Hey there! I enjoyed reading through the pages of how we all celebrate Christmas differently and I didn't quite find any that resembled how my family celebrates the holiday season in Aroostook County, Maine, USA. Growing up, my family did not go to church. I suppose we would identify as Christians but religion wasn't a large part of our lives. My family is Native American on my dads side and French and Irish on my mothers side.
Thanksgiving was never really too much of a big deal in my house. In school we would make lots of thanksgiving crafts and table decor (hand turkeys, native babies, feather headbands and puritan hats, etc. The day of Thanksgiving, my brother and I get up and turn the Macy's parade on and watch all the big floats. My moms side would all get together for the big thanksgiving meal, my dad's side did not. So basically we'd have a light breakfast and then around 4pm all gather at my grandmother's or aunts for Thanksgiving dinner. We'd always have turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, peas, squash, sweet potato, rolls, stuffing (always as a side dish and never in the bird), cranberry sauce, and usually a kid friendly side like mac and cheese. Then for dessert we'd have homemade vanilla ice cream and hot fudge sauce. Then the kids would either go sledding outside if there was snow, or stay inside and play board games and super nintendo. (There wasn't many of us - 5 total) Now as a mom, we gather at my husbands grandmother's house (she does things different, hers is like an all day buffet so we stop in when we can) and then go to my mom's house for supper. Mom still makes the traditional meal, my parents are now divorced and my brother lives 2 hours upstate and has a family of his own so typically they don't come down. My dad remarried and his wife and him will usually serve to less fortunate people at his church.
Then that evening, black friday sales started at midnight. My parents always did black friday shopping. My brother, cousins, and I would always have our lists made by thanksgiving from the sale fliers that went out in the mail for each store. Black Friday shopping is really big here. But in recent years, it's changed quite a bit (and when I worked in retail I was so thankful for the state of Maine and the laws that protected retail workers.) It used to get really wild, people getting trampled, lots of theft, etc. (Google black friday tickle me elmo if you want to see just how nuts people would get!!) Today, Black Friday here in Maine consists of stores being open from 5 or 6 am to 11pm. I'm not sure what other states do. However, people still line up hours before the doors open and then rush in like heathens to get the best deals that are to be found.
I do not Black Friday shop in person. No deal is worth that IMO. I typically will start online shopping that day though and watch the prices through til Cyber Monday. The next day, Saturday (the day after black friday) our town has a large light parade and the downtown area gets christmas lights. Santa Claus is set up in the town square and kids can visit with him. Saturday is small business sales day and all of the locally owned shops (we have several giftshops, a movie theatre, restaurants, an arcade, pet shop, and toyshop, etc) all do really fun deals and there's a lot of emphasis on shopping local.
So in a nutshell Thanksgiving is the kick off to our holiday season. In my house we put our (fake) xmas tree up and decorate with lights outside the house. When I was younger, my parents would take us to go to a Christmas tree farm and cut down our tree. We'd bundle up in our snow gear and find the best tree. Then load it in the truck and drive back home with it. We still have several xmastree farms around, but my kids and husband are allergic to real trees so we opt for the fake tree.
The month of December my family buys nothing but essentials and most anything extra plus whatever we have saved goes toward Christmas and heating costs. You need new shoes? gotta wait til xmas. haha. In my family ( husband, myself, and our 2 kids, daughter age 15 and a son age 12) the kids do not believe in Santa anymore but my husband and I had different santa traditions growing up. My hubs only received one thing from Santa and it was always unwrapped and put together ready to be used and in my house Christmas was basically everything from Santa and an extreme amount of gifts, all wrapped. We both got stockings, but mine were all wrapped and his never were. We both would leave milk and cookies out for Santa. We try to meet in the middle. We used to set a number of gifts per child, usually around 15-20 each. But as they have gotten older we had to set a $ budget. My kids typically get fun stuff only on Christmas and their birthdays, and then clothing is usually only bought during back to school shopping and summer vacation shopping.
The week leading up to xmas I'll put presents under the tree as I wrap them, but I still like to surprise them with their stockings and a few bigger wrapped presents on xmas morning. So my husbands and I's compromise was that in our family's home, Santa would bring the stockings and five presents per child and we've really kept to that even as they have gotten older. We don't wrap things like sleds, or new winter jackets, or bigger items since Santa can do whatever santa wants to do. :) My husband and I don't do gifts for each other, we wait until our income tax comes in February and buy all the things for each other! It's so much more fun to focus on the kids. Our families do the same, gifts are really only for the kids unless agreed upon beforehand. My mom and I usually do something like a necklace or perfume for each other.
I really think if you have made it this far, the most AMERICAN thing is blending traditions such as we do and our parents did, and sometimes even creating new traditions. We do quietly acknowledge that xmas is actually a holiday because of the birth of Jesus, but we are not religious and leave the nativity scene out of our own family's christmas celebration. We do have lots of friends that go to church, but we have like 25 christian churches in my town including, catholic, methodist, pentecost, universalist, Unitarian, salvation army, baptists, latter day saints, jehovah's witness, church of good shepherd, church of christ, and Mormons, and many others im sure im forgettting. They all do Christmas a little differently. So each of my friends and their own families do things a bit dif than mine.
My husband typically gets xmas eve, christmas and the following day off at his job (he works in a mill) and since I work in a public school, the kids and I get out of school this friday and do not return back until Jan 2. (We also get a school vacay in November - usually we go up until tuesday thanksgiving week and then are off until the beginning of the next week (so like 5 days or so) and then more week long breaks in Feb, and again in April)
Oh! I left out the school stuff! So at the public school I work at, the little kids have a holiday concert, the Chorus class goes caroling around the nursing homes (we have a large elderly population here) and they really enjoy that. We have a high school play put on by the drama department (such as Elf, disney's hs musical, willy wonka).
We have pj day, a door decorating contest, and BASKETBALL. so much basketball. High school Basketball is huge here. It's a community event. Each town have their own teams and the communities get really competitive. Our schools guidance department has year long fundraiser to buy presents for kids that otherwise wouldn't get them due to income. When we come back from winter break we have winter carnival which is a week long celebration at the hs level where the grades compete to see who is the best class (we do sports, games, quizzes, lots of competitions) Its a lot of fun. We don't do midterms (testing) in this school district because it was too stressful on the kids in years past, though other surrounding schools might still im not sure.
ok I think thats all.
Happy Holidays to everyone!