Christmas season quickly approaching, these questions tumble around the minds of people everywhere. The holiday season, packed full of family gatherings, brings love into everyone’s homes. No matter when or how a family celebrates, food, presents, and conversations will be included. Depending on an individual’s situation, they may attend several celebrations throughout the holiday season. Because my parents remain married, I get to participate in two family Christmas celebrations, one …show more content…
Although I care for both my father and mother’s sides of my family equally, several factors differ in the way they celebrate Christmas: food, entertainment, and structure. The first way my families’ Christmas celebrations differ involves our food. For my mother’s family Christmas we each bring equal amounts of food and participate in a potluck. My grandmother usually brings the meat, my mother and aunts bring side dishes, my cousins bring salads, and my great-grandmother provides desert. To elaborate, our main dish usually consists of meals pertaining to our heritage: Swedish. We often gorge ourselves on Swedish bologna and meatballs. Sometimes we may consume the dishes that people most commonly eat on Christmas such as ham and turkey. In addition, my mother’s family considers desserts as almost another meal. My aunt Donna always creates the most delectable fudge, occasionally even with nuts. Great-grandma Peterson will also create her famous pumpkin and pecan pies for all of us to indulge in. A Swedish dish of ostakaka, the family favorite, always seems to disappear within minutes. However, before any food may enter our mouths, we must pray. An old church hymn “Be Blessed at Our Table, Lord” echoes through my …show more content…
Our first source of entertainment while attending Christmas on my mother’s side comes from the television. From the initial arrival of young children, cartoons display across the thin, glossy screen. As the day progresses, we flip between Christmas classics and any football game. While the men gather around to observe the game, the women advance to a cleared dining room table to begin a game of cards. With the wine flowing in the glasses of all over the legal age, the game escalates to much more than it should. Within an hour the young children become rambunctious and eager to devour the delicate wrapping paper that conceals their presents. Every year holds the same order of unveiling the gifts: oldest to youngest. My great grandmother receives the majority of the gifts to thank her for supporting the entire family for the year. The choice of offering gifts to others relies within each family. To explain, we do not resort to a gift exchange or grab bag, gift giving system, but we give each family the option to present gifts to whomever they choose. This makes the gifts seem more personal and thoughtful. The final aspect of entertainment exists in extreme anticipation over all others: Santa Claus. My Uncle Knute takes the opportunity of the Christmas chaos to dress in a red suit with the addition of a long white beard and red hat. At first the children begin running in fear
Gift-giving nowadays is no longer an act of kindness, but rather a political measure, taken to ensure one’s status with one’s acquaintances. While the general feeling of "goodwill towards men" still pervades the season, albeit filtered through television and municipal decorating projects, there is a great tension that precedes the actual Christmas holiday itself. I remember Christmases of my youth as enjoyable times, to be sure, but also as times when it was best to stay clear of my mother, who was inevitably in
Richard Blanco wrote about how he convinced his family to have turkey on Thanksgiving Day by explaining to them how Lincoln set the slaves and the purple mountain [---] liberty and justice for all majesty free why it is important to celebrate thanksgiving. Similarly, during my childhood, my parents have different religion that do not celebrate Christmas ,but the community that we live in are Christians and they celebrate Christmas so for us not to be isolated, my older brother convinced my parent for us to cook and partake in the celebration by telling them how Christmas came
Every Christmas, my family comes together to celebrate our Roman Catholic faith. Church is emphasized in my family; my great-grandfather would go to two different masses on Christmas Eve. My
Christmas time is always a joyous time to enjoy with friends and relatives, but it's also one when one will suddenly realise how lonely one is. There're no people that haven't got few beloved relatives dead. Christmas time is the one when most families will reunite around a table to enjoy a Christmas lunch. They'll sing carols and they'll laugh a lot, that is, if the dirty linen isn't aired at one stage of the family reunion. It sometimes happens when many relatives get together on this occasion, but they have hardly seen each
Christmas is a holiday filled with tradition, family, and happiness, but what most people don’t know is that Christmas is celebrated all over the world, not just the United States. Latin American countries are especially passionate about Christmas. The way Hispanic people celebrate changes throughout each country. Each one has its own unique Christmas culture. In this essay I am going to write about some of these different countries, and tell how each one is similar and different in showing their Christmas spirit.
Meeting the Ghost of Christmas Past begins the first stage of Scrooge’s transformation: regretting his actions. When Scrooge is shown his younger self alone in his classroom on Christmas, he regrets chasing a Christmas caroler away from his door. The Spirit skips ahead a few years to show him a happier time. His sweet little sister Fan arrives to take him home, and this is his first Christmas in a long time that is spent with family. Unfortunately, Scrooge doesn’t see it that way; seeing this scene makes him “uneasy in his mind” as he thinks about the way he treats his nephew Fred. Instead of treating him like his only family member, Scrooge denies invitations to Christmas dinner every year and is rude whenever Fred speaks to him. He doesn’t have time to dwell on this for long, however; Scrooge has many other important things to think...
“Christmas must be crazy.” This is the traditional comment that I have received time and time again for my remarkably nontraditional family, which consists of five stepbrothers, one stepsister, two half-sisters, my little brother, my stepmother and father, my mother and her fiancee (with his own set of children!) as well as the legions of extended family and my host family in Ecuador, not including the numerous friends on campus and elsewhere who affectionately refer to me as 'Mom', 'Mother', or 'Momma', and who are considered practically family by this point. However, Christmas still goes quite smoothly, and I must ask: Is my rather large, rough family circle really that atypical of modern American society? The NYT issue of Science Times titled “The Changing American Family” by Natalie Angier asserts that our family structure is indeed changing, and we as Americans no longer subscribe to the traditional nuclear family modeled by shows such as Leave it to Beaver or the “blended” but still idealized model of The Brady Bunch. And, when we examine America's families, we find that the shift is happening not only from decade to decade, but constantly, especially with the passing of new laws and new understandings surrounding human rights and identities.
What about other countries though? Is the Christmas season all about giving and receiving gifts? Are children in Spain rewarded by Santa with gifts and toys on Christmas Eve? In this essay we will look at what Christmas season means in Spain, and what traditions are prevalent in their culture. We will also look at the Christmas related traditions of Americans, and how those compare and contrast to those in Spain.
Today it seems as though Christmas has fallen victim to materialism and commercialization. Rather than it being a time of loving and giving, it has become a stressful season of greed. Amidst all the hustle and bustle, it is important for us to recognize the true reason of the season, and celebrate in a fashion that exemplifies that reason.
When I think about Thanksgiving and Christmas, the first thought that comes to mind is the good food. Every year my family and I prepare many homemade dishes to celebrate the holidays. For Thanksgiving, my family and I will go all out the way in preparing dinner. We will actually start preparing the food two days in advance, so we can make sure that we have everything is prepared. The food is traditional with Thanksgiving, turkey, ham, collard greens, yams, stuffing, egg nog, cranberry sauce and sweet potato pie. For Christmas, my family does not prepare as much food as we do ...
During the holiday season, Christmas is everywhere; the lights, music, and picture of Santa. People send holiday cards, shop for presents, and buy plenty of holiday food. During the winter people break out the eggnog. However, there are not gender roles when it comes to Christmas. As you look into the lives and practices of these people around the world, they have very similar traditions.
Emma, Marissa and I are in charge of the making the lefse. This has been our job ever since we were little girls, becoming experts through all our years of experience. My grandma makes the most amazing food and always has enough to feed us for a week. After we stuff ourselves full of delicious, lasagna, salads, and hot dishes all made with love and while the adults lean back comfortably in their chairs, us kids go put on our pajamas and troop downstairs to open our gifts. The most memorable gift would be the ring my grandma gave me that used to be my great-grandmothers who died a couple days after my grandma turned fifteen. My great-grandma loved to travel and had a great passion for fashion, so this circle of metal with a little diamond in the middle and a floral pattern surrounding it, had been bought in California and has been in the family since. “Bang, bang, bang!” A huge pounding comes from the front door. Dogs bark, adults grin, and we race to open the creaky door. Santa Claus, eyes twinkling, dressed in red with coal-black boots, and swinging a sack over his right shoulder, steps inside. He plops down heavily; ringing merry bells and passes them off to David, my brother, telling him seriously to keep ringing them so Rudolf won’t fly away without him. With wide eyes, little David shakes the bells with such rigor that if Rudolf was in the North Pole he would be able to hear them. We each take a turn perching on his knee, hesitant at first but then opening up and telling him our age and that, “yes we have been really, really, really good this year.” As Santa’s beard tickles our chin as we lean in close for a picture and his big belly shakes as he laughs at the same time as you start to giggle. Then he opens his sack and pulls out gifts wrapped in colorful paper for each of us. With a few cookies for the road, crumbs in his beard and a
Christmas to me is a celebration, which includes spending time with my family, decorating the entire house, inside and out, and shopping, for the people I love. Doing this with the people I love is what means the most to me. Spending Christmas with my family is very important to me. We usually gather and celebrate at my parent’s house, in East Tennessee. My husband, our three children, and myself travel from California. My two sisters, their husbands, and children come from a nearby town, for our celebration.
Ever since I could remember, I have spent Christmas at my grandmother’s house, a house which is full of comfort, warmth, and happiness. At Christmas, I have always been able to escape the cold and dark real world allowing myself to truly enjoy just several moments in time. These moments have left impressionable memories from my childhood making Christmas a holiday that is special to me and my family. It is a time for my family to get together, share stories, laugh, and even cry.
Christmas is my favorite holiday because it is the time of year that everyone should spend with their family and friends loving them unconditionally. Every Christmas, my family and I, on my mother 's side, join together on Christmas Eve to be able to spend time with the ones which we love. Considering that my family loves to eat, my grandmother cooks a ginormous feast! My grandmother loves to cook, but on Christmas she goes crazy. She cooks dressing, corn, potatoes, macaroni, green beans, sweet potato casserole, and my favorite pecan pie. After making sure everyone gets enough food, we all join in the living room to share stories and open our presents. My cousin, Brady Parker, always finds a way to make