As some of you know, I'm an American. I'm from California, so many of the Christmas traditions we have here are very similar to those in Mexico. When I was a child, I especially loved the Posadas and the Noche Buena or Holy Night which is Christmas Eve.

We have the American ones as well.

So I've been wondering, what are the Christmas traditions in Sheffield? Which ones do you celebrate without fail, and which are the ones that are maybe falling out of favor with people? Which are your favorites, and which ones could you live without?

And if you're not Christian, how do you treat the holidays? Do you get together with family, or just relax? I have hindu and muslim neighbors who celebrate Christmas, although the muslim man's wife is a christian. Our jewish friends celebrate Hannukah, and our african american neighbors like to have an open house on Kwaanza. It all seems to blend together.

Actually, I think any excuse to get together with friends and family and eat and drink is good. ;)

:) Sierra

There is one really good tradition on Xmas Eve that my friends/family have and it involves lots of alcohol!

Xmas Eve is one of the best nights out in town I have every year, the atmosphere is really good!! :clap:

A Canadian pen pal wrote to me and asked me the same question. I am still racking my brains to answer this....

Perhaps we need an outsider to tell us ........ like the thread about the escalator.

We never really had a christmas tradition-but on new years eve we used to do the whole 'tall dark stranger bearing a gift' thing at midnight.

Course we could never find a tall dark stranger,so we had to make do with the next best thing-my Dad:P

Kinda ruined the effect,seeing as he's only 5' 8":P Still,he does have black hair,so two out of three aint bad.

I don't think regional traditions really come into it. However I will give you the rundown of the typical christmas in my experience anyway.

1. Wake up earlier then you ever have to the other 364 days in the year. (slightly dry mouthed and reeking of the night before)

2. Don't eat alot at breakfast...I suggest fruit or toast because itt fuels your hunger come dinner time :D

3. Open your presents/stocking. Presents your truelly thrilled with put into a seperate pile from the typical socks/underwear/slippers.

4. Put the tv on (Why did they discontinue Noel Esmonds Xmas day show) it was an institution in every household.

5. Get yourself dressed, use your new toiletry/shaving/aftershave. Followed by your clothes you got too.

6. (My tip) make sure you find another task in preparing the dinner to avoid the turkey giblet.

or (which i shall be doin this year) go the the pub for a couple of hours :D

7. Sit around, have a little alcohol and watch a bit of xmas tv with your family.

8. Seep the national grid for consumption of electricity.

9. Enjoy your dinner, have a coffee after and proceed to the family room and watch more tv.

10. some ppl use rennies at this stage.

11. more drinks! we usually have those pooncy snowballs/babychams/champagne (this year tho i have a great bottle of glenfydich single malt with my name on it)

12. nibble at ur nuts/chocolates and if your like me plan how your going to ration out the dinner you didn't eat!

13. If you'v gone this far without a family argument then you've done well! Usually im at pt.3 for this

14. laze around, do nothing, crack ur crackers, pop ur poppers, guzzle ur booze, eat woteva's in sight, annually remember how much you over buy for this 1 occassion, watch your dvds youv recieved and call the people who bought u tat with your ultra fake "thank you i love it".

15. Go to Hillsborough and watch United get Hammered by the Owls (best done on boxing day).

Yobs getting bladdered on cheap booze and picking fights for no good reason. Merry Xmas eceryone.:(

Christmas eve I normally go out with a mate earlier than normal round a few local pubs. The pubs are usually packed with people in who only go to the pub once a year!

When I was a child I used to go carol singing with the local church on christmas eve night, we called on about 20 or 30 addresses where people had booked. And at the end there would be a nice warming supper in someone's house.

On christmas day I get up late and then go to my parents ( around 1 pm) for christmas lunch and to open a few presents. Christmas lunch is always turkey with all he trimmings. As I drive across the city and back later it's the most sleepy the city is all year. Most pubs are closed and there is very few people around on the streets.

Things you always see at christmas is panic buying at local shops. Sometimes the local "Spar" shop has no bread left or milk or anything. The place is only closed for the evening and it is open during christmas day. Normally it is open 24 hours a day all week.

Most churches open christmas morning and a few people will attend a short christmas morning service. For some people they might go to this one service all year, and they can be strange occasions as often the regular congregation will hardly be represented at all.

British christmas food always includes, in my experience, Turkey, sprouts, mince pies, christmas pudding which is flamed with rum and christmas cake.

Also Brass Banding was always a big part of christmas for me until my mid 20s. We split into small groups and played in town squares, pubs, local museums, supermarket entrances and shopping precincts, pretty much every other day. We played traditional and local carols and collected money from anyone who would donate.

Originally posted by Sierra
As some of you know, I'm an American. I'm from California, so many of the Christmas traditions we have here are very similar to those in Mexico.

There is one tradition that no-one has mentioned so far, the boxing day naked ramble. On boxing day it is considered polite to get up early and have a walk in the local park in the nude. If you want to fit in, then I would suggest you take part. Don't worry if you are up early and don't see any other naked ramblers, just set off and the rest will arive later.

getting rat arsed and watching football are the main events for me:thumbsup:

oh and going to the pub christmas day dinner time in my new jumper.

Originally posted by Tyto Alba
15. Go to Hillsborough and watch United get Hammered by the Owls (best done on boxing day). Just like this year's Sheffield Derby. Bless 'em really.

How about singing traditional local carols:

http://www.folk-network.com/events/2005/carols_05.html

Or watching one of our local sword teams dance on boxing day:

http://www.grenosword.f9.co.uk/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handsworth%2C_South_Yorkshire#Handsworth_Sword_Dan cers

Well I suppose I could have mentioned on Christmas eve making enough mince pies to sink a battleship, whilst listening to carols, sipping sherry, kids "helping".

Food obviously includes roast turkey with sausagemeat stuffing, little sausages wrapped in bacon, sprouts served with chestnuts, home made cranberry sauce ... amongst other things. In the 1970s in an effort to move with the times, my parents introduced a prawn cocktail starter to precede Christmas dinner, and we still keep this going, usually as tiger prawn and smoked salmon salad though ... cant bear all that seafood sauce. Bottle of wine, used to be Mateus or Asti Spumante, now its Champagne if we are flush or usually Cava.

My family used to have a girl call every year at our new years party with black hair and face covered in coal dust, with a shovel full of coal to bring in the new year. This is called first footing, and if you get a dark stranger to do it it brings luck for the coming year. As everyone by that time would be tanked up, the girl used to go home with pocketfuls of cash.

Originally posted by alysonpeach
[B].

My family used to have a girl call every year at our new years party with black hair and face covered in coal dustB]

This is very bad luck, it should only ever be a man that lets in the New Year. Sorry, but tradition isn't an equal opportunity employer.

Sufc_tom

I enjoyed reading your post - thankyou!
Made me smile.

HAHAHAHA no problem. i'll make another post post-christmas and let u know how succesffully i followed my guideline lol.

Originally posted by KenH
This is very bad luck, it should only ever be a man that lets in the New Year. Sorry, but tradition isn't an equal opportunity employer.

Well for the last 28 years its been my partner's job ... I suppose thats one thing my mum and dad couldnt dislike about him!

Christmas in our house.


Christmas Eve

Me dad and my brother trot off to the cinema to see the latest christmas film whilst my mum franctically wraps all the pressents.

We return home, by pass the living room and get marched straight up to bed.

(was a family tradition from 1990-2003 ish but me and my brother got two old for it as we are now 16 and 18.

Christmas Day

Get up and me, mum dad and brother open our pressents together in the lounge.

Get washed and dressed using all new smellies and wearing all new clothes.

Pick favourite christmas pressent and play with it on the drive over to my nans who lived in Treeton- See all the family, return home around 12pm- first year we wont be doing this :(

whoever is responsible for xmas dinner (dad this year) gets on with it and usually 2 adults stay at home, as well as the "kids" (me and my brother as my cousin now goes to the pub with the others)

Everyone returns when pub shuts and we usually eat dinner late and ALWAYS miss the queens speech :clap: -the ****** relatives who went to the pub are usually by this point getting the sober relatives who stayed at home mad so the sober relatives drink more faster and so do the drunk ones

After a traditional christmas dinner with all the trimmings and crackers, jokes and party hats we retire to the living room to either
a) watch telly
b)sleep
c) eat more
d) play with new gifts.

At about 6 or 7 pm family usually decides they havent eaten enough and are not drunk enough so start the whole process again!

Christmas day usually ends with Auntie, uncles and cousins walking home, nan and grandad getting a lift from someone not drunk (i.e. me) or sleeping at someones house until boxing day, all cars left at ours p*ssing the neighbours off :thumbsup:

merry christmas

I wonder if Sierra or anyone else can help with a strange Christmas Custom.

I have just seen on Teletubbies film of a family, which were speaking Spanish, doing a strange Christmas ritual. They carried a log into the living room, placed it in front of the fireplace, made a face on one end of it, covered it in a blanket, then a child gave it some bread. The children went away. Then they came back with sticks and started to hit the log. Then they discovered presents under the blanket ... can anyone explain?

BBC radio Sheffield. Right now, 13.20 Dec 20th Sheffield based carols on Roney Robinson's show. Sounds really good. Enjoy

Originally posted by alysonpeach
I wonder if Sierra or anyone else can help with a strange Christmas Custom.

I have just seen on Teletubbies film of a family, which were speaking Spanish, doing a strange Christmas ritual. They carried a log into the living room, placed it in front of the fireplace, made a face on one end of it, covered it in a blanket, then a child gave it some bread. The children went away. Then they came back with sticks and started to hit the log. Then they discovered presents under the blanket ... can anyone explain?

alysonpeach, I found this on a Christmas website. Something to do with the "yule log" tradition in Spain.

"The log was covered with cloth and brought into the house, where the children whacked it with sticks, beseeching it to bring forth presents. When no presents came, the children were sent outside to confess the sins they had committed that year; when they returned, the log was uncovered, surrounded by gifts."

Hope that helps. When I was a kid, we sometimes had a pinata on Christmas eve. Thanks everyone. I have heard about the New Year's eve thing with the coal.


:) Sierra

Yeah, forgot to mention Sierra.

The Queens Speech.
We always have our Christmas dinner when the Queens Speech is on TV. We dont watch it. Certain members of the family cant stand her... And it fitted in neatly with pub chucking out time I suppose, when my dad used go.

Thanks for explaining the Yule log. We usually burn them (or eat them if they are chocolate).

Another PS. Just remembered our own Christmas Tradition. When one has had too much to drink we put on the Pogues, starting with Fairytale of New York and sing along. We ve been doing it for 10 plus years and the kids cringe.

Sorry on behalf of kay_cee...


1. Stumbled in the house at around 3am (I think).

2. Stumbled into the kitchen, Noticed my nephew who had stopped the night had left a glass of sherry, mince pie and carrot. By this point Tom was in an advanced state of refreshment and decided he couldn't let his nephew down so gulped the Sherry, took a bite out the mince pie and ate half the carrot.

3. The carrot did not digest aswell as I had hoped, after remembering vomiting quite heavily, I fell into a rather deep slumber...

4. Woke up in a warm bath at 5am (still unknown as to a reason why I or someone else did this). I think its because I had the smell of kingdom on me in my drunken wisdom decided a knocturnal bath was a good idea. Carried myself to bed after drying off and a couple pints of water.

5. In a freshly washed duvet covers and made bed, I was sleeping quite nicely until the excited noise of a 6 year old boy swept the house wowing with each present he got.

6. Still drunk, carried myself downstairs to open presents with family. Made myself a beautiful george foreman grilled sausage and mushroom sandwich washing it down with my 3rd cup of tea that morning. At this point starting to feel better. Proceeded to the shower (thought id spice up the cleansing regime of that morning a bit) and did the duty of using new shower gels, after shaves etc.

7. Around 12pm picked up my uncle and father to go to the local to see friends and family for a quick drink. Only had 1 bottle of holsten pils to drink 'the hair of the dog' so to speak.

8. 2pm went back to my aunties for a very nice christmas dinner with family.

9. Around 3pm had a few whiskie and diet cokes with my uncle followed by the obligatory nap (not with my uncle). Went upto about 7 pm where I then returned home, picked up the gf, spent the night together nibbling on some choccies and watched the tv until late. Went back down to my uncles for some more whisky then made the short walk up back home and went to bed.

ahhh thankyou Tom.
Don't you just love Christmas?

Its not all about the kids is it? Its all about alcohol!