Spondylitis Association of America Forums General Discussion Off-Topic Forum Holiday traditions

Brad,

I truly hope you are right, as he has turned on my older brother and his family, also. It's so very sad.

OK, don't want to hijack this thread, just wanted to say thank you for the good wishes. I'm having a really hard week.

Crystal

I know that Christmas is over and the New Year has rung in, I haven't been here in a while and enjoyed reading this thread so I thought I would list my Christmas traditions..maybe it would inspire someone to start one of their own in a future year.
As a family we have several, these are what I started with my children. Every Christmas we all as a family make treats/gifts for our neighbors and deliver them the week before Christmas. On Christmas eve we have a traditional Christmas dinner, Ham, clam chowder and the trimmings, we all gather round and read "twas the night before Christmas", watch a Christmas themed movie, anything from the Grinch, to the santa clause, to the cartoon versions of rudolph etc... the children get to open one gift Christmas eve, we make our traditional Christmas morning breakfast on Christmas eve..( it must set overnight ) which means the hard part is done all you need to do is cook it. This meal is only prepared for and eaten Christmas morning it is our Holiday french toast with special holiday syrup.. A family favorite.

jewelee
would you like to share your overnight french toast recipe? Sounds interesting.

I make cinammon pull-apart rolls the night before that I just pop in the oven Christmas morning.

Sure! I would love to share them...They are just too delicious to keep to ourselves. My kids and I talk every year about opening a place where you can eat these everyday..but that would then interfere with the significance of it being our traditional Christmas morning breakfast..

Here it is...
ingredients you will need:
Texas toast or other thick sliced bread
6 beaten eggs
1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1 1/2 tsp.baking powder
1 tsp vanilla
2 TBS sugar
skim milk
Make your batter as you would for regular french toast just add the extra ingredients (cinn, baking powder, sugar)
In fact I dont even 'measure' ingredients now just as long as you get them all in there..
Soak bread in batter and put in dish..(I have made huge batches and layed out on cookie sheet and would seperate layers with wax paper)..if there is leftover batter you can pour over top layer of bread cover with plastic wrap and put in refrigerator overnight. Brown on Griddle next morning.. Now
the Syrup..
Put in heavy saucepan
1c. light corn syrup
1/2c water
1 1/2 C sugar
Bring to a boil and boil for about 7-10 min
( while it thickens just a bit )about soft ball stage 234* remove from heat and while stirring add 1 pint of whipping cream..stir until mixed.
Enjoy!
If you try these let me know how you like them.
We have tried them with regular syrup and they just aren't the same.. good but not delicious!

Thanks Jewelee,

I will try it this weekend. The syrup sounds really interesting....I cant wait to try that. I'll be back to tell you how the kids and I liked it. I make this italian sausage soup whose taste completely changes after you put in the evaporated milk so the whipping cream in this recipe probably makes this to-die-for huh?

I love to cook....well, mostly bake...I like to collect recipies as my hobby and I tell my kids that when I die, I will hopefully have a book put together of all my favorites for each of them... as my legacy and so they wont starve.

Thanks for sharing
christie

Christie,

I too love to cook/bake and I too collect recipes and create new things to make.. I must have learned this from my grandmother.. was interesting when she passed everyone wanted the "book" of recipes.. there was only one, so we photo copied it.. good that you are making one for everyone. Another good idea..thanks for sharing. Look forward to hearing how you and your family enjoyed our family favorite french toast.. YUMMY! Can hardly wait till next Christmas so we can eat them again..lol

Although we didn't have our traditional Xmas this year because of all the strife-here our ours normally.

Every Xmas Eve it's to Jerry's mothers for yes.....home made tamales. Then we watch movies.

Sometime throughout the season I have to watch at least one version of A Christmas Carol and It's a Wonderful Life. I'm still trying to watch the entire A Christmas Story(they play it a full 24 hours on TNT and somehow I have never managed to watch it from beginning to end)

For the kids, it's the cut out cookies, watching Frosty the snowman, and one night we light a fire, drag the mattresses to the living room and fall asleep with the Christmas tree lights on. Of course I have to be the last one out so I can turn off the tree and make sure the house doesn't burn down.

Hopefully next year will be better.

Sarah

Sarah

Now homemade tamales sounds fun to make. I have never done that before. Is it hard? Got a recipe to share? You could get the whole family involved with that.

christie

Dunno how it started but every Christmas Eve we go to my mom's and play Balderdash. It is so much fun... we get to sit around and make up the meaning of words. There are some halarious answers....!

Did you know the plural of 'shoe'?
Get this....

1 shoe.... 2 shoon!

It just cracks me up still!

Ahhhh, go ahead... everyone else does... yah Day... you got the strangest sense of humor!

sigh. chuckle. grin. (I still think it is funny!)

Anyway, it is an excuse to spend time together conversating and eating.
Day~

Games can be fun....I know what you mean.

Last New Years we hosted a "couples" bunko night. It was a lot fun with a lot of laughter.

This year we got so many phone calls weeks pior to New Years asking us to do it again...It was the HUSBANDS that wanted to come back.

I also think is good to show your kids that anyone can have a good time at home playing games no matter how old you are.