American Christmas

[RedHelenB]

Just curious to know whether the naff Christmas movies are at all like the experience over there. Do you bake Christmas cookies and deliver to neighbours? Do you have candy cane lanes?

Haha fair enough, some posters say they can spot them. At least you have a white Christmas probably

Nope, not this year :( We had a massive wind and rain storm Monday and lost electricity all of Monday evening. Thankfully, it was above average temperatures for this time of year. People in Southern Maine (About 6 hour highway drive from where I am) may not have electricity until after Christmas due to how much damage the winds caused. We usually get quite a bit of snow here, and had it have been colder that storm could have produced over two feet (24 inches) of snow. A good ol Nor'easter 😫

Fresh guacamole is so delicious though, we'd work it in somehow :-)

I'm only a little way through this thread & it is just so lovely to hear from you all how you spend Christmas!

Yes. Pretty normal.

I love the cheesy American Christmas films and watch them every year. I don't know how factual they are and I don't care. I just love a feelgood movie 🥰🥰

My family is half American - we don’t live there but we adopted some traditions. My favourite growing up was baking lots of different kinds of Christmas cookies - it’s something I’ll definitely continue with my DC. Love a Pecan Puff cookie.
My aunt also makes AMAZING bacon wrapped sweet potatoes to go with the turkey.

I’m American! Growing up, we usually have turkey and ham, or really nice steak, sometimes lobster! Living in U.K. I cook turkey for my family, even though thanksgiving is a month before! Where I lived growing up, the houses were OTT decorated, the community did loads of lovely Xmas things and we baked cookies and gave them to friends and neighbours! We also used to do a Christmas cookie exchange…everyone bakes about 100 cookies and we all meet up and everyone takes some from each person, so you end up with a great variety… decorated sugar cookies, snicker doodles, lemon bars, buck eyes, shortbread, choc chip cookies etc. my town was like a hallmark movie 🤣🎄🎄

My family go around the table and say what they are most thankful for from the previous year. We also watch the Macy’s thanksgiving day parade and the football game!

That’s not actually untrue though…

It seems to be a peculiarity of Britain that there is a specific traditional meal for Christmas day. I had the same question when I moved to Germany and kept asking my students and they were always confused, until I explained about the English tradition and they thought it was very strange that people largely eat exactly the same meal.

My American friends bake cookies and we had a cookie exchange one year.

One thing I came across this year was someone saying something about not knowing what an advent calendar was - which made me realise that I've never seen one in a US film etc, maybe they aren't a thing there?

@BertieBotts we definitely have advent calendars, although the one we use came from Germany!

We even have wine advent calendars!

maybe they aren't a thing there?

Advent calendars are available by ordering online, but they aren't very popular or well known in the States generally.

Yes that's what I meant, whereas in the UK I would say advent calendars are ubiquitous for children. When I was growing up, they were about £1 and all the same - a cardboard sleeve with a plastic inner, on the outside printed some Christmas type scene or a popular children's character. You'd get a small moulded chocolate shape, with a Christmas-themed picture behind the door each day. Up to about the 1980s it was common for them just to be a picture behind a door.

Germans really seem to get into the advent calendar thing and you can find one for anything - wine, skincare, spices, books, children's toys, children's bath bombs, toddler snacks (fruit pouches, puffs etc). They don't seem to just be for children but for everyone. There are chocolate ones, but they are much more fancy than the UK offerings, larger in size and each day will be a mini chocolate bar or figurine or so on. They seem to cost about €7 (which seems so expensive to me for an advent calendar!)

The cheap basic chocolate + picture ones can be found in Germany, but they don't seem to be the "default option" - you sometimes see them in Aldi and I've come across them in the Euroshop. Whereas in the UK, they used to have about half an aisle in every supermarket throughout November dedicated to the cheap chocolate ones in every theme imaginable. All the currently popular characters, and then the major chocolate bars (Cadbury, Mars, Bounty etc). I think the last time I was in the UK they seemed to be about £2-3.

I know that you can get these other types of advent calendar in the UK too but they seem to be a newer thing of probably the last 10-15 years. So I don't know if the German market has always had those things or whether they are also newer here.

What is a sweet charcuterie board, please?

American here. A turkey or ham is very common, very similar to thanksgiving. Some people do other meats like venison or roast beef/pork. We almost never did a huge dinner as my mom didn’t want to spend all day cooking. She would often to a brunch breakfast with cinnamon rolls or pancakes and American bacon. We would often do a ham as it was simpler and more distinct from thanksgivings turkey dinner. Pies are common apple, berry or pumpkin. Christmas cookies are very very common and are often a family activity to decorate with the kids as well as sometimes making gingerbread houses. Most everyone has a Christmas tree many have lights and many people that don’t work retail have the time between a few days before Christmas and New Year’s Day off, the same as the schools. Many people go to relatives houses and have a morning of unwrapping presents with the kids. Hanging large decorated stockings on the wall to fill with small gifts and candy is very common. We open ours before breakfast and the rest of the presents after. Almost every city has lighted streets, parks, zoos etc. I never heard of the term “Candy cane lane.” Many people decorate with fall colors, pumpkins and leaves for Thanksgiving. Some people have their Christmas tree up in Thanksgiving, but many people wait until December. Some people watch the football game or the Macy’s Day parade on Thanksgiving which has Santa at the end. We take our kids to take pictures with Santa and do a Christmas Eve service at our church. Families make their own traditions based on their “family culture”.

I also grew up in Puerto Rico which is an American territory and they have their own traditions. The most anticipated Christmas food is never turkey or ham, but cooking an entire pig which is salt/garlic seasoned slow roasted pork on a spit turned over fire or coals. Many replicate the recipe in home ovens with a pork shoulder. Seasoned rice with pigeon peas is a must and common dessert would be a sweet cold rice pudding with cinnamon or a flan. They also make pastels with is mashed plantains and meat wrapped in banana leaves and boiled. Some people eat blood sausage and ritz crackers with cheese and guava paste(thick jam cut into small squares) and Coca-cola is a common appetizer. They also make coquito which is a coconut based drink like eggnog usually with rum added. They also celebrate Three Kings day on Jan 6th and kids leave a shoe box of grass they pick from their yard under their beds or now sometimes under the Christmas tree to feed the wisemen’s camels on their journey to see Jesus. The kings leave gifts in return. They also do Christmas carol serenades in which the goal is often to wake up your friends/family at night singing carols outside their house with guitars and small instruments until they let you in and give you a snack, then they often join you to visit the next house. Fun times as a teen going out with our church group singing until 1 or 2 am. 😄

@CreaturePainter i LOVE coquito and flan! Didn’t get any this year unfortunately!