Holiday Traditions for December

Jules said:
@RadishRose Is the sheaf of wheat symbolic of food/bread in the New Year.
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@Jules, it's very old. Straw on the floors, too... very old. The best way is to paste this:

"The Magic of Straw​

Grain sheaves are the most ancient ritual adornments of the Vigil Supper celebration. (Christmas Eve) Over a period of time the sheaf evolved into other decorations, such as the dziad, the Vigil cross and star. Straw was an abundant, easily available, and naturally beautiful material used to make decorations for the Vigil Supper.

After the Vigil Supper, the children crawled under the table in search of the silver coins amid the golden straw. In other districts children rolled in the straw found on the floor to protect themselves from measles. These customs portray a belief in the magical quality of straw, an extension of the ancient ancestral sheaf."

LOL, no one in my known family ever did this.... But there was a song about it.

"The sheaf of grain (snopek) is a central symbol of the Polish Christmas Vigil. It combines hopes for good fortune, bounty, and memories of departed family members with Christ, the "bread of angels" who comes down from heaven. Placed in one or all four corners of the Vigil Supper room, the sheaves are a vivid reminder of the ancient character of this celebration."​
 

How about some 'Wassailing" - this refers both to the ancient custom of visiting orchards in cider-producing regions of England, reciting incantations and singing to the trees to promote a good harvest for the coming year, and to visiting houses (and pubs) to wish good fortune on the inhabitants.

An old print of Wassailing the apple trees. The firing of guns and making a noise was to scare off evil spirits.
wassailingpic.jpg
 

Jules said:
This was the first year I remember ever hearing about the Feast of Seven Fishes. Now I’ve heard it several times.
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What Is Feast of the Seven Fishes?​

The Feast of the Seven Fishes is an Italian-American Christmas Eve celebration that brings families together the same way Thanksgiving does with traditions that span generations, decades and oceans. Known in Italy as La Viglia, which translates to The Eve, as in December 24th, Christmas Eve, The Feast of the Seven Fishes isn’t a religious celebration (unless your religion is worshipping at the altar of amazing food). It really is just a big fish-forward holiday meal that traces its roots back to Italy
 
When my dad was young and healthy, he'd get a tree (buy or cut one in the woods) and set it up and put the lights on. I'd hang the ornaments and mom would put on the tinsel. When dad got older and less able to do it, I bought a 4 foot table-top artificial tree and decorated it myself. It seemed we always ate the "big" meal on Christmas eve and it was a roast of some sort. My parents said it was too close to Thanksgiving to have turkey again so soon. We always took down the decorations on New Year's day.
 
I don't know if this would be considered a tradition exactly, but when the tree came down my mom would take all the tinsel off one by one, flatten it in a nice package and use it again the next year. Obviously she grew up during the depression. I learned from her and my dad to be very frugal!
 
Tinsel (or icicles) when we were very young were made from lead. I remember rolling some up into hard little balls. Then it became plastic and never hung straight.
 
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caroln said:
Lead??? That's scary! I thought they were made from aluminum. Actually, never thought about it before now.
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Lead foil was a popular material for tinsel manufacture for several decades of the 20th century. Unlike silver, lead tinsel did not tarnish, so it retained its shine. However, use of lead tinsel was phased out after the 1960s due to concern that it exposed children to a risk of lead poisoning.[5]

This Wiki article talks of silver and aluminum, too.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinsel
 
RadishRose said:
Tinsel (or icicles) when we were very young were made from lead. I remember rolling some up into hard littles ball. Then it became plastic and never hung straight.
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I had a vague recollection that we quit saving tinsel for some reason. Thanks for telling us about it. As I recall, again a distant memory, we kept saving what we had because ’what did the experts know’ theories. Eventually the current tinsel became so inexpensive that we didn’t want to bother with saving the old stuff.
 
Our traditions were always being with his family Christmas Day. We stayed home for the most part on Christmas Eve. At my inlaws, it was always hearty wonderful breakfast and bloody mary's, not my thing, so I would have cocoa or tea with a little baileys. Dinner was always a prime rib with all the trimmings. The son's fussing the whole time, make plenty of gravy, Mom, that is not enough gravy!! The one BIL who always had his own salt shaker by his plate. Hot homemade bread that FIL always gave me the end piece, my favorite. I always got the end cut of the prime rib as liked it a little more well done than the others.

I married at 20. That was the year that his parents were able to buy their first home. We were married there, in front of the fire place in November and their first christmas in their own home was in December. Mom (MIL) was so happy. She really did it up. That first year she had the stockings from the past years for each of the kids and my new one that got added.

Over the years as the kids married, started having grandchildren, she had to hang a string wider than the mantle to fit us all in. I always got a beautiful ornament in my stocking, that was our little thing. Lord, did I love her, she always made me feel loved and part of the family!! FIL too, everytime, which was once a week, when came over.

He would come and give me a big hug and kiss and say come let me show what I am cooking for you today. He was in charge of cooking the meat and MIL did the sides. It goes without saying that once we had the first grandson, the only grandchild at that time, my husband and I took a back seat to the baby love they had to give to out to our little boy!
 
Not anymore. After I accepted Islam, the same day I married my Muslim husband, I stopped celebrating Christmas. My son had already accepted Islam years before so he doesn't celebrate either. When my husband was living we used to go to the Kwanzaa celebrations every year. One year he was even honored. He's been gone for 4 years (as of yesterday) and I don't drive (wouldn't be able to at night anyway) so I haven't been to a Kwanzaa celebration in 5 years.

After I met my (half) sister and brothe4r...that whole other part of my family in 1998, we bonded well. My sister always insisted my husband and I come for holiday dinners. Even though he had lots of family with good cooks, he always wanted to go to dinner at my sister's house. She, her son and daughter are fantastic cooks. Now that she no longer owns her home and is living with her son, she doesn't host big dinners anymore.
 
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OK, a fun tradition my brother started...we were all adults at the time. Very spontaneous. As he opened his first gift at our parents house, he pulled the bow off his present and pitched it at the tree, from where he sat. So, it turned into a competition between us and our parents as to who could connect the most bows.
 
caroln said:
I don't know if this would be considered a tradition exactly, but when the tree came down my mom would take all the tinsel off one by one, flatten it in a nice package and use it again the next year. Obviously she grew up during the depression. I learned from her and my dad to be very frugal!
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My maternal grandma would save wrapping paper that way.
 

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