Coffee Break [23/12/24]

23/12/24 Hannibal 44

I’m sure you’ve all heard of Jolabokaflod, the Icelandic tradition of exchanging books on Christmas Eve and then leaving everyone the hell alone to enjoy a cozy evening of reading. This might make living on a volcanic island and eating stinky fish worth it for me. If I can suffer through baccala once a year I could probably choke down fermented shark now and then.

Tell us about holiday traditions unique to your family, heritage, state, province, or country. Or customs you wish you participated in.

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44 Comments

  1. That sounds like it would be a family tradition in my family. We used to give each other books for Xmas. When I stopped getting toys, I started getting books and underwear/socks.

     

    My initial reaction 9 year old reaction because I really wanted those Battlestar Galactica Toys that fired missiles which choked kids and Space Lego.

    In adulthood I appreciate the gifts way more because who doesn’t need more socks and underwear plus something interesting to read?

  3. I enjoy stinky fish… not surprising as I really like Miso and other fermented Soy products so I’m kind of nasally inclined to tolerate stinky foods (except processed Parmesan cheese from the can, I can’t stand that stench.)

  4. I saw a woman complaining on tiktok that her MIL had given her like A LOT of paper towels and toilet paper. I’d be thrilled that shit’s expensive and it’s something you can use.

    We don’t really do gifts anymore, mainly b/c my mom doesn’t remember, my brother’s dead, and my dad doesn’t need a damn thing.

     

    • That’s what I enjoy about practical gifts. It might not be an expensive purse or PS5, but you’re gonna use it and always need some (especially if another fucking pandemic hits.)

    • When you reach a certain age there’s not much left to give. I give my daughter books and gift cards. She gives me books and Nintendo gift cards. It makes wrapping easier.

  5. I’m glad that Festivus hasn’t been a tradition for over a decade in my family especially the airing of grievances (dad), acts of passive aggression (mom) and hiding bad news (us kids.)

    For a bunch of Koreans, we were pretty damn white/North Murrican in our Holiday traditions.

  6. One Korean tradition we sort of did was Sebae which is giving of cash and “wisdom” by elders to children at New Years. It works much better in bigger families where the kids can really rack up some serious dough.

    When it’s just the five of us… Sebae seemed like a joke.

    When I visited Korea during Xmas one year when I was a kid, I made off with about $200 which mom made me shove into my bank account (I whined at the time, but she did have a point as I learned about saving.)

  7. now that is a tradition i can get behind…

    really no special traditions on my end…especially as we stopped bothering with sinterklaas once my brother and i stopped being little

    far as christmas goes depending on which side of the family i spend it with really the only difference is what time of day the drinking starts….with the dutch side usually holding off till somewhere after lunch….and the british side going fuckit breakfast booze

    • We always had breakfast cocktails like Mimosas. Even the children got Sprite or Seven Up with sloe gin in it. Just enough to color it pink for the youngest and more as you got older. Then beer or mixed drinks at lunch and later. No wonder we all became alcoholics.

  8. Another one of my stories:

    Our one tradition was instituted by my mother, who insisted on it. On Christmas morning everybody had to gather around the tree and sit, while one person handed out all the gifts. Once that was done, we opened gifts in order, from youngest to oldest, while everyone watched the opener. The reason was so that you could see what everyone got and get to “enjoy” them opening the gift you gave them. You start with the youngest because that’s the one with the least patience. Makes sense, right?

    Well, there were five of us kids and two adults, so Christmas morning would take a couple of hours. That’s okay. Then we all grew up and started getting married. So spouses were included, and now we’re up to about three hours or so. And spouses, many of whom came from families where everyone tore into gifts all at once, began to grumble. But Mom persevered.

    Then everyone had kids. I mean, not all at the same time, but close enough so there were new faces every Christmas. We all had an average of two. So if you’re doing the math, we’ve gone from 7 to 12 to 22. Now we’re looking at a good four hours, maybe more, and Mom will not relent. So lunch keeps getting pushed back further and further, and we’re not all living there, so it takes time for people to gather, and kids start getting hungry and crying and can’t play with their presents and also, they grow up. So now we’ve got another ten great-grandchildren, and my dad, the oldest, isn’t opening his gifts until damn near sunset on Christmas day. It’s exhausting.

    Mom also insisted that everyone buy gifts for everyone, which was financially draining, particularly when some of us were barely scraping by. We finally staged a rebellion on the gifts and insisted on drawing names between siblings and spouses, because the sheer volume was logistically unwieldy, along with the financial burden. At age 18 grandchildren went into the name-drawing pool.

    At this point, all of us start refusing to show up until lunch and won’t open gifts until after we eat. Mom won’t budge on the order of operations, though. Christmas is now going into early evening. My dad just basically sleeps through the whole thing at this point, until we wake him up for his turn, which pisses my mom off.

    Once Dad was gone the whole thing pretty much collapsed. People just dropped by whenever and either left gifts or opened theirs and moved on. Mom tried to keep the whole thing going but it was impossible. Even the name drawing fell by the wayside. My daughter, as the youngest grandchild, ended up missing out on her last few years before turning 18 just because it all fell apart. But honestly, we didn’t mind. Just getting Christmas day back was worth it.

    That was Christmas at my house.

    • …the british contingent of my family have a similar approach…although I think 14 is the maximum number of people in the room they’ve tried it with

      …it helps (a lot) that once the youngest of their kids hit double-figures my folks instantiated a tradition for the adults where when this process begins…so after breakfast/stockings/everyone getting finished getting up…10:30-11:00 or so…champagne cocktails

      …pop a couple of drops of angostura bitters on a sugar cube, drop it in a champagne glass…cover it in brandy/cognac…if you’re lucky enough to know someone who can get it without needing a mortgage…ideally champagne cognac…but the likes of hine, delamain & the really serious hennesey stuff are scary expensive so…probably not…either way you set that out at breakfast & by mid-morning if you give ’em a swirl the cube should at least have achieved suspension if not totally dissolved…then you top it off with the fizz…again theoretically champagne but blanc de blanc or cava or prosecco works

      …provided you don’t finish the thing the brandy part sort of sticks to the glass so you can keep topping them up & everyone should be too plastered to get upset about anything untilyou can break out the booze for the big turkey meal…seems to work…cross-fingers-knock-on-wood?

      …when there’s some of the US contingent in the mix I personally hold the homemade cinnamon rolls for breakfast as approaching a sublime tradition…& there are some sort of meatball/dumpling things I’ve helped make a few times (sage leaves are involved & there is no quick way to make them) but couldn’t give a recipe for…they, too are amazing but wouldn’t be if I tried to do it?

    • That seems like a lot but I sort of envy you. Because my grandmother lived with us everyone came to our house for Christmas. So gifts were opened on Christmas Eve, after midnight mass, and put away. I was usually so tired I could remember what I had gotten until I had a chance to look at my gifts when everyone went home.

  9. How do you not like baccala?  It’s friggin’ delicious.  And you talk about getting my Italian card revoked because I don’t like anise?

    Oh, and this  year we’re doing the Feast of Five Fishes because it’s hard to get decent seafood in the Blue Ridge Mountains in Winter.

  10. We don’t have any old Christmas traditions.  When I was little we always opened one present on Xmas eve but that was more because I annoyed the crap out of my parents and older siblings until they gave in.  Probably the last 10 years we go to our neighbors house on Xmas eve for dinner & their combo Xmas/Hanukkah celebration which has become a tradition.

  12. Christmas Eve at my grandparents house, with my dad and his sisters being assholes to each other all night long and drinking too much.

    Then my dad screaming at my mom and me the whole way home around 1am and driving too drunk. Then more screaming when we got in the house because he was actually mad at his sisters and their husbands but took it out on us.

    That was the annual tradition. One year (around age 13?) I walked in on the aunts and some cousins doing lines of cocaine in a spare room. Ahh, memories.

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