Closed Cookie's Celebratory Compositions

[Jacob]

Spoiler: My entry

You'll have to forgive me for my lack of writing skills! Lol


One of the few traditions in my family that I know will happen every Christmas actually happens on Christmas Eve (Aka, tonight. Aka, about 10 minutes ago, lol). Each year my parents get my siblings and I pajamas the night before Christmas morning. While I can understand how this appears to be trivial and maybe not so exciting for a lot of people, it is actually super endearing for me and my family. As a kid, this tradition really started as a way for us kids (being greedy) to get one gift before Christmas, as we couldn't wait the 10 hours until the next morning. But, after all of these years of getting our pajamas on Xmas eve, I have started my own little collection in my pajama drawer. Admittedly, these pajamas over the years have proven to be the ONLY pajamas I actually own, lol. I think it's definitely one of the cutest things my family does during the Christmas season. Especially when, and we don't do this anymore, sadly, we all got matching pajamas. The next day on Christmas morning, we would all be matching in the holiday home videos. Something about this tradition is just super meaningful to me. The pajamas we get are usually personalized with our favorite activities which is neat (This year I got skateboarding santa's on my shirt... I think I have Christmas Simpsons pants somewhere). It's just fun to see what we get each year! It's like Christmas part 0.1.

Here's a photo of after I opened up the wrapping paper for this year's pajamas, lol:

 

[Sheando]

I enjoy some of the more traditional elements of the holiday season (like Christmas lights and a select subset of seasonal songs), but I thought I'd highlight something less conventional for my entry. The zoo! I LOVE visiting different zoos, and for most of my adult life, I've found a way to visit a zoo in late December. I've been to zoos in Kansas City, St. Louis, Orlando, Nashville, and Alberta, Canada—plus a few more. And while it might not be an explicitly holiday-themed activity, it truly does feel Christmas-y to me.

The last few years, I've taken my partner with me, and when we finish making the rounds, we always head to the gift shop, buy two weird plush animals, and give them matching names. So far, I have a red river hog, a stingray, an orangutan, an anteater, and a ring-tailed lemur in my collection. (He's a fan of red pandas and other more capital-C Cute animals, so his list isn't quite as exciting, in my very biased opinion.)

Two years ago, while visiting his family in Florida, we got to stop at two different Christmas light displays at zoos in the cities we drove through. We explored huge Santa villages and admired swans made of tiny white bulbs. They also both featured gorgeous Chinese lantern exhibits, giant fabric and paper animals (both real and mythical) that glowed from the inside. There were enormous chameleons, manatees, dragons, zebras, and hundreds more. I wish I'd been able to go to a light show this year so I could have a more exciting photo! But alas, our local zoo doesn't adorn itself for the holidays. So while we did in fact spend Christmas Eve at the zoo today, you will have to settle for this photo of my hand/username next to a penguin.

The most exciting feature of today's zoo journey was the monkeys—all across the zoo, in a variety of exhibits, they'd decided to sit on the ground next to their exhibit boundary, reach their little hands through the chain link fencing, and paw through piled-up leaves to find the perfect appetizers. They'd sit there moving leaves around intently, occasionally sliding one inside, stuffing it into their mouths, and returning to the task. It was honestly mesmerizing. Oh, to be a lion-tailed macaque.

 

[Blueskyy]

I just returned from celebrating Christmas Eve on my mom’s side of the family. We usually all celebrate together each year. Due to Covid last year, however, it’s been two years since we’ve done this. Although we continued the tradition, there were irreplaceable changes. The sun has set on certain aspects of our celebration together.

Normally, sixteen of us attend church. I am not a church person, but I risk my earthly body being supernaturally set ablaze by stepping foot into the sanctuary once a year for the sake of family. Oh, the things we do for family sometimes.

Afterward, we go to a family member’s house to eat an assortment of food, open gifts, and play a white elephant “rob your neighbor” game. I always enjoy it, and still did this year. However, it wasn’t the same this year nor will it ever truly be.

This year, my sister was unable to attend. She lives across the country with her boyfriend. She already came home twice this year: once for Memorial Day and once for my aunt’s funeral. This was also the first year that my aunt was absent as well. Cancer finally took her after a valiant four year fight at the age of 51.

So while it was wonderful to resume the usual family traditions, it was hard not having my sister or aunt there. It was hard to ignore looming sadness on a jolly evening. However, that sadness was beauty disguised. My aunt had ended up leaving all of the women jewelry gifts that were from her collection. We then all went outside to cheers to her as the sun set. There were pastel pinks and purples, intense reds and oranges, and a slight lining of darkness that was overshadowed by the intense explosion of colors painted across the sky. This was the same kind of sunset that we noticed the evening before she passed 3 months ago, as life was leaving her in home hospice. My family likes to believe that she help painted the colors in that sunset tonight. I never thought of my aunt as artistic, but who’s to say that she isn’t a regular van Gogh up there in the clouds? We then continued to share our favorite memories of her until darkness dominated the sky.

So yeah, it was a bittersweet day. Traditions resumed, but the sun set on a few aspects of those traditions. The best part of tonight was that my family and I got to experience this beautifully bittersweet moment together. I look forward to taking just a moment to appreciate the sunset each year on Christmas Eve with those I love the most from now on.

 

[soggy]

Coming from an Asian background, Christmas is just a regular holiday for us. My family used to celebrate Christmas with some presents when I was little. Since we do not have winters and have no need for a fireplace, I would wake up with presents tied to my bedroom window. It would be so exciting as I rush to untie the presents! However, my family have not celebrated Christmas properly for many years.

For the past years, I used this holiday period to catch up with old friends instead. Due to the pandemic this year, I will also not be celebrating outside with my friends , so here is a drawing of my in game avatar playing games. This is what I have been spending my time on this holiday! As I do not have to spend a massive effort to prepare for a Christmas gathering, I should be able to enjoy the winter events in my game. But every game have so many lovely events and I do not have the time to finish all of them!! It is becoming quite a chore to finish my games and I do wonder how the other folks who have to celebrate Christmas with their family complete their games!

 

[Rika092]

One of my favorite pastime that my family and I would do in celebration of the holidays is making home cooked dumplings. Dumplings are almost like a Chinese family staple comfort food. In my household, it is the act of doing so that is perceived as a family group activity in celebration of the new year, and sometimes it is less so about the food but more so about spending quality time with your loved ones. Of course, the food itself has to be delicious as well. Everything is made from scratch and you can really taste the ingredients. My grandma is the dough master. Her dough is always hand-kneaded then rolled into perfectly circular shapes. These will be used as skins. My mom is skilled at seasonings so she’s in charge of the stuffing. The stuffing is usually made out of a mixture of vegetables and meat so not only it is flavorful but it is also super nutritious. The fun part is when everyone sits by the table to actually make the dumplings. There’s always so much chatter and laughter, and it really gets me into holiday mood. I live on my own now but whenever I get the opportunity to go home and reunite with my family members, I make sure to not miss out on the chance of eating and making dumplings with everyone.

Picture attached is one batch of the dumplings we made and cooked:

 

[Dinosaurz]

Spoiler: text

Merry Christmas! Christmas is my favourite time of the year, I love eating all the food and getting fat. For Christmas for my family, we spend it down with my grandparents. Unfortunately last year due to covid we weren’t able to see them for Christmas so it wasn’t the same.
My grandparents are getting older and my Nan has dementia so it’s important that I get to spend this time with them.
We have Christmas dinner at around 1pm and we unwrap the presents together after. This is the first year that we have to do all the cooking ourselves. My Nan used to do it but due to her health we takeover it all now.
My picture is of the present and card I got for my mum this year. Opening the presents taking turns after eating Christmas dinner and Christmas crackers!!!
My mum even though we have our disagreements she means a lot to me so I’m grateful to spend this time with my family. I wish I still had the childhood excitement of running downstairs and being so excited I couldn’t sleep the night before but I’m grateful of my family as that’s what the day means to me.

 

[Goldenapple]

Preparation for Christmas has been a bit different than usual since I've been in college, so I will write about how my family used to celebrate Christmas. Usually, Christmas would begin with setting up decorations after my dad's birthday on December 10th. My dad and I would hang the stockings above the chimney and set up the Christmas tree with ornaments and garland, while my mom would decorate the outside of the house with lights and illuminated deer decorations.

During Christmas, the aroma of sweet treats filled the air! My mother would make thumbprint cookies with strawberry and raspberry jam (represented by the thumbprint cookies in the photo) the night before Christmas so we could enjoy them the next day. Then on Christmas, my grandmother would come over with homemade apple pie and vanilla ice cream (represented by the apple pie and milkshake in the photo). We enjoyed these treats after opening presents. Afterwards, we would watch movies together, such as Elf, The Grinch, and The Polar Express. After eating dinner, we would make monkey bread (represented by the pull-apart bread in the photo). Monkey bread is small balls of biscuit dough dipped in butter, then coated with cinnamon, white sugar, and brown sugar. These desserts were the highlight of Christmas for me, besides spending time with my family of course!

 

[Hatori]

My family and I love to gather around by the kitchen and help cook delicious meals for the holidays. My siblings and I love to help bake pastries and traditional dishes for our family to enjoy. Food is a big and important part of our tradition so we make all kinds of delicious food, so there is always something for everyone! We spend a good amount of time planning, preparing, and cooking these foods as we have certain family members adverse to different foods, so we try to accommodate as many of them as we can. We invite our relatives to come over and spend the holidays with us. We like to talk, play games, watch television and movies, and just reminisce what has happened throughout the years. Unfortunately as it stands right now, the world makes this just a little more difficult to celebrate as we take precautions and have to limit whom we invite. Nonetheless, it's still a nice time to spend with family and loved ones as we all enjoy the food together like we used to. After the festivities, we gather around and help clean up the kitchen to make it nice and spotless once again. Even during the clean-up phase, we still like to talk and banter! It is a wonderful time of year where we bond and celebrate the holidays together.

 

[RollingAntony]

Christmas has always been a nice holiday to celebrate, my family always tries to leave its troubles and disagreements behind in order to enjoy a cheery and festive spirit. While exchanging gifts is fun, I think my most anticipated tradition every year is the Christmas/New Year dinner. I love food, I like cooking and I adore helping out prepare everything.

On the past, the family reunited at the house of my grandparents. Two of them left to live on Spain, so it was usually my grandparents, my aunt/uncle and cousins from my mother's side of the family and my dad, mom and sister. My cousins, my sister and I would play games, mimic things for others to guess and other things while the adults cooked or played domino. Over the time, after my dad and both grandparents passed away, these annual reunions, as they were, stopped. However, my mom and my sister still hold the tradition to cook amazing food and although it's not the big family gathering it once was, the tradition is there and if I may say so, it's even closer to my heart.

My mom and I embark on an adventure each year to obtain the necessary ingredients from markets far from home,and it's always a blast to just enjoy the journey. Recent happenings have made going to one of these markets not very safe, so we have needed to look elsewhere. We carefully select all the ingredients in order to pick the freshest ones or go to our preferred stall where we have bought from more than 50 years. As I grew older, learning to know which things to pick or how to ask for the best quality has been a fascinating experience.

But, I haven't talked about the food we're cooking, right? It's mostly galician cuisine which means there's lot of meat and seafood involved. And it's so good. I consider the caldo gallego (Galician broth) and pan de naranja (orange bread) to be our main stars of the show, but shrimps, squid and empanada are also delicious and staples of the dinner. Everything is a bit pricey, but it's so worthy. We don't cook these kind of dishes throughout the year, so it's always a bliss to eat them. The entry includes a picture of some of these dishes, and although I know not everyone shares our taste, I hope the dishes manage to give off the love we put on all of them.

Preparing everything from the ground up (well, not everything, the chorizo and the like is bought like that haha) is special, my family is always chatting, telling jokes, listening to music... Each year, more and more treasured memories fill up my brain, these dear moments that call back to other times but also give me, and my family, tons of joy on the present. It's been years since it's only us three who cook and eat together, and I couldn't ask for more.

Spoiler

 

[moonphyx]

It's always nice to see how different everyone spends the holidays!

I don't know if other Latino families do this but we actually start celebrating Christmas on the 24th! We all make a huge dinner with your typical yummy Christmas staples: ham, stuffing, green bean casserole, with the addition of delicious tamales. We all stay up until midnight to open our presents and just have a great time until like 2 in the morning haha! One specific tradition I've always enjoyed was playing Loteria. It is basically a very intense version of Bingo but with pictures. My family likes to gamble with coins and it's something the kids can follow along with the adults. I have a favorite board (number 5) and favorite set of cards to go along with my personality. This game holds such a special place in my heart I've referenced it in my college senior capstone art show and have posters of the cards up in my room.

Ever since I got my New Leaf game in 2015 I have always made sure to hop into my game every Christmas to celebrate with my villagers. I actually joined the forums on Christmas Day of 2015 so I can enjoy the game with a bigger community of people! Now, I can look forward to continuing on the traditions I hold dear to me with my partner and to my future kids.

Spoiler: pic

 

[Blink.]

i dont write, please excuse ;~;

Spoiler: Entry

I love the holiday season. I’m almost always excited for the many festivities here on the island. Every year, I’d be with my family on a night out to visit Honolulu Hale (our city hall) to view that year’s Christmas light and decorations display, also known as The Honolulu City Lights. I would also join my friends each year to take a leisurely drive through a holiday light show choreographed to Michael Buble’s holiday album (and other holiday music) at the Aloha Stadium. One tradition in particular though, is something I always smile to see pop up on my calendar notifications; Secret Santa.

My close friends and I would hold a Secret Santa exchange. One of us would be managing who would get who and then keep a budget! It wasn’t the fact that we were now secretly shopping for that specific person that I was excited about, but the day we’d all be there exchanging gifts.

You see, the first time we started the group tradition only a handful of us participated. My boyfriend and I decided that we’d get them onesies and not just the obligatory Secret Santa gift. We attended our friend’s Christmas Party with gifts in tow, drinking root beer, cooking barbecue, and ready to play some Jackbox games. When we finally did the exchange and opened all the presents, it was no surprise they loved their new pajamas. Suddenly there’s 5 of us in onesies laughing our butts off for the rest of the night. It was a surprise however, that it kickstarted a significant and memorable part of the Secret Santas to come.

For the past several years we would always have a snorlax, Perry the platypus, a panda, Rillakuma, and Pusheen the Cat attending our Christmas Party of friends. Over the course of the years we bought more onesies for more friends who participated. We would all be drinking Henry Weinhard’s Vanilla Root Beer as per tradition, cook barbecue short ribs and hotdogs, and be absolutely comfy in our oversized pajamas. As of writing this, my friends will be visiting tomorrow to exchange gifts again this year.. In their onesies.

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[Calysis]

Spoiler: My entry!

For the holiday season, my family typically exchanges gifts and visits my grandfather's home & my grandmother's home (two separate places since they seperated!) on Christmas Eve, and we do our own dinner on Christmas Day.

My grandmother would cook a pretty big dinner, and I would always eat just the noodles growing up. She knew to always cook noodles since it was the only thing I would eat there at the time. Though, as I got older, I started eating other food she made too since I developed a taste for it! She would give a giftbag of candy (gumdrops, jolly ranchers, etc) to everyone that showed up, too! I had been super picky about pretty much all food when growing up (still am, actually. heh.), and my grandmother always remembered that I was the grandkid that didn't like the gumdrops, so she'd go out of her way to get me the sour apple bubble tape that I really liked.

The visits to my grandfather (RIP) were a bit different. He didn't cook or anything like that, but sometimes he would give the grandkids some money as a holiday gift. He would provide us with stories, though, since he was a pretty good (and goofy!) storyteller. Unfortunately I don't get to do this anymore, but it's nice to remember the wonderful times we shared!

Aside from exchanging gifts, eating, and talking, there wasn't much in the way of activities that my family did together during the holiday season. It's still very enjoyable to me since, aside from holidays, I don't really talk to anyone in my family aside from my most immediate family (mom, dad, my two siblings, my nephew). It's wonderful to catch up and just be around each other!

My immediate family usually exchanges gifts with each other on Christmas Eve, and we get back together on Christmas day for dinner – except for this year, which we're doing everything on Christmas day due to not visiting others! One of my favorite memories was one of the more recent years; my brother was passing around his gifts to everyone and upon my sister receiving hers and opening it, it turned out to be... a lump of coal! She took it really well as we all laughed together at it, and I really love that my brother had the forethought to capture the moment on video. Of course, she actually received a proper gift as well!! She didn't just receive a lump of coal; it was only a fun joke for the season. :b

This holiday season isn't going to be as joyous as previous years, as I won't be seeing anyone aside from my bf & my immediate family due to the pandemic and other issues themselves. However, I'm still going to make the best of it and try to have a wonderful day with who I can spend the day with!

For my drawing, I decided to draw the memory of my sister receiving a joke lump of coal – hope that is okay.~

Spoiler: Picture!

 

[Muna]

Here where I live the star of the holidays is the Christmas Eve. In the evening we gather with the family for a joyful supper, wish each other all the best and after the supper we unwrap the presents. But let me tell you about the food and how delicious it is in its tradition.

As a first dish there is always a traditional Red Borscht – soup with red beets as a base ingredient. It’s served with mushroom dumplings. The whole flavour is very intense and it warms up nicely.

After Borscht there are many different dishes to try to complete the meal. Overall the meat is absent, except for the fish. By the tradition the carp is the second main dish, not my favourite underwater animal to eat, but somehow it tastes better every year. Obviously it’s the Mom cooking skills improving over time.

Sour cabbage and mushrooms are used a lot. There are already mentioned dumplings with mushrooms just for the soup, with the fancy shape, but there are also normal shaped dumplings with sour cabbage and mushrooms. And croquettes with very similar filling. The marinated mushrooms are eaten by itself too.

There are other more usual things too, such as bread, Olivier salad and stuffed eggs. Oh and of course cake, there are at least two or three different ones. As for the beverage there is always a sweet kompot made by boiling dried and fresh fruit.

Through years I learned to value more and more the Christmas cuisine. After the family meeting it’s the second thing I’m waiting for – who would care about some presents when you can eat barszczyk z uszkami and krokiety z grzybami?

 

[Azzy]

This was written on the 23rd as a last resort. Here it is though.
​

Spoiler: ‘‘Twas Two Nights Before Christmas

I don't have something elaborate or anything. My mom and I are pro level procrastinators and always seem to put off putting up ((and taking down)) our Christmas tree. So, usually last minute we blast music loud enough to bother our neighbors and spend a night trying to get the tree and some decorations in order before we have company. This routine is usually me controlling the music and cheering my mom on as she makes everything presentable since she tends to nit pick about how everything looks.

Don’t forget the cats. They either are running from the loud noises or trying to get into everything that my mom doesn’t want them in. We actually haven’t had a Christmas tree for the past two years due to some issues, so this will be Loki’s first experience with a tree. We’re all kind of excited to see how she’ll react to it considering Moon’s first reaction when we first got her and Leona had been to climb it and turn it into her favorite hiding place. I can’t remember how Leona reacted, honestly. I’m curious to see her though when she’s done hiding from the vacuum.

This year we have my boyfriend doing the heavy lifting, my mom working details, and myself controlling the Christmas playlist while typing this up on my tablet. Gotta love tradition.

​

I had a better picture too, but it didn’t have my username. So, I had to settle for this.

Spoiler: Red and White Lights

 

[Aquilla]

In my family, Christmas has been celebrated the same way every year ever since I can remember. We have so many traditions, telling them all would far exceed the word limit. So instead of going over all the old traditions, I feel like talking about something relatively new my family has been doing.

A few years ago, a random picture popped up while I was scrolling through pinterest. Gifts, wrapped in newspapers instead of colourful wrapping paper. I quite liked the idea of giving up wrapping paper, since we anyways receive newspapers (involuntarily - mostly just ads we can’t do anything about) and I always disliked throwing out ripped and crumpled wrapping paper that served no other purpose. I explained the idea to my spouse, and we made the switch. My family was a little confused at first, but to my surprise, everyone else in my family liked the idea too and has started doing the same. The tradition has since evolved further. In order to make the gifts look more festive (rather than plain newspaper print), we go through old newspapers looking for cute illustrations and pictures and cut them out (after the paper has been read). We wrap the gifts in newspaper and then stick on the cute cutout illustrations. It makes every present look much more thoughtful and personal and I like taking some time in picking illustrations and decorating the wrapping.

Some critics might think it’s stupid to manually stick on illustrations when nice wrapping paper covered in illustrations already exists, but to us, it’s a small attempt at repurposing something that’s already there instead of buying and throwing out something new. The colourful string and bows we use as decorations in addition are being saved and reused as well - no worries the leftover bunched up newspapers from the gifts then are used whenever we light our fireplace, so we ultimately use newspapers for three different things until their "life circle" end.

Swapping out wrapping paper for material we receive anyways might be a small contribution to reducing our carbon footprint, but every small gesture is worth it in my opinion. (Where I live there is no way of not receiving that one particular newspaper that we didn't sign up for - in case people are confused).

Spoiler: bonus

This pic is one my dad took once all gifts were under the tree - seeing that most were wrapped in newspapers made me happy so I wanted to include it :') (no name card on second pic because dad took that pic)

(P.S. the tree also doesn't get thrown out, because we grew it ourselves and it lives in a pot outside in the garden the remaining 11 months of the year)

458 words total btw ^^
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[moo_nieu]

on a dark christmas morning before the sun rose, i was awoken by my cheery-eyed little brother, "parker! santa came!!!!" my eyes could barely open, but his youthful energy and excitement was enough to pull me out of bed. he danced around unable to control his feet and ran down the stairs making sure i was always close behind. he squealed with delight at the sight of all the colored wrappings, bows, and bags surrounding the giant lit christmas tree. the fire danced behind the overflowing stockings, they were so stuffed that they could no longer hang on the mantle and instead rested gracefully in front of the fire. to the right my parents sat in their cozy blankets and robes sipping their coffee and smiling warmly. it smelled like christmas. cinnamon and vanilla filled the air and wrapped you inside its warm, comforting embrace. my mom always prepared a sweet desert-like breakfast for us to enjoy between presents. nothing made her happier than to help make the holiday as magical as possible. "what do you think??" my mom and dad asked excited and expectantly. my brother squealed again with glee overwhelmed by the amount of gifts santa had delivered for him. his cheer was infectious. "parker is up! can we open presents now?!" he exclaimed still dancing around. "okay! go for it!" my dad replied with a smile so wide you could feel his joy. these moments are some of the best i remember. not the presents, not the lights, but the warm excitement and contentment shared by my family. in these moments we were truly happy to be together.

 

[Flyffel]

Vienna, the capital city of Austria, lives for the Christmas season... at least that is what my Italian boyfriend thinks.

As one of the most important pre-WW1 capital cities of Europe, Vienna played a pretty big role in the development of modern Christmas celebrations. For example, as far as I know, the emperor of Austria popularised Christmas trees in Europe when he decided to put one up. People wanted to mirror the emperor. Nowadays, the Christmas markets - Christkindlmarkt - are just as filled with children looking at toys and adults drinking Glühwein. The shopping streets are lit by huge snowflakes and red baubles and the whole city feels magical.

So... Time to go to Italy to visit my boyfriend's family!

On the 23rd of December, my boyfriend and I woke up early to slowly get ready for the five plus hours car ride to Trieste. ((We had PCR tested negative on the previous day.)) Trieste used to be a part of Austria, it was "Vienna at the sea". As such Vienna and Trieste share quite some history and traditions.

We spent the morning of Christmas Eve getting some last minute Christmas presents, after which we transported an enormous package to my boyfriend's grandparents place. The gift for his grandmother. I felt like we were the center of attention anywhere we went as we crossed half of the historic city centre. A group of young people shouted jokingly from a table of a cafeteria: "Here's the delivery address!"

The celebration included about twenty people. ((I should probably mention that this was within the local pandemic rules.)) Across the evening, we ate a lot of food, mainly seafood and fish. I was definitely holding back a little, as I can eat quite a lot.

While at the party, I video called my parents who live in Finland. Christmas Eve is actually my mother's birthday, so of course I also wished her a happy birthday. I would have loved to visit Finland this Christmas with my boyfriend, but there are personal reasons that made that impossible. A Christmas tradition from Finland that I miss is the Christmas Eve sauna: People in Finland usually tidy up in their sauna before eating dinner and swapping presents after that.

Either way: At midnight, we swapped presents. The huge box was a prank, as it contained a lot of packages within packages. In the end there was a gift card for a manicure, or something like that. The grandmother laughed a lot while the kids opened the boxes for her, so it was worth it! As usual, the party went on for a long time. We left very tired at 4 AM. After that, we spent Christmas day with the other side of my boyfriend's family. Once we arrived home, my boyfriend and I passed out for like two hours! And now I'm finishing writing this up before going to sleep, as tomorrow we'll get visitors in turn...!

Picture: Everything is ready for the Christmas Eve party.

 

[BungoTheElf]

Spoiler

To be honest, each year gets less and less festive and we celebrate Christmas less and less each year. There isn’t even snow outside and we didn’t even set up the Christmas tree this year. My family isn’t really religious so we kind of just celebrate low key and for fun since we stay home but besides eating with relatives and maybe some presents that’s basically how we celebrate the winter holidays. We had curry with my grandparents yesterday and had hot pot with my aunt and some other family members today.

I did get some gifts for friends and got some back (I got an ouioui plush and a plush of nameko from touch detective!) and participated in an art secret Santa with a small group of friends though. I’m also paying for an air fryer for my parents (they bought it a few days ago but I told them months ago that I would cover the cost of an air fryer so that is their present).

And for New Years I don’t do this tradition anymore since it’s gone but I used to go into the tbt irc and say happy New Years for a few years. My family also likes to watch the ball drop.

So we aren’t exactly the most festive bunch here but it’s always nice to be back home, eating food, and seeing family again.

(parents makin yummy dinner with their new air fryer)

 

[Rhea]

As you can tell from how close to the deadline I’m posting this, I’m a last minute person. This means the couple of weeks leading up to Christmas are spent panic searching and buying presents with express shipping. We usually put the tree up near the start of December but ended up putting it up late on the 21st this year.

As cat owners know, cats seem to love the tree for some reason. However, our cat doesn’t climb it - her tradition is attempting to eat it (see the little video at the bottom of this post). We have no idea why she does this. She doesn’t care if we tell her off and if we pick her up and drag her away, she runs straight back.

Some of our cousins live abroad so it’s one of the few times each year that we get to see them since they always fly over. They usually arrive a week before Christmas and stay at our house for a week full of fun.

We spend Christmas day with our Dad’s side of the family. This involves starting the day with exchanging and opening presents around the tree. I usually make a quiz on Kahoot for everyone to play, with questions about the year. This is then followed by a variety of games like Wii Party, Wii Sports, Mario Kart, etc. I don’t know if it’s the same for everyone else, but Mario Bros always ends with shouting and arguments for us (chucking eachother at Goombas/other enemies or off cliffs + blaming eachother when we lose) so we’ve tended to avoid that in recent years.

Hopefully this isn’t considered treason but we usually end up missing the Queen’s speech.

The Christmas dinner feast starts by pulling our crackers, putting on the paper crowns + laughing at the bad jokes inside. By the end we all end up too full to move so spend the rest of the day playing card games until we’re too tired to continue.

On Boxing Day we drive up to see our Mum’s side of the family for a couple of days.

Unfortunately due to Covid we haven’t been able to do this for the past couple of years but hopefully we’ll get to see them all again finally for Christmas next year!

(sorry about the bad quality)

Spoiler: Picture with name tag

Couldn’t get one with the cat in it but here’s our tree (sorry I know it’s not decorated very well):

 

[Miharu]

Every Christmas we would fly out to a different state to spend time with my significant other's family. On Christmas Eve we would make our own pizzas for dinner and then re-watch Lord of the Rings as a family tradition. Then on Christmas morning we would wake up early and open up our presents and take our small presents from our stockings! This year was very special since my significant other's mom counted cross-stitch my own stocking! She worked on this stocking for me for about half a year and finished it just in time for Christmas as a surprise present for me. I was so happy and shocked because the stocking is beautiful and it really made me feel like I was part of the family. My so's family all had their own stockings that were also made by her hanging right next to mine (not shown in the photo since it has their names on it and I would like to keep their names anon).

They also finished renovating their basement this year and we've been spending a lot of time in their home theater watching Lord of the Rings, Kingdom, Arcane, and many other movies/series during the holidays. Then for dinner on Christmas we always have roast beef, mushrooms, vegetables, and mac and cheese, and seafood pasta for dinner. Now we'll be ending Christmas playing pool with the family and perhaps watching a couple more episodes of Kingdom.