I was actually pondering
about whether I should writing about this or not for a pretty
long
time. About our Christmas
traditions, personal stuff - stuff that really means a lot
to me. And I wasn't sure about
posting about this because today I didn't feel like
writing
about my thoughts and feelings. At first it didn't seem right for me
to even spend
time on the computer during the holidays. But then I
figured I could also just try it since
I'm curious about your
reaction and comments.
So...
this post is all about
Christmas.
Christmas with my family.
Christmas with my parents
and my sister.
Christmas like we
celebrate it.
You may or may not already noticed that I'm not american. As a consequence we don't
celebrate Christmas on the 25th of December but on the
24th.
Everything else is pretty
much the same except we don't believe in Santa, we believe in „Christ child“. Therefore we don't hang any stockings.
„Christ child“ is
normally described as a barefooted young child with wings and long blonde curly hair,
wearing a long golden or white dress.
“Christ child”, as the name implies, personates Jesus as a child.
In our family it is a
tradition that we always put up a real christmastree. We usually decorate it in the afternoon on the
24th of December. When my sister and I
were little, we always used to hang ornaments in all colors of the
rainbow and self made paper cut angels. But over the past 5 years my
mom who is the one responsible for Christmas decoration colors
decided she wants to keep it all down-to-earth with just three
colors: purple, red and gold.
While decorating the tree, we'd eat cookies, listen to Christmas Carols and traditionally watch Emil i Lönneberga (Emil from Lönneberga – the film adaptation of a Swedish children's book – the author is the same one who wrote Pippi Longstocking). Usually we put tiny figures under our Christmas tree – Joseph, Mary, baby Jesus, a donkey and a cow. When my sister and I were little we used to make the figures out of self made play dough.
Usually when we are done
with decorating it is already pitch-dark outside. So we would head
off to the car and drive up to a little private chapel located on a
hill in our little town where we'd light a
candle which we would put to all the other candles that others left
and pray for all our loved ones and especially for the ones we've
lost.
Afterwards we would head off to our
home, leaving our car there and walk to our little marketplace
where a male choir would sing traditional Christmas carols. We would
gather on the marketplace with all the other people who'd come to
listen until the choir would intone Silent Night. Imagine 40 to 50
people singing Silent Night at a marketplace in the evening outside.
:)
After this event we'd usually go home.
Up until a few years my parents always tried to hide the fact that it
was not „Christ child“ who brings all the presents. Up until our
classmates would tell us the truth and which ended up with us taking
our parents to task so they told us the truth. That indeed „Christ
child“ is not the materialistic gift-bringer. The gifts it would
bring us are joy and love.
But ever since we found out about the
truth our parents still try to get home a few minutes ealier so that
they have enough time to put the wrapped presents under the christmas
and light the candles on the tree.
After my sister and I finally would
arrive we'd enter our living room. Standing in front of our beautiful
christmas tree, holding each others hands, glancing at the lights,
singing two or three christmas songs until we'd sit down beneath the
tree to take some family pictures.
Which finally leads us to giving and
recieving each others gifts.
After some time my mom would head off into the kitchen, preparing dinner. Each year she tries to think of something quick and easy to cook. Something that allows us to sit together and enjoy the meal without someone being busy in the kitchen. So it became a tradition to either having chicken soup for dinner or simply putting our electric raclette grill or fondue pot on the table.
Usually we spend most of the time with eating. We'd just simply enjoy each others company and the delicious food.
After dinner we ususally play games and
every year we'd watch Christmas Vacation. Staying
in our pjs all night long, eating cookies and drinking hot chocolate.
That's how we celebrate christmas.
That's how I would love to celebrate
christmas with my future kids.
How do you celebrate christmas?
No matter where you are from I would
love to read some of your traditions, so leave them in the comments.
sounds like a great Christmas :) i love the 5 love languages book..
ReplyDeletehttp://penelopeblue.blogspot.com/
it really was a wonderful christmas :)
ReplyDeletei love it too. can't wait to work with it.
Loved this!!!!
ReplyDeleteThank you for taking the time to link up to my linky party, hope we will see you tomorrow, so you can link up your favourite posts from the year 2011
Claire xoxo