What does Christmas mean to you?

What traditions and holidays do you celebrate in your country? Here in Germany, December 24 is pretty much the most important day, when most people gather around the Christmas tree, sing Christmas carols (even if that’s not the case in most modern families) and engage in other supposedly Christmas activities. In any case, I wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

4 Likes

I don’t really celebrate Christmas or any other holiday. It’s just another day for me.

When I used to live long distance from my family, The Christmas season was usually the only time I saw my family. So it was nice getting back home. I didn’t make it back every year though.

In the US, it’s common for Christmas Day and New Year’s Day to officially be days off work. But it’s common for companies give give people more days off, sometimes the entire last two weeks of December. They usually announce it enough ahead of time so people can make plans.

I don’t do anything myself, but some of my neighbors usually bring over plates loaded with good food. I think they can’t stand the idea of me being by myself on Christmas, so I get lots of food and cookies.

Others celebrate in different ways. People with young kids have the traditional presents under the Christmas tree. Most open them on Christmas morning, but some do it on Christmas Eve. Very often people visit their parents on one of those days, and their spouse’s parents on the other. It can get complicated with extended families, but people try to get to everyone.

There is usually a big meal. Some people drink, but it’s not a drunken holiday for most people. It tends to be lighter drinking.

Watching American football is big for some people. Some watch parades, which I never figured out what the appeal is. There are also a lot of traditional Christmas shows on TV. Some of them having been showing every year for many decades, pretty much since TV came out.

I have only gone caroling once in my life when I was about 14 or so. We went door to door singing Christmas carols. I remember one house where we knocked on the door and started to sing. She told us to stop and wait. There was an elderly bedridden woman in another room. Her caretaker opened the window and shoved the bed over next to it. Everyone sang with extra zeal.

I live in snow country, but it’s not reliable to get snow on Christmas. It’s always nice when it happens though. Christmas and snow just go together. It’s even better if the snow is actually coming down, especially the big fat snowflakes. It’s so peaceful and quiet.

3 Likes

We also celebrate Christmas regardless of the religion.
Carol groups often visit non-Christian houses too.
Jingle Bells’ is the song popular among all people.

  • While I thank you, @Torsten, for your greetings, and reciprocate them, let me also wish @Alan and all members of this forum a Merry Christmas!
3 Likes

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
I would say Happy Hanukkah, but I’m a bit late with this.

Here is a newspaper article:

Yes, Virginia, There Is a Santa Claus

Written in 1897 by Francis P. Church, the editor of the now-defunct New York Sun. He wrote it in response to this letter:

"Dear Editor:

I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, ‘If you see it in the Sun, it’s so.’ Please tell me the truth. Is there a Santa Claus?"

Virginia O’Hanlon

"Dear Virginia:

"Your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except what they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men’s or children’s, are little.

"In this great universe of ours, man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

"Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! How dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias.

"There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The external light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

"Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies. You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if you did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus.

"The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that’s no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in this world.

"You tear apart the baby’s rattle to see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart.

"Only faith, poetry, love, romance can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernatural beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

“No Santa Claus? Thank God he lives, and lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay 10 times 10,000 years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.”

4 Likes

Hi,

Christmas and New Year are very sad times for me, because I don’t have a family any more, ever since my mother, grandmother and father died. I do have cousins, but there’s not really a familial bond between us. However, to break the sadness I make some hors d’oeuvres for myself, I read a book or watch a good film. That gives me a bit of comfort. I think these times are sad for a lot of people. Yet, there’s always this nice forum with a lot of nice people around.

5 Likes

For me, it is a time for family and friends and traditions from childhood. That is the spirit of Christmas and it is very real. Trees and tinsel and candy canes and roasted anything for dinner, Santa Claus and happy children, Grinches and Scrooges, the Christmas spirit lives inside us all
goal planner

3 Likes

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all! :hugs:

3 Likes

I love this article, thank you for sharing.

3 Likes