AMERICANS, what do you do for Christmas/winter holidays?

Mmm I can't vote up there and I grew up weird cause I wasn't really raised with my family or even with people of a similar cultural background and then each family branch carried over their own things into the current family culture that I didn't noticed until years later. However, a lot of these people are now gone. I've also moved all over the world, so my memories are kinda fuzzy sometimes.

Anyways, this is coming from a American family with German-Italian heritage that is not directly from the old world.

1) My Italian heritage side would offer so many sweets to the whole family whenever my sisters and I managed to swing by for Christmas. It would at least be the day before if we came and there would be trays of little sweets to eat and maybe wine and cannolis (Italian pastries) for the adults. As for the trays of sweets, I want to say there were cookies or something because my granny would hand make pasta and sauce and be that type of granny. However, I only remember right now that chocolate covered peanut mms and pretzels were included. I can't remember what we would eat the day of because I just remember cooking breakfast for everyone at that place and if I wasn't cooking then it was granny's pasta or pizza or something. We might have gotten KFC just because it was close and everyone could eat something without it taking ALL DAY (like the pasta).

Then, although both sides of my family were Christian in one way or another, this side of the family wouldn't do the Christmas mass as far as I remember. However, while both would require me more or less to go to church on Sundays for the longest time, the German side of the family is/was hard core Lutheran and you bet I would be forced to go to midnight mass on Christmas or Christmas Eve.

Both sides would also exchange presents on the day of...?

2) The German side I honestly do not remember 100% right now. However, I know that if there's no Euro-fruit cake, beer, champagne, and rye bread then I would wonder who these people are. Like, the Italian side would not actively encourage drinking really, but the German side was all 'your sisters are drinking the champagne, why aren't you...what's wrong with you'.
I think for the actual meal we might have gone to a German style pub that that family is connected to through hulemdos of the family from Europe or something. I just remember specifically ordering some type of sausages at a place.

On that note, while I still had my ma around, she would make traditional Christmas cookies around this time and I think it came from this side of the family. Think like special star cookies with glazed jam centers that looked like stain glass and what not that I know you can't find quite so easily in the supermarket. Unfortunately, this ended really early because of life things.

3) Now, as for the people I lived with...Chinese was the 'oh shiz we forgot to do anything or are too lazy to cook' option. Otherwise, we might have Mexican because it was a safe option for when people came over cause of religious/whatever reasons. (These people were not Mexican, so it was more Tex-Mex than anything.) Otherwise we might have gone out to ANYWHERE that was open cause...things. That could have ranged from anything though. Gifts were given the day of Christmas unless people were leaving or coming early. Probably had a lot of sweets too, but distinctly American. Like, I don't think I would have gotten in trouble for eating a candy cane or five.

oh sorry! i’ll fix that when i get home. thanks ☺️

thank you for your answer!!
that sounds like a really nice holiday.
and i will now have that song stuck in my head all day 😇

American Reform Jew here, never celebrated Christmas at home but did have Chanukah every year, where we usually had latkes (kind of a potato kakiage) served with sour cream and apple sauce at least once out of the eight days. Every night on the eight days we would light candles on a chanukiah (a menorah/candelabra with 9 spots for candles, one of which is the "helper" candle that you use to light the others), and exchange small presents. Usually on the Friday night that falls within Chanukah, we would go to synagogue for a special prayer service, and sometimes there would be a dinner there, also with latkes.

on christmas we usually had Chinese takeout and went to see a movie. If we remembered to make an advance reservation, we would eat Chinese food at the restaurant. Sometimes during the day, my parents would insist that we go volunteering -- I remember my dad dressing at Santa and all my family going with him to ~spread cheer~ (I think we helped pass out presents? maybe sang carols) at a nursing home a few times.

Because of Dee's comment, I will explain all the things we do in my family too. I'm French Canadian.

On my father's side of the family, we do one party where we have a potluck, play games and exchange gifts (also through games). We'll often have turkey, ragoût de boulettes (meatballs in a brown sauce), tourtière (traditional meat pie), mashed potatoes, a variety of veggies (mostly root vegetables) and salads, plus a few desserts. Oh, and we eat cocktail shrimp and this one amazing dip as appetizers.

On my mother's side of the family, we will meet several times over the Christmas holidays.
- A few weeks before Christmas, one of my aunts will invite a bunch of us to make these 13 traditional desserts (they will be eaten throughout the holidays)
- At the main meal, we'll have a lot of cheese and pâtés and bread (omg the bread and cheese), plus some stick veggies while we chat, then the meal proper will have more tourtière, at least one vegetarian dish, often some fish, rice, veggies (again, mostly root vegetables), and salad (usually a Caesar salad). For dessert, there'll be some of the 13 desserts and some fruit salad, plus the baklava my uncle makes.
- The following meetings, there will be more cheese and bread, leftovers, chocolate and other desserts, etc.

Honestly, the main meal can vary from year to year, but those things are the most common.

With just my immediate family, my dad will prepare a meal with escargot as an appetizer (with bread and garlic butter), then some seafood and veggies.


We mostly have ham at other holidays, like Easter.
I feel like I forgot a bunch of things because I haven't been in a while hue

SANTA BABY BY EARTHA KITT

it is a perfect song, and I am so happy I can finally unabashedly listen to it again

A lot of changes have happened for my family, so the way we celebrate now looks a lot different from when I was younger, so I'll share what our celebrations were like when I was growing up. For reference, my background is Jamaican American. For the Christmas holiday, we would always travel to my aunts' place on my mother's side and celebrate with her relatives.

For some reason the main meal doesn't stick out to me as much as other parts of the day, probably because that was a bit less structured. We would have a breakfast (that inevitably became more of a brunch because it was always a late start) that had more traditional breakfast things like boiled or fried dumplings, fried plantains, ackee and saltfish ( a yellow, kinda buttery fruit but not a fruit, with salted codfish). Then there were more lunch-y things like festival (fried sweet bread), fish, jerk chicken etc.

Then presents, one of my aunts always played Santa and would pick gifts out of the pile, read the name tag, then hand them off.

A general part of holidays was drinking sorrel, which is like a hibsicus drink, and the adults would like to sometimes add rum to theirs. I also really enjoyed helping to make, and eat, the black cake in the evening (fruit cake but with alcohol added to it).

thank you everyone for your responses!!
the presentation went a lot better than i expected. the kids were surprised that we don't eat fried chicken hue.

pls feel free to keep talking about your winter traditions though, it's been interesting to see how different everyone is.

next up is christmas song symposium where i am excited to talk about christmas music and jazz!!!

Oh yeah! When my grandmother was still alive, we would often go see the Nutcracker