How Do They Celebrate Christmas?

A quote from Linda C.Y. Pei - President and Founder of Women's Equity Fund, which is the only women's equity fund in the world. Linda is on the CAEA Advisory Board and based in San Francisco.

My husband was raised Catholic but he is not a practicing Catholic anymore. We do observe Christmas and decorate the yard with lights and wreath and inside the house with Christmas tree and decorations - lots of nut cackers big and small.

For Christmas eve, we usually have a simple dinner - pasta often and my daughter always makes chocolate cookiers. When she was younger we would make as a family. She will save a plate full of cookies for Santa and leave it near the fireplace along with a glass of milk. She would write a note for Santa and leave it next to the cookies. (She is now 15 but still goes through the ritual, even though she knows Santa is really Dad). My husband always reat the cookies and drink half of the milk.

On Christmas morning, they always wake up before the parents (this is never the case during the rest of the year). They would come wake us up and are entitled to open the gifts in the stockings, hanging at the fireplace mantle. We then all go down for breakfast. The kids will play santa by distributing the gifts in turn. They would open all the gifts and end up playing with new toys the rest of the day. We have a Christmas dinner. Sometimes I cook duck or goose if I can find one and other times turkey or ham - and the side dishes - US style.

A quote from Dan Newman - Musician

If someone asks me at a party I'd say:

"well I don't celebrate christmas really, because I am jewish, although sometimes we celebrate because my sister in law is from a christian background. so we may give gifts at their house and they may have a christmas tree with presents under it for the kids. christmas is indeed a fun holiday."

A quote from liwen Huang - Director of Marketing, Pegasus Aviation Finance Company

To be honest, my history of celecrating Xmas is not very long. The celebrations were quite different from each other between in China and in US.

In China, there is no Xmas holidays,as you know. Therefore, Xmas is an event for younger generation. I don't know others, but for me and my friends, we used Xmas as an execuse to have a lot parties - hosting or attending parties. Eating is not so important in China. Sometime, we went to hotel to have expensive Xmas dinner. Xmas dinner in Chinese hotels serves turkey. Some time, we just hang out together to have dinner in whatever resturant we like.

In US, I still think turkey would be the traditional Xmas dinner. I still think, Xmas like Thanksgiving, is a traditional holidays for family memebers reunion. As an new immigrant, well, if I stay at home for Xmas, I will cook turkey. If I take this holidays as my vacations, I still want to have some turkey for my Xmas dinner.

Going to church by the year end would be good, although I am not a Christian. Spend some time at a sacred place to be a bit spiritual is good for a year-end conclusion.

A quote from Ming Lung Lee, President, Bridgewell, Inc.

We celebrate Christmas alone or travel afar to celebrate it together with relatives.

Celebrating Christmas begins with house decoration and gift shopping. Often but not always we put up a Christmas tree, large or small, with ornaments. We also have Christmas lights and let the Christmas music fill the atmosphere.

Christmas dinner is always special--a bit formal, with special food and drinks and abundance.

Gift opening under the Christmas tree after the dinner is always fun and exciting. Afterwards, we sing together and play music instruments--there are plenty of musicians in the family and even more instruments in the house.

Midnight mass marks another important Christmas activity of ours. It also closes the curtain on our Christmas Eve celebration.

A quote from Laurent Guinand - President and Founder of GiraMondo Associates LLC. Laurent is on the CAEA Advisory Board and based in Washington.

Here are a couple of things regarding how we celebrate Christmas in France:
1. We usually spend Christmas eve in one family and Christmas day in the other (mum’s and dad’s family)
2. The Christmas eve dinner is usually composed of 3 main dishes:

a.A buffet of appetizers that can include: foiegras, raw oysters, cooked shrimp, cooked crawfish, smoked salmon, toast and salads
b. A Turkey with chestnuts (Traditional dish)
c.A "Buche de Noel" which is a ice-cream cake shape like a log

3.Christian families go to mass at midnight and when they come back they have dessert
4. Kids discover their gifts under the Christmas tree in the morning. They are usually quite excited and wake up the entire house way before parents would like it to.
5.On the day of Christmas, there is usually a cult movie called "Peau d’Ane" aka "Magic Donkey" with Catherine Deneuve where a fairy godmother helps a
princess disguise herself so she won't have to marry a man she doesn't love.

A quote from Beth Fargis-Lancaster - Executive Producer of Vassar College and New York Stage and Film's Powerhouse Theater. Beth is on the CAEA Advisory Board and lives in New York.

I love Christmas and I come from a long line of people who also loved Christmas.Some of my traditions.Eating fish Christmas Eve. In the Catholic liturgy Advent, the four weeks prior to Christmas is a time of preparing for The Birth of Jesus. Historically on the last day of Advent,, Christmas Eve fish was eaten, no meat, to prepare for the birth of Christ. at 12 midnight.

Advent isn't practiced in my home but we still keep a few traditions. We eat fish on Christmas Eve ...It can be fancy fish like lobster or something simpler. I have kept the tradition from my mother and grandmother. We always have a rather "fancy" dinner on Christmas Eve and when my children are away I invite people who would be alone to our home for Christmas Eve. For some people the thought of being alone on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day is horrid. Other people don't mind.

We always decorate the house for Christmas and have many treasures passed down from my mother. I decorate the mantle with pine bows and always have plenty of candles burning and my husband has fires in both fireplaces as it can get cold here.. When my grandchildren are coming we usually put up two Christmas Trees, one in the living room and one in the great room. It is a lot of work getting it up and taking it down. but I do love the excitement for children and the way my house looks on Christmas. Each of the precious ornaments are wrapped in tissue paper and need to be re wrapped when put away. I will pass the Christmas ornaments on to my children.

I don't like to bake but I do love to cook and have prepared lots of yummy things for Christmas dinners in the past. pheasant, goose, duck, roast beef, crown roast of pork and lamb. I always set the table with good china, silver and crystal. I always use a linen tablecloth but in the last few years I have gotten smart and take the table cloths to the cleaners. We play lots of traditional Christmas music during the season and we always go into New York City to see the tree at Rockefeller Center. New York is a beautiful city at Christmas.

When we have been in San Francisco we stop in to see the big hotels that are decorated beautifully.If my grand daughters lived near buy I would take them to the Nutcracker Ballet and to see A Christmas Carol or to a Christmas concert so they could see live seasonal entertainment. Plus I would take them to see whoever is the BEST Santa in San Francisco. The one we went to see a few years ago in Macy's kept taking a break?I don't think Santa should take a break at Christmas and keep little children waiting in the basement of Macy's.

We send Christmas cards to friends and family but not nearly the number of cards that my parents use to send. My husband puts individual letters into cards to people we haven't seen during the year.Our family has always been very extravagant at Christmas. I had very generous parents and grandparents and I have kept up the tradition sometimes to the detriment of my master card bill in January. It is worth it to me as it only happens once a year.

Merry Christmas to all!

A quote from Douglas Lancaster - a retired professor at Cornell University. Doug lives in New York.

As you will see, these traditions vary greatly depending on ethnicity and religion. My family loved Christmas and my two sisters and I looked forward to it. The Christmas tree was obtained by dad and we put it up at least one week before Christmas. All of us contributed to the decorations of the tree. We had lots of ornaments and colored lights for the tree. And we popped corn and made a garland that we wrapped around the tree consisting of popcorn and cranberries strung on string.

Before we went to bed, we always placed a plate of cookies and a glass of milk on the piano for Santa. And we set up our stockings on the mantle over the fireplace. After we went to bed
and fell asleep, my parents would go downstairs and set presents from Santa under the tree.
Although many of our friends opened presents on Christmas morning, many did so on Christmas Eve.

We went to church (Methodist) for a short service on Christmas Eve. Early on Christmas morning we pestered mom and dad, asking if we could get up and go down stairs. After washing
up and putting on our bathrobes and slippers we waited at the top of the stairs until they went down to see if Santa had come during the night. Dad would light a fire in the fireplace, eat a piece of cookie, and drink some of the milk so that would be assured that Santa had come.

Our Christmas day meal was always a turkey which we ate in mid-afternoon. Mother did alot of baking at Christmas. Our favorite was a fruit cake. We also had a plum pudding for our dessert, which is typically English. Religion did not play a strong role in our Çhristmas.