It's that time of the year and I thought it might be fun
to share our thoughts on how we spend this Festive Season.

The feast of Christmas is always preceded by four weeks
of Advent, a period of "fasting and contemplation".
"Kucios," or Christmas Eve, is the last day of fasting,
followed by sumptuous feasting. No less than 12 dishes
must be served at this special Christmas Eve meal of
predominantly sea-food, beginning with the recitation of
Grace and the breaking of a special unleavened wafer, called
"Plotkele". This wafer, blessed by the Parish priest, is
shared by all at the table, signifing a spirit of unity.

Christmas Day includes the traditional Catholic Mass -
followed by a long traditional lunch that folds into
dinner.

I cook for both Christmas
Eve, and Christmas Lunch, and both events are held at our
place where the family gets together. It's tradition.

Another tradition that we have is to finalise our
Charity donations at this time of the year. I've just
mailed off cheques to all of the Charities that we support,
including to our Parish and Priest.

Wishing you good health, happiness, prosperity and success
in the New Year 2015. May all your wishes come true

Christmas is a dish served cold here. Ham, chicken prawns etc. with salad & lots of icy watermelon & mangoes keep the kids happy.

The only exception was mums Christmas pudding. Everyone had to stir it, & mum had a stock of old threepences & sixpences to add, cooked Christmas morning.

With an acre & a half around the house, & large rooms, it was always at our place, with all my ladies family & kids along.

Since all those kids are now grown, with kids of their own, the tribe is too big even for our place.

Christmas is now a picnic on the beach at a Gold Coast park, with a couple of sky boats, jet skis, & a canoe to keep the kids amused. I'll take a sailing dinghy, if it's not too windy for little ones in it. The noise can become quite loud, thank god I'm going deaf.

Back to just our family at home for Christmas day at our place now.

Oops! And a merry Christmas to all.

Hi Foxy!

Looks like it's just you & me kid. No one appears to want to talk to us.

Hi Foxy, it sounds like you have a lovely traditional Christmas.
My family gets together each year, but it is never the same crowd!

My parents divorced when I was a teenager, so our family is a bit fractured and my mother dislikes Christmas because of that, to this day.
Us siblings try to have Christmas Day lunch together each year, and my daughter and I almost always do all of the cooking.

Because my husband is Irish, he loves to have the hot turkey Christmas Lunch, with everything that involves!
So he learnt to cook our turkey in the webber each year now, and he has it down to perfection.

The usual family squabbles go on right up to Christmas Eve of course, but we always have a wonderful Christmas day (and an arvo kip!) every year.

Here's to another great Christmas this year for all.

Cheers,
Suse.

Dear Hasbeen,

The Gold Coast would be a great place to be -
and with family - very special. It sounds so
great - and I wish you and yours the lovely time
that I'm sure you'll all have.

Dear Suse,

Gosh, how sad for your mum. And what a great thing
for you to do the traditional Christmas lunch. Our
Christmas lunch is also a traditional one - I use
all of Margaret Fulton's recipes, from the roast
turkey, to the glazed ham, to the Christmas vegies
and roast potatoes. I cheat somewhat with the dessert
by ordering a large "fruit bombe" (cake and fresh fruit) from
our Swiss Patisserie. Christmas Eve - is done especially
for my mum - who likes to see me keep up with the
traditional Lithuanian dishes and customs. She's now
very frail - and it gives her a change from the food in
the aged-care facility in which she lives.

Talking about traditions...

I read a great article by Sarah Harris in our local magazine,
about some of our traditions of Yule.

As she writes, "Some of these customs, like the wearing of
silly paper hats drawn from the obligatory bonbons along
with a joke and plastic novelties, are relatively modern
practices."

"Apparently it was while sitting by a crackling fire that
British confectioner and cake decorator Tom Smith decided
to reinvent the bonbon - originally a French creation of
sugared almonds in pretty paper twists - and blow away the
competition. After some wexperimentation he created a
friction strip coated with a small amount of saltpetre,
which created a bang when pulled apart."

"Smith's Bangs of Expectation, which went on the market in
1860, were high-end works of art containing wax dolls with
whole wardrobes of clothes, jade Buddhas, real ivory
elephants and real jewellery."

"By the turn of the century Smith's company, now run by his
three sons, was producing crackers for every occasion.
There were crackers for royal tours, crackers to celebrate
the discovery of Tutankhaman's tomb, crackers for store
openings. And Christmas would never be the same."

We always enjoy a traditional Latvian Christmas dinner of boiled turnips and tripe. I don't know why, since we are not Latvians! I once said to Mum, could we have a NOT SO traditional Christmas dinner with ham, turkey, Xmas pudding etc. Mum called me a blasphemed and the family stoned me to death, another Christmas tradition in our family, stoning family blasphemers. I didn't make the same mistake the next year, just ate my turnips and trip, so yummy!LOL

Dear Paul,

Thank You for sharing with us your family traditions
at Christmas. Turnips and tripe are meals that
are shared by many ethnic groups around the globe,
it's true. However, they are not a Latvian tradition
at Christmas. You're possibly confusing the countries.
Heads, brains, trotters and tripe are quite common in
Istanbul markets. Anyway, each to their own - turnips
and tripe are an acquired taste - and if that's you
and your families mouth-watering preference and food
choice at Christmas. We can't fault you for that.
Bon Appetite.

There are all sorts of Christmas traditions that others
might find rather quaint - aside from your turnips and tripe.

Like why would anyone think snapping the clavicle bone
of a dead bird is lucky? But this tradition predates
Christmas, going back to about 900 BC and the Etruscans,
who believed hens could divine the future.

More on that later on.

Again Thank You for taking the time to contribute to this
discussion. I learned something new about you.

It looks like this discussion is not going
to be taken up by anyone else. I'd like to
Thank the ones who did take the time to
contribute at this busy time of the year
and close - with one of my favourite poems:

Bush Nativity ...

The outback was buzzing with wonderful news
A wallaby passed it to two kangaroos
Spiny echidnas emerged from the ground
Busy young bandicoots bounded around
A web-footed platypus gazed at the view
Some fluffy-tailed gliders looked longingly too
Carolling kookaburras laughed with delight
Crimson rosellas sang right through the night
Along loped an emu as though in a dream
Koalas stopped munching to show their esteem
Dancing grey brolgas stepped forward and bowed
Bright-crested cockatoos chattered aloud
A possum quite joyfully pricked up one ear
And wide-eyed with wonder a wombat crept near
The stars of the Southern Cross pointed the way
to the Babe who was born on the first Christmas Day.

Best Wishes for Christmas and the New Year Folks!

Take care.

Foxy, I was born in the bush and came to the big smoke (Sydney) when I was 5. For many years after we always returned to Granddads place for Christmas along with stacks of uncles and aunts, and a million cousins from all around who would be there for Christmas Day. Granddad always wanted and got a very traditional Christmas Dinner, even though it could be 110 in the shade, Christmas dinner could not be anything else than a hot dinner of turkey, ham etc etc and Christmas pudding, with threepence's and sixpence's inside, went with out saying all home made on a fuel stove by grandmas, mum and the aunt's. All this served at a great big table with a white linen table cloth (only used at Christmas). A beer for men and a cup of tea when they got a chance for the women, when they got a chance, and cordial for the kids.
I recall one Christmas dinner, one time, when an uncle came to the table wearing only a singlet on top, grandpa always said grace, but before he did, he looked at uncle and said "...where is you shirt!" Uncle who was about 35 replied "Dad its a 110 out side in the shade!" Grandpa said "Son, show your respect, a shirt now, or you do not eat at my table!" uncle got up immediately and went and put his shirt on.
cont

cont
This is a true story, the Latvian stuff was my dry humor. My oldest son wants to have Christmas at his house this year, as him grandmother died recently and I think he want's to do something special for his grandfather, his mothers father, not leave the old bloke on his own. At me wanting to know what my partner "T" wants for dinner (I've already told my daughter-in-law and she knows we eat everything) but boy (who is 31) thinks he is the catering manager, texting me. So I think I have nearly convinced him that "T" being Maori, like them Latvians, is a strange eater at Christmas, only eats 'poha and boil up' for Christmas dinner. The laugh will be on him. I've told him to get out there and gather lots of poha and get a mutton ready for the boil up, he can slaughter the poor animal Xmas morning. Children ha ha LOL.

Dear Paul,

Thanks for sharing your real Christmas traditions
with me. I'm relieved that you were only joshing
regarding the "Latvian" one. I would love nothing
more than to just stick to the traditional Christmas
lunch of Turkey, Ham, et cetera. But I do the Christmas Eve
Lithuanian stuff for my mum who's in her nineties
and it makes her happy. Your story about the shirt and
being 40 degrees in the shade reminds me of my own father
who was also a stickler for formality when it came to
special occasions like Christmas. He too used to get
all dressed for Christmas lunch - and would insist we do
the same. I miss dad dreadfully. He died of a massive
coronary at the age of 52 - back in the 1970s.

Again - Thanks for coming back to this discussion.
A big warm hug.

Christmas for us is always a family affair.

Normally we travel to my partners family home in the Granite Belt and enjoy a traditional Italian 2 feast day.

The lunch is normally us and the grandparents consisting of large Pasta and meat meals.

The dinner we are mixing up this year with a variety of the traditional roast dinner combined with fish and some good old Prawns on the BBQ.

Dear jvisions,

Welcome to the Forum and Thank You for sharing
your family Christmas Celebrations with us.
They sound wonderful.
Buon Natale.