my family is part italian-american so for us, christmas eve is much more important than christmas day. we all get together less now that all the cousins are adults and spread across the country, but every year growing up -- on christmas eve weād all get together, usually at one of my auntsā house. the men would chat and kids would play and all the women would be in the kitchen busy making dinner - the main dish being shrimp scampi. the more traditional italian christmas eve dinner is a feast of seven fishes, but we donāt do that many fish lol
before dinner there was antipasto and my auntās rice balls, also chicken cutlets, and after dinner we had salad, and then the sweet treats served include panettone (IYKYK), struffoli, italian butter cookies and rainbow cookies, mini cannoli, and sometimes my mom would make a pie!!! <3 and there was always lots of red wine (for the adults, but also if you were a teen you got a glass of watered down wine lol)
after several hours (when dinner is finished and cleaned up), weād do our cousins + adults secret santa exchange, and everyone would talk for a bit longer and do our very extended goodbyes before heading home!
it was always so much fun and great to all be together, and i think food is an extra love language so i feel like that was a huge part of it also :)
Dec 12, 2024
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When I was a kid, we'd always open family gifts on Christmas Eve. We've adapted that tradition now that we are all adults into Secret Santa. I have 5 siblings, three of us are married, and my mom joins. None of us have the cash money to be buying everyone gifts, so for the past decade we've just done SS. Since we're never all together on the holiday anymore, we do a group facetime to open the gifts. I love gift giving and the challenge of finding the perfect gift for someone. The surprise element makes it even more special! I used to do "clues" before the actual reveal, but I was the only one doing it and it was always a give away it was me. It was fun though, maybe I'll start that back up...
Dec 11, 2024
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As someone who doesnāt celebrate Christmas, this tradition makes the holiday feel like a second thanksgiving
For me, spicy beef, crab Rangoon, wonton soup - merry Christmas to those who celebrate!
Dec 25, 2024
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My brother, sister, and I made a tradition when we were little where every Christmas we HAD to sleep in the same room so we could all wake up together on Christmas morning.
Christmas eve my mom let us open 1 gift each and we all ended up getting gameboys. that night we stayed up for hours playing games together
I remembering trying not to laugh as we all hid them under our pillows when my mom came in to check if we were asleep. So many close calls
looking back on it, the fact that our mom came in to check on us multiple times probably means she knew what we were up to and just decided to let us goof off - which is a whole other layer to the story that I love
Apr 1, 2024
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being traditionally cool is really quite boring and iterative, and itās actually very cool and sexy to geek out about something you like or share bits of knowledge on a topic youāre passionate about
Aug 17, 2024
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i had it for a little over a year until i was like wow this is actually terrible! i genuinely think it has negatively impacted society by ruining peopleās attention spans, having a horrific algorithm, and most of all by the most mind-numbing or outright harmful trends -
fake words that people now use IRL (āunaliveā), trad wife tiktok, shein hauls, body-focused fitness vids that encourage fatphobia and unhealthy habits, shallow political/feminist theory and queer discourse, āalpha maleā podcaster tiktok, encouraging overconsumption in general, trends ruining local spots or niche thingsā¦ the list goes on
Aug 17, 2024
a million times cooler than the lackluster āsleekā tech color palette used today
Feb 22, 2025