How do you celebrate christmas?

I know there are a few christmas threads out there, but I thought we'd look into
how different countries, people, religions etc celebrate christmas.
I'll start with a somewhat typical swedish christmas.

First of all we celebrate december 24th, not 25th.
I spend the holiday at my parents house with mom, dad, sister, brother and grandma.
During the day we make fudge, watch tv and basically just hang out.
At 3 o'clock its Donald Duck on TV.
Donald Duck on TV in christmas might not seem like a big deal, but in Sweden it sort of is.
It's become a tradition to watch this program "Donald Duck and his friends" on Christmas eve
which consists of several short disney-cartoons.
The ratings is usually around 4.000.000, which is nearly half of our total population.

After that it's time for christmas-lunch.
The most important thing is the christmas-ham. Yep, no turkey here.
Some other things we have on the menu:
Suneye = pickled herring, parsley, egg, beets
Veal brawn or jellied veal
Pickled herring
Meatballs
Cocktail wieners
Spare ribs
Janssons Temptation = Potatoes, onions and anchovies
Cured salmon
Liver-paté
Rice-porridge with cinnamon
And more...

We drink christmas-beer (dark beer), scnapps and julmust.
The schnapps is aquavit (40%) flavoured with aniseed and fennel.
Before you drink the schnapps everyone sings drinking songs.

Julmust looks like Cola, but it tastes very different.
I can't really explain it to you, but it's very popular. It's so popular that
Coke-sales go down 60% in Sweden each year at christmas.

Then we open our christmas presents.
When all that is done, we sit by the fire and eat fudge, watch TV, play boardgames and whatnot.

So that's my christmas for ya.

A six pack of red bull a vodka, and a movie about some raindeer with a shiney nose.

Actually for me its a tireing day of going from house to house, saying hi to relatives and yeilding very little gifts :(

xmas is same as the day before, our family has no real traditions.

I totally pig out and make myself sick. No more mashed potatoes for another month!
I also spend all day trying to get the stupid fire going. Those damned bags of wood just sit there and sizzle all day long.

Aaaa thats why petrol was invented !

Juice it with a bit if gas and all is well !

I tried and I burned my butt.

I'm gonna go watch my Buffy DVD's and eat some boiled eggs...if the damned water will every boil

this year christmas sucked.. well - my "family" has become what i would call a big flat share rather than a family.. oh well... at least i got a brother who realy cares for me.

Originally Posted by: schmangeI'm gonna go watch my Buffy DVD's and eat some boiled eggs...if the damned water will every boil

make your intern do it - she knows how to set things on fire ;)

nah... I've gotta make little soldiers out of my bread and only I can do it perfectly

simon! we need a doctor here - QUICK!

Schmange is well beyond help, especially at Christmas time!

It is better to just not mess with his "soldiers", it gets really ugly if they are not "Quite right"

My dad is one of 7 kids. He has 3 brothers and 3 sisters, so you can imagine how many cousins I have and now nearly twice that with second cousins as we all become parents ourselves. Needless to say we wouldn't all fit in someone's house so we rent out a banquet hall each year and have a ginormous feast. Then we usually play poker and other card games because my family are a bunch of gamblers.

There's usually some other stuff that goes on too.

Originally Posted by: schmangeI totally pig out and make myself sick. No more mashed potatoes for another month!
I also spend all day trying to get the stupid fire going. Those damned bags of wood just sit there and sizzle all day long.

That's what you get for leaving the wood outdoors in the 100 inches of snow we've gotten in the past week!

My Christmas traditions the past few years are just me sitting in my apartment with a 12-pack of Killian's in one hand, and my other hand on my wang (or so it seems). My whole family is pretty much dead or dying, so I just hang with some old friends I see once a year...hehehe.