Christmasy topics

[corinthum]

GulPlum wrote:

> Between the beginning of Advent and Christmas, there is of course
the Feast 
> of St Nicholas (6th December). Our family "borrowed" a tradition
from the 
> French for this feast whereby children wake up to find their shoes
filled 
> with fruit and sweets. 

Hey, someone else who celebrates St. Nicholas Day!  Is it really
French?  My family is Irish, and we've always done it.  As I mentioned
in a previous post, I attended a Catholic elementary school, and a guy
(usually one of the teachers) would come into our classroom dressed as
St. Nick (realistic style, not Santa) and give out candy on that day.
 And of course we'd all put out out shoes at night.  However, recently
I've been finding fewer and fewer people, even Catholics, who have
heard of this tradition.  And I was very upset to find that St. Nick
apparently doesn't visit college dorms or apartments.  :)

Regarding the Christmas traditions thread, here are mine.  

First, the morning wake up call.  My sister and brother and I started
this seven or eight years ago, when I was in high school.  We prepared
a rousing rendition of "We Wish You A Merry Christmas" for trumpet,
clarinet, and saxophone.  My parents had always been very adamant (for
both Christmas and Easter) that they were not to be awakened before
8:00.  So at 8:00 on the dot we quietly opened the door to their room
and we performed our lovely concerto directly outside my parents room,
with the wood floors of the foyer providing wonderful amplification. 
My mother let out the loudest possible gasp and shot straight up at
the first note.  Since then, the surprise factor has disappeared, but
we still provide a musical wake-up, usually with a medley finished off
with the classic "We Wish...".  Our ensemble has expanded to two
trumpets, a clarinet, a saxophone, and a baritone as each kid has
taken up an instrument, which is an unusual quintet but provides for a
nice balance.  My parents love it, and demand encore performances
later that night.  

As for present opening, our gifts from Santa are never wrapped.  So,
once my parents get up and our instruments are put away, we go
downstairs and ooh and aah over those, and amuse ourselves for about
an hour.  My sister and I outgrew Santa once we went to college, but
then he had a spat of senility and brought stuff for us a year later,
then stopped, then started.  So it's still something of a mystery as
to what I will find when I go downstairs.  :)   After that, we take a
break for brunch.  All our gifts from each other are opened after
brunch in the one-at-a-time fashion.  It usually lasts for an hour or
two.  I actually like that we don't all just dive in; it extends the
fun for a while, and I get to see what everyone else got.

Later in the afternoon we go to my aunt's house where my dad's side of
the family celebrates (we host my mom's side).  There we pick up one
more present each.  Due to the size of his family (he's one of six,
all of whom are married and have between two and five kids), we all
put our names in a hat about a month before Christmas and draw one
person to give a gift to.   

As for taking down decorations, I laugh at all you silly people who
actually take down decorations in a timely fashion.  And by timely, I
mean the Jan. 6 people, not the day after Christmas people.  For some
reason we would never get around to taking decorations down for a
minimum of three or four weeks after Christmas.  The longest we ever
left lights up was mid-March, but we had an excuse; it was the
blizzard year and our lights were frozen to the bushes.  We did have
the good sense not to turn them on though.  I seem to have inherited
this trait; last year my roommate and I took down our tree when we got
back from winter break, but were too lazy to actually take it to the
dumpster.  It sat on our patio until one of the neighbors complained
(although our other neighbor loved it; she genuinely thanked us for
the pine scent, a rare treat in Miami).  

-Corinth