Christmas Round-Up: What's Your Favorite Christmas Tradition?

Last week, I got into the holiday spirit and posted some of my favorite Christmas memories, as well as a shot of Phil and me on my Facebook page, decorating this year's tree. I guess it's true that Christmas brings out the best in all of us, because your responses have been so wonderful.

They've also been funny! "Wow! My tree is looking pretty sad right now," wrote Floridian Dee Cameron DeRoman on Facebook. "Can you come help me decorate it?" (P.S. I'd love to, Dee, but I've still got tons of tinsel to hang!)

It all got me to wondering what some of my pals remember best about their Yules past, so I zapped off an email to them -- as well as my Facebook friends -- asking, "Do you have a favorite childhood memory or Christmas anecdote? I'd love to hear it!" I also mentioned that I'm especially curious to hear about everyone's traditional Christmas feasts. When I was a little girl, my mother went all out with her holiday cooking -- but because she was Italian, there was always a bowl of pasta next to the stuffing. I guess she thought Santa was Sicilian.

Here's what my merry Christmas contingent had to say about their favorite memories. Enjoy!

 

Follow Marlo Thomas on Twitter: www.twitter.com/MarloThomas

Comments

[trailerguy]

05:25 PM on 12/25/2011

every christmas we sit around and watch video's of that girl and our honey on our heads and elsewhere

[dahpunkster]

04:49 PM on 12/25/2011

best christmas ever was when I four and my mom let me pick what color to color my christmas cookies for me to eat and I wanted them purple and orange. I help frost them and eat them and put non pariels on em even though they were probably ugly as sin..

[dahpunkster]

04:44 PM on 12/25/2011

christmas eve wrap presents at the mall or some kind of charity type thing... then go home and scarf down christmas cookies and chinese food...

[GoGrammie]

04:20 PM on 12/25/2011

Definitely it was and still is the girls in the kitchen baking star and santa shaped cookies with tons of frosting on them while dinner cooked away in the oven with smells like heaven wafting threw out the house. The guys spent the day out of the way cheering their favorite football team while us girls giggled and laughed about how dumb the guys really were. Then we all got together a d ate util we wre

[politicky]

04:10 PM on 12/25/2011

Christmas Eve, Dad reading "Twas the Night Before Christmas" to the children.

[eaglett1111]

02:13 PM on 12/25/2011

My favorite is Christmas Eve. The same four families have been coming to my house for the past 25 years. None are blood relatives. The "kids" are all in their mid-twenties now, but they insist on all the same traditions. Must have Karen's twice-baked potatoes. Must have deviled eggs. Must have shrimp dish... must have Christmas Carols.... must have a kazillion pictures in front of the tree. I love it! It's all about love and just being with people you care about. Had a night last night like that. The "kids" came, some from thousands of miles away. Priceless.

[Dan Langdon]

01:39 PM on 12/25/2011

Merry Christmas. Mine is being with Family and enjoying their company

[Flavor]

12:08 PM on 12/25/2011

Merry Christmas HuffPost Family!!!!! & A Prosperous New Year too! Mine is Dressing & Cranberry sauce put the to together & you got, Marvelous!

[countdown69]

09:50 AM on 12/25/2011

Favorite tradition is lighting the menorah and eating latkes.

[shakylegs]

03:39 AM on 12/25/2011

It was 60 years ago. We were new immigrants. I was a teenager then working to help support the family. I got home on Christmas Eve and told my Dad I had been laid off from my job. "Don't worry," he said, "So have I." My mother was determined to have a Christmas turkey, so she used part of the rent money to buy it. Luckily we had a sympathetic landlord. Best tasting turkey I ever had.

[Clarity22]

02:16 AM on 12/25/2011

Each year which has now become a tradition, I make shortbread cookies on Christmas Eve, which is looked forward to. I was hoping to get out of it this year until my son promptly reminded me about it. They were made and eaten within a blink of an eye. I love Christmas.

[kevinbr38]

04:20 PM on 12/24/2011

I started my little tradition about 20 years ago.
Every year when I give my [small] Christmas dinner, I ask people to bring an ornament for my tree.
Hand made, store bought, doesn't matter. Over the years I have built up a nice collection.
Happy Holiday's Fellow HuffPo's.

[signgrrl]

10:35 AM on 12/25/2011

as soon as they were old enough to be responsible, i started giving my nieces and nephew ornaments, so that when they grew up and established their own households, they would have a head start on christmas tree ornaments.

[kevinbr38]

10:55 AM on 12/25/2011

Aren't we old-fashioned ? :).

[mnyegele]

03:08 PM on 12/24/2011

I go to Church. If my assistance is needed, I also help out serving meals to the homeless. (A Jewish temple uses our church to serve meals to the homeless on Christmas, so I volunteer to help out - even though I'm a Gentile.)

Instead of putting up a Christmas tree in my walk-up apartment, I donate money to Heiffern International to plant a tree in Tanzania. My Christmas trees not only help stabilize soil and water supplies for local farmers, they also suck up carbon dioxide, and my African trees, including my living Christmas trees, suck up far more carbon dioxide than trees in the US - primarily because they aren't dormant for half the year.

If you want old-fashioned Christmas traditions - fine. But please get rid of the booze. For way too many children, their only Christmas memories are drunken arguments between their parents and other adult relatives.

Let's remember what Christmas really represents and dedicate our selves to fulfilling the words in the Lord's prayer - Thy will be done on Earth, as it is in Heaven.

[signgrrl]

10:37 AM on 12/25/2011

my mother makes donations in her childrens' names to heifer dot org every year.

[benjaminblue]

02:45 PM on 12/24/2011

Home by 12:30 following Christmas Eve service, there's just enough time for a quick cup of eggnog before bed. Up at 6:30, I walk to Rockefeller Center to enjoy the tree and say "hello" to Prometheus. Homeward bound, I feast on a hotdog at Gray's Papaya. Home again a few minutes later, I pop open my first beer of the day, view a DVD with chronological slides detailing the Christmases I experienced my first 21 years and step over to my bookshelf, on which sit the cowboy boots I received from Santa the last year I believed in him and a nativity scene I purchased at Woolworth's (19 cents for each of the three figures; the price tag is still on the base of each) a few years later. Those figurines and a small Santa figure from a cousin that sits on my desk are on display all year long, reminding me to try to be a better person. Then, I listen to Christmas carols and winter songs on the CDs I've compiled yearly for longer than most of you have been alive, have a few more beers and drift off as Christmas drifts away. There are no arguments; there is no stress; there are just wonderful memories.

[MrOnePercent2012]

02:39 PM on 12/24/2011

Telling ghost stories.