What Are Holiday Traditions to You?

Grace Dapper Photo by Lhea Owens.

Grace Dapper
Photo by Lhea Owens.

Grace Dapper is a senior psychology major from Saint Paul, MN.

 Every Christmas Eve, we go to church and then to whichever cousin’s house. We hang out, eat a lot before dinner and then eat dinner.

A cool tradition my mom came up with is that she creates place cards for everyone, but it’s not your name, it’s a picture she finds on the internet that is meant to be something that represents you. So you have to guess what you are, but it’s pretty obvious usually.

Mine last year was Cindy Lou Who because I look like her with a Nicholas Cage face on her body because they all know I hate Nicholas Cage, so it was like, ‘Okay, I know where I’m sitting!’

Before opening presents we read the passage from the Bible about Jesus’ birth, then sing a few Christmas songs, usually religious because my grandpa is a retired pastor.

For the past 8 years we’ve been reading from my grandpa’s dad’s memoir, which is actually really cool because he came over to Ellis Island, so it’s his journey. But they always read the passage where he’s leaving his family and waving to them on the ship.

It’s the last time he sees them and every time the adults bawl so hard and all us kids are like, ‘Can we get on with this? We listen to this every year, let’s go!’

My mom buys our family a present, which is usually some weird game we all play that together.

We also play Pit, which is a really old game where you trade between each other. It just gets really scary intense in my family. My grandpa is this sweet, old retired pastor, but he’ll almost end up flipping the table.

On Christmas we hang out at home just me, my mom, dad and sister and we have stockings. Then we go and see whatever movie is out.

It’s cool just being able to spend time with family and doing whatever we do, whether it’s screaming at each other over a card game or making fun of each other.

Sabrina Hathaway. Photo by Lhea Owens.

Sabrina Hathaway. Photo by Lhea Owens.

Sabrina Hathaway is a senior social work and sociology major from Ripon, WI.

Growing up we went to Illinois where my family lives and had a big pot-luck. Then all of the cousins opened presents with each other and we went ice skating in Chicago.

On Christmas morning we came home  to open presents with just our family.

I have a really big family and we always made a bunch of food. When we are done eating we pack up our leftovers on paper plates and take them to all of the places that are still open on Christmas.

My family is also really big on making cookies, so we spend weeks making cookies. On Christmas Eve we deliver them to the old folk’s home. We like to give back to the people that don’t have a lot of family members to come visit them. So that’s what we do leading up to Christmas.

Nilo Saulic Photo by Lhea Owens.

Nilo Saulic
Photo by Lhea Owens.

Nilo Saulic is a super senior elementary education major from Prescott, WI.

For the holidays we go out and pick our own tree from the woods around the house and cut it down. Each year dad randomly picks one of us to cut it down, but he usually picks my siblings Emrys or Greta.

When we get inside my mom looks at the tree and decides on the theme. We have so many ornaments that each year there’s a different theme for the tree. We have an animal theme, a traditional Christmas theme and then all the weirdest ornaments we have.

We don’t have special Christmas traditions outside of watching Die Hard together.

We have a drinking game in our house that the whole family has learned. We’ve got it down to a Science: every time he gets a bad guy, or every time he talks on the radio or grumbles about air ducts everyone has to take a drink.

It’s a good time. We’ve been doing that every year. We picked it because it was the only Christmas movie we could all agree upon and we’ve all seen the Muppets too many times. It’s got the real spirit of the holiday, so that’s the main thing.

Antonio Wright is a sophomore political science and computer information systems major who is from Baltimore, MD.

Antonio Wright Photo by Lhea Owens.

Antonio Wright
Photo by Lhea Owens.

My family hates each other, and the only time they come around is Christmas. During that time we pretend we like each other, listen to music and play games.

Every year my father likes to dance, even though he’s fifty and he hurts himself every time. He calls it the Hokey-Pokey, but it’s not the Hokey-Pokey. I don’t know what it is, but it involves him shaking his body a lot. It’s fun.

And my grandma likes to put on her elf costume and make food for the holidays. My grandma wears it because her mom wore it and her mom before her wore it.

They just keep wearing it and it’s the same elf costume! The costume is green, red, comes with ears, they usually wear make up with it, it has a bell at the end of the hat and it has curly shoes. They just wear it all day on Christmas and then they do the unveiling of the gifts. That’s a cool tradition she does.

We also usually go around and give gift cards, which is kind of weird because, ‘Why are we giving random people gift cards?’

They’re not completely random, but we just knock on doors and say, ‘Here’s a gift card!’ My uncle started it because he always gave me and my relatives gifts cards on Christmas and my grandma liked the idea. People on the street, our family, our friends or really anyone.

I also like to go down to the harbor because they have a Christmas festival with Santa and big time characters like the Grinch in costume. The kids get to play while they ice skate because there is a huge ice rink. But yeah, those are our traditions!

Corey Landon Photo by Lhea Owens.

Corey Landon
Photo by Lhea Owens.

Corey Landon is a senior instrumental music education major from Port Washington, WI.

My favorite thing about Christmas is on Christmas Eve my mom’s side of the family gets together.

My mom has three sisters and two brothers and all except one have kids and some of their kids have kids, so our family on that side has grown pretty large. But we get together for a Christmas Eve party and people bring all sorts of food.

We do a little gift exchange in my family. The younger cousins and siblings draw a name out of a hat in the fall and then we get gifts for each other that way.

Sometimes we’ll also do a white elephant gift exchange. That’s not required, but if you bring a gift you can participate, otherwise you can just sit and watch.

I think one of my favorite things is that my uncle owns a smoked fish shop, and he always brings smoked salmon. It’s really yummy!

I really enjoy that our family is pretty close and we all live kind of in the same area, but I don’t get to see them too often because I’m up at school. It’s something I always look forward to. Just being with family, sitting around for the night, relaxing, having food and enjoying time together.

We’ll play games during the night. My grandpa always likes to play card games like Sheep’s Head or any type of coin gambling game where you can throw your pennies on the table.

Christmas day is usually spent with my immediate family.

We used to always, but not as much because we’re all a little older now, have this little pickle ornament that the night before my mom would hide on the tree somewhere. In the morning whoever found it first got to open the first present and we would start everything off from there. So that’s usually the traditions we do!

 

Lhea Owens

Arts and Entertainment Editor

Lowen721@uwsp.edu

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