[Faith-talk] celebrating

[Jeanette]

hi, when i was growing up where  ever we lived we drove to my grandparents 
house for Christmas eve, it was mydad's parents and we all got together 
there for dinner, Christmas Eve church service and opening gifts frm that 
side of the family,  then we drove for an hour to my mom's family's 
Christmas celebration.  my mo is one of 11 kids and 27 of us grandchildren, 
we never had all of us at home at once, three or four of the kids were 
either in the military or married to military folks so we usually had around 
7 of the families there, all of  us grandkids slept on the floor on blankets 
and the adults got the beds and couches, back when i was really young we 
used to go cut the tree if we got there early enough, if not we decorated 
it, as the grandkids came along some had alaergies to the real tree so we 
had to go artificial.  on christmas day we would have around 40 folks for 
dinner, turkey, cornbread dressing, green beas, various salads and lots of 
pies and cakes for dessert.
we always took pictures and whoever wasn't there got represented by a broom, 
mop, shovel or whatever we could come up with so the next year we would look 
back at the pictures and see who was the mop, broom or whatever, lots of 
fun, lots of cousins and lots of great memories.
now that i have my own children and we live here in colorado and our family 
is across the country, i celebrate Christmas with my kids on Christmas eve 
and their dad gets them on Christmas day, it has been good so far to do 
this, he lives a few miles form me and they just go back over to his house 
on Christmas morning, hopefully the kids can go to church with me sunday 
before they go back to their dad's, he is an atheist so he does not like 
anything about the Christmas season and is usually in a bad mood about it.
when we lived on the island and my brothers family lived there we would have 
Christmas on Christmas eve, my brothers family and my kids would go to 
church and we'd come back to ur house or their house and open presents. then 
on Christmas day we would do Christmas at our own houses then meet on the 
beach for dessert that evening, great memories of hanging out on the beach 
and playing in the ocean with the kids, my daughter in particular loves 
those memories, theisland sale boats owners would do a parade of lights with 
the sail boats decorated with lights and various other things on Christmas 
eve right before the church service, very cool.
this year my son who just finished basic training in the Army is home and we 
are thrilled, we had no idea if he would be able to be home for the holidays 
when he signed up in may, but we are blessed he is here, we of course have 
no idea if he will be with us next year but it is so cool to have him here 
this year.
 Merry Christmas to all and i look forward to hearing other folks stories 
about Christmas. Jeanette
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ashley Bramlett" <bookwormahb at earthlink.net>
To: "for the discussion of faith and religion Faith-talk" 
<faith-talk at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Friday, December 23, 2011 2:23 PM
Subject: [Faith-talk] celebrating


> Hi all,
>
> So how is everyone celebrating? I think most of you are adults with 
> families. So what were Christmas traditions growing up and what do you do 
> now?
> I am still at home. But my brothers have wives. They are coming home for 
> Christmas though.
>
> Growing up, we lived in a neighborhood some of my childhood. We put lights 
> outside the house, in the windows and milk jugs with candles in them on 
> the driveway. I believe it was christmas, unless it was halloween. We had 
> an artificial tree. We attended church Christmas eve. Now we still 
> decorate outside with lights and candles in the windows, but we do not 
> have those candles outside. We also go out to dinner Christmas eve. It 
> used to be a chinese place; now we do japanese steakhouse.
>
> We all enjoy the meal too of turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, green 
> beans, rolls, and more. I’m not crazy about some of the sides though. I do 
> like potatoes and green beans though. Oh and we also get honey baked ham.
>
> So I hope you all enjoy the holiday and look forward to hearing how you 
> share it.
>
> Merry Christmas!
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