Holiday Traditions

[Trish]

I'm sitting here in a waiting room while I wait for a family member to have tests done and I was thinking about things I need to do for this weekend and family traditions. It made me curious about the weird ones that don't make sense to other people or are just so uncommon that people look at you funny when you mention them.

For instance, for the last 8 years on Father's Day everyone we're really close to (family and friends) come to our house. We all make appetizers and desserts only (way too many of course) and we just hang out. Usually we target shoot with PCP's, play horseshoes or cornhole, and just exist. One year the weather was awful so we had a mega game of CAH (most of the kids in our group are adults or very nearly). No pressure, no gifts, just fun and way too much food. Well maybe not no pressure, because in our family if you mess up making your appetizer or dessert you'll never live it down lol. And you're not allowed to make anything out of a box (most of us really love to cook).

Anyway, people find it to be really odd when they hear about it and it seems that a lot of people barbecue. We used to, but it always seemed unfair to me that the dads end up doing all the work on Father's day, so now they don't in our group. We all make the easier appetizers and desserts or at least things that can be made ahead and we all just have fun for most of the day.

What are your uncommon traditions?

 

[Naja Noir]

Nothing really that different from the norm for us. Though on Christmas Eve we do nachos. I'm actually trying to get Christmas dinner to become yearly carnita night, did it this last year, was awesome.

 

[Trish]

Nothing really that different from the norm for us. Though on Christmas Eve we do nachos. I'm actually trying to get Christmas dinner to become yearly carnita night, did it this last year, was awesome.

Nachos on Christmas Eve is a great idea! I had to google carnitas but they sound delicious too.

 

[Homer Potvin]

Apps and desserts have been the norm for us for awhile now. So much easier, and everyone would just fill up on them anyway before the entrees.

We have the St Joseph's Day in my area, March 19th. Basically it's Italian St Patrick's Day, and the city goes bonkers. Everyone eats zeppoles by the truckload, which aren't even that great, in my opinion. I'm sure it's celebrated in other areas, but it's a huge deal in RI. The whole thing has been bastardized from Catholicism, and even the cream stuffed zeppoles are a bastardized version of the Italian original. It's like living in a foreign country around here sometimes.

 

[Trish]

Apps and desserts have been the norm for us for awhile now. So much easier, and everyone would just fill up on them anyway before the entrees.

That's awesome! I've never met anyone else who does it!

I've never experienced St Joseph's Day. I do love zeppoles though.

 

[Homer Potvin]

That's awesome! I've never met anyone else who does it!

I've never experienced St Joseph's Day. I do love zeppoles though.

They're not bad, but there's a half dozen pastry things I'd rather have. I saw on the news once that the bakeries have to make something like 50k for the event. Frigging nuts.

 

[big soft moose]

Where I am they celebrate 5th November ( guy fawkes) with tar barrels… essential they line a bunch of barrels with far then set them on fire and run up and down the high street carrying them

There also hot pennies day when in the past rich folk used to put pennies in their overs then throw them into the street so they could laugh at the paupers trying to catch them … these days the pennies are only warm for H&S reasons

 

[Trish]

Where I am they celebrate 5th November ( guy fawkes) with tar barrels… essential they line a bunch of barrels with far then set them on fire and run up and down the high street carrying them

There also hot pennies day when in the past rich folk used to put pennies in their overs then throw them into the street so they could laugh at the paupers trying to catch them … these days the pennies are only warm for H&S reasons

Neither of those sound particularly fun to participate in. They still actually throw pennies at people?

 

[Homer Potvin]

Neither of those sound particularly fun to participate in. They still actually throw pennies at people?

We don't even have pennies anymore. Haven't seen one in years.

 

[Naomasa298]

There also hot pennies

...I glanced at this post, and at first I read "hot grannies" out of the corner of my eye.

 

[big soft moose]

Standard Friday night out in Exmouth…

 

[big soft moose]

Neither of those sound particularly fun to participate in. They still actually throw pennies at people?

Ottery St Mary - Tar Barrels - Visit South Devon

The World Famous Tar Barrel carrying and Bonfire – Every year, for reasons lost in antiquity, the Flaming Tar Barrels are carried through the streets…

www.visitsouthdevon.co.uk

Honiton Hot Pennies Day - Visit South Devon

Dating back to the 13th Century, Honiton’s Hot Pennies Ceremony remains unbroken for several hundred years, and still takes place on the first…

www.visitsouthdevon.co.uk

"Nowadays the pennies thrown are merely warm, but the tradition of the pennies being thrown hot was because the affluent people who threw the coins took great delight in seeing the peasants burn their fingers whilst picking them up."

 

[Trish]

Ottery St Mary - Tar Barrels - Visit South Devon

The World Famous Tar Barrel carrying and Bonfire – Every year, for reasons lost in antiquity, the Flaming Tar Barrels are carried through the streets…

www.visitsouthdevon.co.uk

Honiton Hot Pennies Day - Visit South Devon

Dating back to the 13th Century, Honiton’s Hot Pennies Ceremony remains unbroken for several hundred years, and still takes place on the first…

www.visitsouthdevon.co.uk

"Nowadays the pennies thrown are merely warm, but the tradition of the pennies being thrown hot was because the affluent people who threw the coins took great delight in seeing the peasants burn their fingers whilst picking them up."

It's definitely interesting to read about!

...I glanced at this post, and at first I read "hot grannies" out of the corner of my eye.

That would be a new level of awkward.

 

[JLT]

Only two "family traditions" I can think of:

First, it's always the custom for my brother and his wife to treat my wife and me to dinner at the restaurant of our choice in March, when we had birthdays, and for us to do the same for them in September, when they had their birthdays.

The second one takes a little longer to tell, and involves the "creche" figures of the Nativity scene in our Catholic household when I was growing up. Our family always displayed this at Christmastime, eventually acquiring a genuine Hummel collection when we were stationed in Germany for a while. Like most families, we would set the figures of Mary, Joseph, and the empty manger out at the beginning of the season, and add the figurine for the baby Jesus on Christmas Eve. In Catholic families, this is traditionally done by the youngest child in the family, which was me until I was eleven. Then my sister came along, and it was her turn. I remember adding my own variation: while the creche set was set up on one side of the living room, we would put the shepherds and their sheep on the other side, and these would not be added to the main collection until Christmas Day.

This variation was probably inspired by another tradition we had. The figures of the three Wise Men were put up in the most distant place in the house from the living room. On Christmas Day, they were moved a twelfth of the way to the creche. Every day thereafter, they traveled a little further through our house, until they arrived at the manger on January 6. (I seem to recall that my siblings and I took turns moving the company a little each day.) It was my mother's way of dramatizing the Christmas story, I think, and of allowing us children an opportunity to participate in it. When I told a Filipino phlebotomist about this at a blood donation many years later, she told me that it was done the same way in her house.

 

[Homer Potvin]

Filipino phlebotomist

That's a writing prompt.

 

[JLT]

That's a writing prompt.

Should that have been Philipino flebotomist?

 

[Homer Potvin]

Should that have been Philipino flebotomist?

No, it's the F not the Ph because of the Spanish origin, apparently.

 

[Rath Darkblade]

I'm surprised no-one yet mentioned the Dunmow Flitch. Or the annual Cooper's Hill Cheese-Rolling and Wake.

I mean, they're not my traditions (nor my family's), but they sound like fun.

 

[Pik]

Before the holidays were big deal in my family with everyone gathering and a lot of cooking etc. In the last few years or so it changed into the modernized version with going out for lunch or sth. My sister and I have the birthday few days apart and the family usually celebrates it.