Trouble in Paradise
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Getting to Know You: What is your favorite Holiday Tradition?
Mine is watching The Muppet Christmas Carol with Michael Caine. 
I love to make hot chocolate with marshmellows, cuddle up with a blanket & nerd out to that movie. It makes me feel cozy.
What is your favorite thing around the Holidays to do, watch, eat or participate in?
Re: Getting to Know You: What is your favorite Holiday Tradition?
No worries Interro! I hope you can get your phone fixed.
I love decorating our little four foot tree with H. It makes me kind of sad to think we'll have to replace it when we get a house.
We've also started the tradition of going to each of our parent's houses and helping them decorate their tree. It's a good excuse to see them while celebrating the holiday.
The movies I usually watch are Christmas Vacation (old, family tradition), Love, Actually, and The Phantom of the Opera.
Believe it or not, I also love sitting in the middle of the living room and wrapping presents with H.
Finally, I love the sex that's become tradition on Christmas Eve. It's always so romantic and lovely.
Two things:
DH and I are atheists so we take a more anthropological approach to the holidays. We'll either celebrate the winter holiday that seems most interesting or will allow us to open presents the soonest.
Second:
I'm currently shooting you an obscene gesture because you got that song stuck in my head. Curse you Betty, curse you.
Muwhahah
Watching A Christmas Story with my sister, until the tv and the rest of the family beg for mercy!
You'll shoot your eye out! You'll shoot your eye out! You'll shoot your eye out!
Mine is making the lasagna on Christmas Eve, especially the whole process of making the sauce.
Also, decorating the tree and listening to Christmas music. My favorites to listen to are Musiq Soulchild, Elvis, and one of my all-time favorites, Feliz Navidad. *evil grin*
Cooking traditional Polish foods on Christmas Eve, and opening presents after dinner. It's one of the few cultural traditions I've kept from my Polish heritage. I think that I would be devastated if DH and I did not at least open one present after a grand feast on Christmas Eve each year. Christmas Day, meh, I'm completely flexible.
Mine is oddly the same. I used to watch it every Christmas eve, but over the past few years since we've been traveling, I try to sneak it in a week or so before Christmas. I love that movie, it is so cute.
The Grinch.
Every Christmas morning we would have to wait on the stairs to go "see if Santa came" while the adults got coffee, set up cameras etc. with my grandmother. Every few minutes we could go down one more stair. Once we had kids of our own we made/make them do the same. I am VERY sad this year because DH will have the kids on Christmas morning and I will be all alone. *sigh*.
We have Blintzes for Christmas breakfast every year.
Currently Reading: Don Quixote by Miguel De Cervantes
This is so sad, but right now we are in the tradition building phase. My favorite tradition used to be Christmas Eve at my grandma's house with all of our traditional foods.
Now we go to MIL or GMIL's house and eat boring food.
Is it creepy that I think this is adorable?
My favorite traditions...baking a million cookies, watching Christmas movies snuggled under a blanket with H, the insanity that is my huge Italian family on Christmas Eve, going to midnight mass alone with my mom. Singing carols at the top of my lungs for a month straight.
My most favorite tradition is lying under the tree with H on Christmas Eve and looking up at the lights. We talk about the year we've had and our hopes for the year ahead. This is also when we exchange gifts, just the two of us under whichever Christmas tree we're closest to that night.
I love to watch Christmas Vacation - usually several times throughout the season. This is the first Christmas that BF and I will be together (he went home last year). While I would like to start traditions it will be difficult to do Christmas day because we have my niece this year (which I'm super excited for!). XH and I always used to make cinnamon rolls (the kind out of the can) Christmas morning and open our gifts. I obviously won't do that with BF but will think of something else.
I also love Christmas music, although this year I feel too many bands/singers are doing Christmas songs and don't really sound all that good.
When I was a kid, we would bake sugar cookies on Christmas Eve (cut into different season-appropriate shapes and sprinkled with red and green sugar). My mom's recipe is sooooo good. That night we'd each open a gift - usually something small like a book or some earrings. On Christmas morning, my brother or I would wake the other one up, and then we'd run full steam into my parents' bedroom. My dad would tell us that he heard the reindoor hooves on the roof last night, and then we'd snuggle in their bed while my parents went to make sure that Santa was gone (and light the tree, etc.). They'd bring back the stockings and we'd open them in bed. After that, we'd run full steam into the family room to see all the presents. After all the gifts had been opened, we'd feast on cookies and other assorted holiday junk food for breakfast.
The tradition has been modified over the years, but even as grown-ass adults, my brother and I still wake each other up and then go "wake" my parents up. Stockings are still opened first, though these days we're all gathered on the couch. I like to get out of the house later in the day - usually to drive around and visit all the nostalgic places from my childhood and, later, to see all the Christmas lights. Some have remained the same through the years, which makes me all sappy. This year will be especially nice - BF will be sharing all of this with me for the first time. Later in the night we all pig out on prime rib and various cream-of-crap casseroles while Christmas music plays. My personal favorite is the Carpenters album - again, it's what my parents played when we were kids.
I think that's adorable, too, creepy or not! lol
And BBE, you just made me get all teary eyed. That's so sweet and something I want to do with Mr. Bang. Holidays are always going to be a juggling act for us, but I want to make sure we take some time for just the two of us.
Also, piling into the car in the week before to go drive around with a thermos of cocoa to look at christmas lights (like, just around random neighborhoods). We also have a tradition of not getting out of our jammies all day and playing with our stuff on Boxing Day.
And of course, the fugliest creepy tree topper ever:
My favorite things are getting friends together to cut down our Christmas trees. And reading The Night Before Christmas before we go to sleep on Christmas Eve.
Broccoli - I love the creepy tree topper. I have an ornmanet with a similar face...she's snow skiing and wearing a raggedy ann wig. LOVE.
Awwww to all of this.
Giving the cats what I call "Season's Beatings" because they won't leave the damn Christmas tree alone.
Watching How the Grinch Stole Christmas.
Taking more Klonopin than usual.
This is another thing we discussed last night. We haven't really found our own traditions. Every moment of Christmas was entirely predictable when we were kids- how the day went, what we ate, the cookies we made, the music we listened to, when we opened presents... All of it.
The only thing really that I've kept from childhood at this point is that we make cinnamon rolls for Christmas morning- and that's only when I have control over it. It's difficult when you are somewhere different for Christmas every year.
I love decorating the house and the tree with H.
I also love our Christmas Eve. We spend it at home just us and formally set the table and make a nice dinner. We get all dressed up for it, too. It's silly, because we're the only ones there, but we do it anyway. Then we get into our PJs and watch a Christmas movie.
-Having my whole extended family on my dad's side go to Christmas Eve candlelight service at the church I grew up attending (and my aunt & uncles attended since they were kids). We took up two rows with the grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins.
-Reading the story of the birth of Jesus before stockings or presents.
-Looking at Christmas lights and making Christmas shaped sugar cookies with H.