This year, with a lot of things going on, I've tried to streamline our Christmas celebration, the Nativities that my Mother, my Aunt, and brother (all gone now) gave to me, were a sure bet to be put up. When it came to other decorations, I was really picky about what got unpacked and what stayed in the boxes.

The one thing that I really hoped to find and put out was a set of sleigh bells that arrived when our youngest was very little (3?). He wanted to know if he would hear Santa's sleigh. Sure enough, on Christmas morning, there was a set of bells under the tree.

I still have not found the bells (I'm still looking and I am sure that they will be in the bottom of the last box I look in). While the bells don't make Christmas, they are a nice tradition that I look forward to every year.

Is there one special tradition that you or your family look forward to for the holidays?

P&CMom,

I like this thread! With all the debates going on in the general forum, it's time to spread some holiday cheer!

I don't know about you ladies, but sometimes it is hard to keep the holiday spirit for us moms with so much to take care of - the shopping, wrapping, cards, cooking, parties, relatives visiting, etc. on top of all the other stuff we have to take care of! I know the key is to simplify - I just haven't figured out how too. We do seem to find a way to get it all done though.

One tradition in our family that's fun - when we are wrapping gifts and filling out the "To" and "From" tags - the gifts are always from famous and some not so famous athletes (sometimes it's a local former high school player that's doing good in college). Under the tree are gifts from Nolan Ryan, John Elway, Tomy Romo, Tiger Woods, Craig Biggio, and others. It makes it fun. I didn't know anybody else did this but I did read about the "from" tags in a magazine this year.

As we are Astro fans, I had to get out the sports page to do some of the tags this year - we have so many new players that decided to give gifts to our family this year!

quote:

One tradition in our family that's fun - when we are wrapping gifts and filling out the "To" and "From" tags - the gifts are always from famous and some not so famous athletes (sometimes it's a local former high school player that's doing good in college). Under the tree are gifts from Nolan Ryan, John Elway, Tomy Romo, Tiger Woods, Craig Biggio, and others. It makes it fun. I didn't know anybody else did this but I did read about the "from" tags in a magazine this year.

Oh my goodness...I LOVE that idea!!!!! Very clever, and I might have to add a couple of gifts from our favorite athletes under the tree this year myself...can't wait for my daughter to get her gift from Chase Utley!

I think I"ve relayed our tradition before, but will repeat it. On Christmas Eve, after church service, we all come home and put on our pajamas and pop in our FAVORITE Christmas holiday movie....The Christmas Story. It has gotten to the point where we can ALL recite the lines...and do so very often thruout the movie...ESPECIALLY the "You'll shoot your eye out" mantra! In addition, we always eat our traditional Christmas Eve dinner of "take out Chinese) on the coffee table in front of the movie. Why Chinese? Because Ralfie and his family end the movie at a Chinese restaurant after the Bumpkis dogs ruin their Christmas Turkey Dinner at home. Sounds silly...but we've been doing it for YEARS now...and I think for the kids (who are now 22, 20 and 10) Christmas would just not be the same without Ralfie and our Chinese Christmas Eve dinner!

quote:

I like this thread! With all the debates going on in the general forum, it's time to spread some holiday cheer!

I am so down with dat'!! ( ha! )

Was looking around here the other day to see how I could intertwine some colored lights through the forum's pink roses that adorn our ladies zone and perhaps sprinkle a little snow while I'm at it. ( we have plenty to share!)

The holidaze are here at last!

I have missed chatting with you gals about all of the festivities. This is a great thread,...one that I will be reading daily!

Hot cocoa anyone?
Plenty of candy canes, home made fudge, and cookies to go around!

My daughter and I are making pizzelles tonight for the neighbors,.... as we always do.

C07 and lbb,

Your traditions make me smile! These are exactly the kinds of things I was hoping that we could share.

C07There are going to be a couple of gifts under our tree from some Red Sox players and management this year (hope you don't mind if I "borrow" your idea?).

lbb, I love that your tradition is a reminder that the season is not about decorations that need to be put up, gifts to be bought, cards to be sent, or cookies to be baked, but about family.

I will confess to another family tradition: Sometimes on Christmas day stay in our pajamas all day! We might get dressed for dinner, sometimes we eat in our PJ's. After opening gifts, for breakfast, I continue my family's tradition of making fried bread dough with sugar sprinkled on it. (Beniets, if you are from New Orleans, Pizzelles in our Italian family (not what Italians usually consider Pizzeles)).

With a lump of fried bread dough rapidly expanding in our tummies and, when the kids were younger, bedtime for Mom and Dad the night before @4:00am, food coma usually sets in and we all take a nap. We sometimes don't get around to dinner until 8:00 or 9:00pm. It seems to make Christmas day last a lot longer. As you might imagine, the years that we have had friends or neighbors drop in in the afternoon to drop off cookies or just to wish us a Merry Christmas have resulted in some red faces - not from the cold either.

Thank you, so much, for sharing your holiday cheer!

quote:

My daughter and I are making pizzelles tonight for the neighbors,.... as we always do.

Those are beautiful, but what the heck are they? (LOL). I live in my own little cajun world.

SSM!

Once again, while I was typing, another HSBBW member was reading my mind!

My mom made those kind of pizzelles, too! She was Irish and started making these herself many years (25+) after she married my Italian Dad. She used anisette in hers. What, besides chocolate (yum) do you flavor your with?

SSM,

Is that a chocolate pizzele sandwich cookie???

PS,

I hope that you have been safe in all that weather you have been having out there. Take care!

I had a neighbor who had been stationed in Italy. On Christmas Eve night, she and her children rang our door bell and handed us a beautiful plate of warm pizelles, lightly dusted with powdered sugar. They were set on a simple red glass plate ( which I later found out came from Walmart,...who woulda' thunk? ) and had a single twig of holly berry placed in the middle.
The cookies looked lacey and fancy,....and the presentation was simple, yet gorgeous!

She later showed me that they are as easy to make as a waffle! ( my kind of cooking!!)

After Christmas I ran to William Sonoma and got my pizelle machine 50% off. I now think Targey and other discount stores carry these baking irons,...but at the time I just used the recipe that came in the iron box.

After reasearching on the interent I found that
you can roll them ( sort of like a canoli ) and fill them with pudding or whipped cream, you can dip them in chocolate,...you can add cocoa and make chocolate ones,.... you can make them into sandwiches,...the variations are endless.

Nummy!

Here's the Wiliam Sonoma Recipe:

The Pizzelle
Thin, crisp cookies called pizzelle can be transformed into irresistible ice cream sandwiches or rolled into small cones.




3 eggs
3/4 cup sugar
8 Tbs. (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted, plus
more for brushing
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 tsp. finely grated lemon zest
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp. baking powder



In a mixing bowl, whisk together the eggs and sugar until light yellow and thick ribbons fall from the whisk, 2 to 3 minutes. Add the 8 Tbs. melted butter, the vanilla and lemon zest and whisk until blended.

Over a sheet of waxed paper, sift together the flour and baking powder. Fold the flour mixture into the egg mixture in two additions, folding each addition just until blended.

Heat a pizzelle maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Brush lightly with butter and spoon about 1 Tbs. of the batter onto the pizzelle maker. If any batter oozes out, cut it off immediately. Cook according to the manufacturer’s instructions until golden brown. Transfer the pizzelle to a wire rack and let cool. Repeat with the remaining batter. Makes about 25 pizzelle.

Williams-Sonoma Kitchen.


Here are some pizelle bakers from Amazon.com.
( they have a gigantic selection )

Ho-Ho-Ho



We like to use this handy dandy gaget in the summer and fill the cones with fresh strawberries!

quote:

I hope that you have been safe in all that weather you have been having out there. Take care!

Thank youuuuuuuu!!
We are safe and sound...& still as sassy as ever.

Off to make famous athlete " to and from " tags!
Adorable idea!!!!

quote:

Beniets, if you are from New Orleans

Ah Ha! I know what those are.

My family is 99.9% German (only second generation American myself)...since my grandparents have passed on, some of the Christmas "edible" traditions have passed on with them. My Opa was a German baker who set up shop in St. Louis when he came over from Bavaria. He used to ALWAYS make his holiday "stohlen" which we HATED as kids! but came to acquire the taste as we matured. I still remember the look of horror on his face when my sister and I decided to spread a little butter on his stohlen to help it go down! It was a week long in the making...and he NEVER shared the recipe with anyone.

My grandmother, on the other side of the family (but equally as German! ) would always make "springele" cookies. Again...HATED them as a kid, as they were hard as rocks with the taste of anise...but acquired an appreciation for them as I grew older. Now, I add onto my Christmas traditions to track down a "suitable" version of both Stohlen and Springele for our family Christmas get-together to bring back happy memories and stories.

Luckily, I live in "Pennsylvania Dutch" country, so I can find a "suitable" replacement...but they still aren't the same. We always begged our grandparents to write down those recipes..but you know what they say about stubborn Germans! LOL...I shudder to think what they would say if they knew we ate Chinese on Christmas Eve!!!!

Along similar lines to the gift tags from famous people, hubby started a tradition when we first married of not putting our real names on the tags but one of several nicknames we have called each other in the past, or, names that somehow relate to the gift itself. Quite often, there is a short 'riddle' on the tag ... i.e., I gave son and dad a baseball clock one year and the tag read: Don't you think it is about time people understood what our real priority is?

Once son was old enough to 'get it', we started putting similar on his tags.

We occasionally guess the gift but quite often we are way way off ... but it makes for a fun morning especially when there are only 2 or 3 people at the gift opening in the morning.

My husbands aunt made pizelles as a wedding gift - she had them setup at our reception with a pot of coffee for our guests to enjoy before dinner started! We got lots of complements on that and the kids loved them!

Does anyone hide a Christmas pickle ornament in the tree?

Sorry FirstTimer, no pickles, but we do have mushrooms and birds!

Just read on AOL that the pickle is a German tradition and the child that finds it on Christmas morning gets an extra present. Is that how you celebrate as well?

Do you think that "In a pickle" is in any way related?

quote:

Does anyone hide a Christmas pickle ornament in the tree?

Got one hidden on our tree!

I love the hidden pickle idea. Never too late to start I guess, but I think I will introduce the idea to my nephews who have young ones.

My husband's side is 100% Italian, Our tradition with them is to eat homemade ravioli Christmas Day at 4:00pm - Either you are there and enjoy - or you miss out ----Everyone shows up, it's Tradition.

On my side we host Christmas Eve with my family - it is the only day of the year that all family members get together - so same thing - Everyone shows, it's Tradition.

In our family I always added something to the tree as if Santa had left his mark after delivering gifts. Usually two things - I would sprinkle fairy dust on the tree to make it sparkle and then I always add serpentine. Serpentine is purchased as somethng that looks like a toilet paper roll. It is actually paper that is perferiated at each 1/8".
When you tear off each perf you throw it on the tree and it makes like ringlets flowing down. It really has a nice effect as if a celebration had happened. Anyway, my kids always were excited about seeing their tree touched by Santa.
We also always start and finish a jigsaw puzzle by New Year's. Sometimes it's done in 2 days, sometimes takes a while, but it allows all of us time togther and anyone that stops by joins in!
Happy Holidays!

We also do the pickle.

The pizelles look awesome! The serpentine sounds intriguing. I'm going to try the family jigsaw puzzle this year - maybe I should get a 50 piece one for my family to finish....

Curveball's famous family recipe - One year I was stressed and out of time when baking Christmas cookies to give to neighbors and friends so that year I decided to make "Reindeer Food" (AKA Puppy Chow) instead. I divide a recipe into two (one gallon) plastic bags with a twisty tie and a thin red curly ribbon bow. I then place the bag into a brown paper lunch bag, staple that baby shut, make a tag with a red sharpie that says "Reindeer Food". I also staple a red thin curly ribbon bow to the top of the bag.

This simple recipe and presentation has been a huge hit - one year I did something more complicated to give and people were not happy - so as requested, it is "Reindeer Food" from now on! The boys love it and it is so easy! I make my two teenage elves make my deliveries late in the morning on Christmas Eve.

The recipe is on the back of the Chex Cereal - you can use any variety - I use "Rice" and don't usually add the vanilla - it wasn't on my original recipe.

Reindeer Food (otherwise known as Puppy Chow!)

1 cup semi-sweet Chocolate Chips
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/4 cup butter or margarine
1 tsp vanilla
9 cups Chex cereal (any variety)
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

In a 1 quart mixing bowl, combine chocolate chips, peanut butter and margarine and microwave uncovered on high for one minute. Stir. Microwave 30 seconds or longer until smooth. Stir in vanilla.

In a large bowl, place the Chex cereal. Pour the chocolate mixture over the cereal - stirring until evenly coated. Pour mixture into a 2 gallon food storage bag.

Add powdered sugar to the bag, seal bag, and shake until well coated. Store in airtight container in the refrigerator.

18 servings (1/2 cup each)

Yes, Virginia, there really is a Santa Claus!

I finally got to the last box this morning, and YES!!, I found the reindeer bells!

Our youngest, who is now 15, just had his last exam. He was already up in his room (just chillin'). I called up for him and got the usual "Huh?". I gave the bells a jingle and he came to the top of the stairs. "Sweet!"

Some traditions aren't big, but have a lot of impact. Thanks Santa, for making sure we got a good dose of elf dust this year!

Thank you to everyone who is sharing their traditions on this thread. It is fun to hear of other's traditions and have found a few that we might at least try on for size. Although if I try all the goodies, it might be a size up, or so from where I am now. Oh, well, what else is there to do in January and February other than diet and exercise? (Well, of course there are Superbowl parties and Valentines candies. Maybe March?)

Keep the holiday magic coming!

I started the pickle with just my 2 on Christmas morning - but as they got older it wasn't quite as much fun - now I wait for nieces and nephews to get there for dinner and everyone joins in. This year I have decided to give everyone a $1 scratch off as they arrive.