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I was wondering if anyone has special plans for the Christmas holiday and if you will be sharing your piano skills with others this year.

Our family has two Christmas traditions, one transplanted from my family, and one from my hubby's family. One Christmas Eve's Eve, we unwrap one present (and only one present), which is predetermined to be a board game that the whole family then plays together. It's a nice way of keeping the little ones happy who are bouncing off the wall waiting for Santa to show up.

Then on Christmas Eve we go out to the movies. This is actually a big treat for us, because normally we just rent videos. Christmas morning is when we do the big present opening routine.

...oh, piano? Yes, I play every chance I get and have been brushing up on some Christmas music to <s>torment</s> entertain all the workmen traipsing through our house.

My own Christmas Tradition is deeply rooted into our First Christmas together.

(Years and Years Ago)

My new husband told me early in December that his family exchanged gifts on Christmas Day at his fathers home. (His entire family) That meant I needed presents for nieces and nephews that I had never met..... I asked him to make a list and I would work on the shopping. Instead, he wanted to help me and we made plans to shop the next weekend. (Something came up). We made plans to shop the following weekend. (Something came up). Then... 10 days before Christmas he came down with a virus and took to his bed.

He was so sick. FINALLY, on Christmas Eve he was recovered and felt like taking me shopping. We went to K-Mart and bought gifts for all my new relatives. Just as the speaker announced the store was closing.... We finished up and took our shopping carts to the front of the store.

There we stood in line.... I was checking that list, and those carts to ensure that I hadn't missed anyone... Just when I thought all was well... a fight broke out between two women in the line in front of us.

I've never seen anything like that in my life. They were swinging arms, scratching, pulling hair, and kicking at each other. I later learned that they did more damage to the store than they did to each other. They tore down three registers and all the displays that went with them.

I did not have time to watch. I was in a panic, I pushed one cart and pulled the other franticly toward the Garden Center, in hopes that I could check out there. All I could think of was that I would not have a gift for all my new relatives. I could not imagine a worse first impression.

My husband.... thought it was the funniest thing he had ever seen in his life..... (forgive him, Lord, he doesn't know any better). He just stood back and watched the show.

As you might have guessed, the Garden Center was already closed. Eventually, I had to come back to the front, where the police were taking the kick-boxers into custody and store employees were working to clean up the isles.

Unbelievably they were able to get their registers going and let us check out with our purchases.....

Now, each year we go out on Christmas Eve for a good meal and then go by the local shops to browse the holiday displays, the sales, and the shoppers. and we rejoice that we finished our own shopping weeks ago.

Our family has a few Christmas traditions, but the "piano" related one is most recent (this is my third Christmas of piano, so...)
Each Christmas Day, between the period of present opening and Christmas lunch, my mother, father, and grandmother come and sit in our living room and listen to me play all the Christmas songs that I've been working on this year, the ones from last year, etc. It usually turns into some form of sing-a-long, and it's great fun for all of us!

GREAT TRADITION! It sounds like a Martha Stewart Christmas. I'm so jealous. My mother-in-law passed away a few years ago, and so it is left to me to cook and take Christmas Dinner to my father-in-laws home and feed 40 to 50 relatives. Therefore I do dishes between presents and lunch.

Holy Crap Ivory Dreams, I laughed so hard at your post. God forgive me too, I couldn't help myself. What were the two witches eerrr ladies fighting about?

I guess I left it out on purpose.

One lady.... (I use the term loosely) pushed and/or stepped in front of the other... They traded ethnic slurs...... and the fight was on.

My hubby said... It was the best "cat fight" he had ever had the privelege to watch.

I said... "Jerry Springer would have been proud." And I promised God.... I will never be in that situation again.

Wow, some great traditions and parties going on inside this thread for sure.

My families tradition is to have Xmas Day to yourselves (spouses, other family/friends) and then we all get to gether at my sisters on Boxing Day (the 26th for the non UK'rs reading). Then we have what would be deemed as a reg Xmas day party with a really BIG dinner, presents and generally have a really good time.

Now my wife is from the US and her family tradition is the "one present on Xmas eve" so we have lots of fun mixing the 2 together.

This year my daughters going to bring along her keyboard to my sisters and we're going to have lots of fun playing for the "crowd" and I can show off some of the skills I've not learned over the last 6mths or so...

I am trying to start a new music tradition in my family. My family will be coming to our house on Christmas eve and I hope that everyone who plays an instrument will play Christmas carols together. My husband plays bass guitar, my sister plays flute, and my nephew plays guitar. We also have some maracas and wooden blocks for percussion so I'm hoping that we can have some fun with it.

We spend Christmas day with my husband's family and they are all quite musical. We are planning to play Christmas carols together and we have some wonderful singers, a flute/oboe/piccolo player, and cellist.

I've been working on the fake book type pieces with my teacher and hope to play a few songs from this collection: http://www.cyberfret.com/guitar-inbox/downloads/Cyberfret-Christmas-Book.pdf

Wow, foxyw, that sounds like a great tradition. I wish my family were more musical so we could do something like that. It would been incredibly fun!

Hope everyone's holidays - and you traditions - are great!

Happy Holidays to everyone! My family and I just enjoyed a fun evening of music that included my sister and nephew's fiance each on flute, my husband on bass and me on piano. We played about 10 "fake book" pieces and a few people sang along. We had a lot of fun and I hope that this becomes a new tradition for us. On Christmas day, I hope to play the same music with my husband's family and we'll have a cello, bass guitar, keyboard, and bassoon.

Well, we have one of the stranger "traditions" you'll come across. My younger brother owns a Lindal-style smallish cabin on some acreage in the mountains an hour to the northwest of Reno. Since the cabin's in the woods, and usually has snow where we in the valleys don't, it's become a yearly trek to have our Christmas celebrations at the cabin. The combined children of the families earmark a tree at Thanksgiving to be cut and decorated on Christmas Eve.

Being rustic, the decorations are simple and sturdy, down to the angel on the top of the tree, her skirt made from a cone of sheet music and head of decorated wooden sphere. My dear son, a several years ago, looking at the combination of decorated tree, Nerf rifle, and "hunting" perch on the balcony, took a couple of pot shots at the angel. (He missed, took some time to dial in that Nerf gun.) With my sister-in-law's permission, the kids then took turns shooting at the angel across the room, with my niece eventually being successful, knocking the decoration from the tree.

Now, every year, the kids look forward to the 1/2 hour "open season" they are allowed. That angel still hangs in there, although she now wears a cervical collar of duct tape!