Monday, November 06, 2006

Well good morning everyone, and as promised, here is the Holiday Traditions again. I would LOVE to see new faces and I'm actually looking forward to going back and rereading all the current participants....we had so many wonderful traditions being share that I'm sure you will all enjoy :)

As promised, I've put up a new Mr Linky, I was going to add the links but I forgot that MR Linky doesn't allow you to add more than one....Well Poo to that.....I'm adding the existing links by hand...if the owner of the blog comes by, just add them to Mr Linky ok???




So it's finally here, I've been talking about this for a while and I'm glad the time has come because I'm so eager to find out about all your traditions. As I said before, I just want to hear about what you do as a family during the holidays, especially Thanksgiving and Christmas....


Do you and your family have a special tradition every Christmas Morning, or maybe it's a special dinner for Thanksgiving??? Do you all go out on a certain day to get a Christmas Tree??? Is there a special ornament or fun way your family decorates for the holidays??? How about different Heritages, how are the holidays celebrated all over the world???


I'll start with mine.


I'm sure you all know that I'm portuguese and since I can remember we have celebrated and opened Christmas presents on the 24th of December, Christmas Eve.


The whole day is spent in the kitchen, cooking and catching up with family, laughing and just having a great time. At dinner time we always have something like Roast or Bacalhau (Cod Fish) which are pretty traditional meals for a Christmas Dinner.

About an hour after dinner, the table starts being loaded with all sorts of different goodies, consisting of Codfish Cakes, Prawn Cakes, Prawns, Fried Chicken, Pasteis de Nata (cream cakes), Pudim Flan (Caramel Custard), Arroz Doce (Portuguese Rice Pudding), Rabanadas or Fatias Douradas (pretty much like French Toast), Bola de Carne (Meat Pie) and then a bunch of small things like dates, raisins etc.



Everyone sits around the table talking and eating, there's TONS of food, just before midnight we all move into the living room and sit around the tree counting the minutes.

We always open our presents on midnight and it was funny because when I first came to the States I just couldn't understand having to wait until the morning of the 25th LOL

But anyway, after opening presents the table is usually covered with a big tablecloth, anything that has to be refrigerated is put away, but everything else is pretty much left as is. The next day, on Christmas day, the whole family has leftovers, we spend the whole day YET again, just eating and enjoying our new presents.

Since getting married, we keep my tradition but now we leave some presents and the stockings for the Christmas morning.



Every year I also hang up christmas ornaments with the names of all the family members that can't be with us, either because they live far away or they've passed on. It's a great way to make it feel like they're here.

The kids and I also put together a Nativity Scene, they love being able to help me do it and it's also a wonderful way to teach them about the real meaning of Christmas.

And that is pretty much all we do, I just can't wait to start hearing about everyone's traditions, remember you can talk about Thanksgiving or Christmas, and if you don't have any traditions yet I'm sure you'll get great ideas from everyone else :)

Just go ahead and use the banner up top and don't forget to add your name to Mr Linky so others can come see your post.

Have fun :)




24 comments:

Carole Burant said...

Hi Sandra! I was so thrilled when I heard you were redoing this...I've now got my post up:-)

Barb said...

Well, no boring old turkey for your family Sandra! All your traditional food, especially the seafood, sounds wonderful. And I think it's so nice that you hang special ornaments for missing family members.

I'm sure our American traditions took a little getting accustomed to when you found yourself celebrating here in the states. I love the way each family has some of the same traditions AND some very special ones, too.

OK. I need a big round of applause here. In spite of an insanely nutty weekend, I finally got my post done. I'm a week late but whew! It's done. You'd better grab your biggest coffee cup. :-) We have a lot of traditions.

I hope tons of people do this. I love reading how other people celebrate Christmas.

someone else said...

I see some new names already. Yaaay!

Michelle said...

Thanks for doing this again - I didn't get to visit all the participants yet and now I can go read about their traditions!

Susanne said...

Hi Sandra: Not sure why but mine is not up there. I'll go ahead and relink it. I'm glad you're doing this again and I hope lots more people link up. I've really enjoyed reading these.

Michelle said...

Somehow I hit post on the Mr Linky before I finished typing in my name! Can you edit it so it displays Michelle instead of Mi? Thanks! :)

Sandra said...

I'm so thrilled to see new faces participating :)

Susanne, Mr Linky doesn't allow me to post more than one link, so I put all of the existing links, right underneath Mr Linky, I added them in manually, so yours is there :)

Thank you for adding it to Mr Linky for me though, I would rather have them on there than underneath :)

Hugs to you all, you ladies are awesome :)

Susanne said...

Oops, sorry Sandra. That's what happens when I don't reread but just scroll down. Sigh, it's Monday is my only excuse I can think of to offer. :v}

Sandra said...

LOL Susanne, it's not a problem, I just wanted to let you know that I didn't forget you :)

Theresa said...

I know this is cheesy - but I plan on participating...I'll be back! The little ones are in my makeup - pic soon to come! :)

Beckyb said...

Thanks for running this again - yes - I love to read all of these - I've got some new ideas for us!!! I'm not good at coming up with my own, but I can sure copy well!! By the way - I visit everyday - just don't always leave a comment I guess!!!! It was good hearing from you too - I noticed I wasn't on your blog roll anymore - hmmmm, fallen out of the good graces!!! :) Just kidding!!!

Sandra said...

LOL Becky, actually I rotate my blog links every month....and since I haven't yet done it for this month, I went ahead and added you already and will work on the others later LOL

Thanks for dropping by, and YES you must try those burritos, they are AWESOME.

Christina said...

I'm so glad you did this again. Thia is such an awesome idea. I can't wait to go check them all out. I didn't have anything too great, but at least it's something. I reread yours and some of the others too trying to pick up new ideas. Thanks for hosting this. Your friend always , Christina

gail@more than a song said...

I'm kinda late but got mine done Sandra. Thanks for redoing this. I'll look forward to reading everyone else's also.

Ms. Kathleen said...

Sandra, I am so happy this is continuing! AWESOME! It is just fascinating to read everyones traditions, some similar, some very unique...Thanks bunches!!!

Pamela said...

I have enjoyed reading everyone's holiday traditions so much! Thanks for hosting and what a good idea to do it again! :)

Overwhelmed! said...

Sandra, I'm going to be a day late. I'll do a post for this tomorrow, okay?

In Pursuit of His Call said...

HI - I'm new to this site...You had commented on one of my menu plans and I decided to check out your blog. Since DearHubby and I got married we have traveled to our parents' homes for the holidays (California or Illinois). Therefore, we do not have our own Christmas traditions yet. However, we just talked about establishing our own traditions now that we have our own Little One. Anyway, thank you for sharing your traditions. A DearFriend of mine is from Portugal and now I can ask her if her Christmas time is filled with some of the traditions and foods you spoke of. Happy Holidays!!!

BlondeBrony said...

Sounds wonderful.
Thanks for sharing.

Sandy said...

Wow, your food sounds great. I love all this thinking about the holidays, gets me all excited.

mom of 2 said...

That sounds amazing! My family opens presents Christmas Eve, too. Hubby's family opens everything Christmas day so we do like you guys do and compromise!

I think I gained about 5 pounds just reading about all of the food you guys have...yum!!!

Michelle said...

hi sandra.i fully intended to do the holiday tradition on the blog but instead i had the flu :(
will get mine up this week.

Girl Raised in the South said...

Sandra, I tried to do Mr. Linky but couldnt get him to appear. By the time you hop over I should hopefully have a Traditions post done. Typing fast as I can xoxoxo

Jane said...

HI,

I posted my story today. I didn't think I had a story, but turns out I do! Thanks for this lovely activity.

Jenn