Tell me about Sheffield Christmas traditions

[Yellowrose 10]

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.

[KenH 10]

Originally posted by alysonpeach

.

 

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.

[kay_cee 10]

Sufc_tom

 

I enjoyed reading your post - thankyou!

Made me smile.

[sufc_tom 10]

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

[Yellowrose 10]

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!

[franc1987 10]

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 -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

 

merry christmas

[Yellowrose 10]

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?

[Tim42 10]

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

[Sierra 22]

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

[Yellowrose 10]

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).

[Yellowrose 10]

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.

[sufc_tom 10]

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.