Making Memories of Christmas Past

Are there some new Christmas traditions?  Christmas has a great tradition of 'memories past', stories of longing for childhood activities gone by.  There's good news out there:  here are some new ideas that can form family traditions and set the foundation for 'memories past'. 1. Matching family pyjamas The entire family will look adorable in their festive jammies - plus it'll make for a super cute photo-op in the morning! 2. The reverse Advent Calendar Something has to be put into the 'calendar box' each day and it gets donated to a food bank or charity at Christmas 3. Tic-Tac candy cane plants Plant mint Tic-Tacs in a tub of sugar and get the kids to 'water' them with glitter every day.  Then replace them with candy canes which have magically 'grown' 4. Capture the magic Upload a picture of your living room, kitchen, hallway (wherever you keep the tree) and the folks at Capture the Magic allow you to superimpose Santa into the snap! 5. The Christmas Box This box contains small Christmas-themed gifts, decorations and activities for the family to do over the month 6. Elf on Shelf The elf gets moved around every night and has to be found in the morning 7. North Pole Breakfast   December 1st or whichever day the Christmas tree gets decorated, the family has an all-treats breakfast.  Pictured here are strawberry Santas.   There are lots of great new traditions - looks like Christmas will continue to be a heart-warming time of year for young families.

Turkey Dinner

"Prior to the turkey tradition Christmas fare included roast swan, pheasants and peacocks.  A special treat was a roast goals head decorated with holly and fruit. Henry VIII was considered the first English King to enjoy turkey. Edward VII made eating turkey fashionable at Christmas." Shakespeare talked about it in Henry IV. And then of course, the Christmas Carol elevated it to stardom. Some believe Scrooge's gift of a Christmas turkey to the Crotchet family helped cement the turkey's place at the centre of the holiday meal for both modest and affluent households of England. And what about the tradition of breaking the wishbone? It comes from Europe, and is thousands of years old, originating with the Etruscans who believed chickens were oracles and could predict the future.  Are there Christmas meal records?  One site says that "One notable medieval English Christmas celebration featured a giant, 165-pound pie.  The pie was nine feet in diameter.  Its ingredients included 2 bushels of flour, 20 pounds of butter, 4 geese, 2 rabbits, 4 wild ducks, 2 woodcocks, 6 snipes, 4 partridges, 2 neats' tongues, 2 curlews, 6 pigeons and 7 blackbirds.  We have some pictures today to "Puslinch Steam" and another of the Christmas greetings.

What About Our Christmas Traditions!

Our Christmas Traditions
Today we celebrate Christmas traditions - not our own, but those we might not know about.

In Japan, the vast majority is not Christian, yet there is a celebrated Christmas tradition - a trip to KFC and the greeting "Kentucky for Christmas".

In the Ukraine, they will sometimes decorate their trees with spider webs. This is based on a Ukrainian folk tale of a widow's family so poor they had no money to decorate their tree.  A spider took pity on them and spun a web in gold and silver around the tree.

In Iceland it is "Beware the Yule Cat" - a Christmas fiend that terrorizes the countryside targeting those who didn't receive new clothes for Christmas.

In the Czech Republic, carp is the celebrated Christmas dinner. This is followed by the saving of a dried (cleaned) scale from the Christmas fish which is kept in one's wallets for luck over the coming year.

Have a great Christmas Day today.