Hollywood did do a film with a krampus.
The Community Christmas Countdown | Christmas Traditions
What Christmas traditions are unique to your culture or family?
It’s just 2 of us so we open presents in morning, then bundle up, grab the dog and go hiking on a nearby wildlife refuge. Then come home, watch "Elf " and cook Christmas dinner.
This is how we celebrate Christmas in India!
Midnight mass is a very important service for Christians in India, especially Catholics. The whole family will walk to the mass and this will be followed by a massive feast of different delicacies, (mostly curries) and the giving and receiving of presents. Churches in India are decorated with Poinsettia flowers and candles for the Christmas Eve Midnight Mass service.
Many different languages are spoken in India. In Hindi Happy/Merry Christmas is ‘Śubh krisamas’ (शुभ क्रिसमस); Urdu it’s ‘krismas mubarak’ (کرسمس); in Sanskrit it’s ‘Krismasasya shubhkaamnaa’; in Gujarati it’s ‘Anandi Natal’ or ‘Khushi Natal’ (આનંદી નાતાલ); in Bengali ‘shubho bôṛodin’ (শুভ বড়দিন); in Tamil it’s ‘kiṟistumas vāḻttukkaḷ’ (கிறிஸ்துமஸ் வாழ்த்துக்கள்); in Konkani it’s ‘Khushal Borit Natala’; in Kannada it’s ‘kris mas habbada shubhaashayagalu’ (ಕ್ರಿಸ್ ಮಸ್ ಹಬ್ಬದ ಶುಭಾಷಯಗಳು); in Mizo it’s ‘Krismas Chibai’; in Marathi it’s ‘Śubh Nātāḷ’ (शुभ नाताळ); in Punjabi it’s ‘karisama te nawāṃ sāla khušayāṃwālā hewe’ (ਕਰਿਸਮ ਤੇ ਨਵਾੰ ਸਾਲ ਖੁਸ਼ਿਯਾੰਵਾਲਾ ਹੋਵੇ); in Malayalam it’s ‘Christmas inte mangalaashamsakal’; in Telugu it’s ‘Christmas Subhakankshalu’ and in Shindi it’s ‘Christmas jun wadhayun’. Happy/Merry Christmas in lots more languages.
Instead of having traditional Christmas Trees, a banana or mango tree is decorated (or whatever tree people can find to decorate!). Sometimes people use mango leaves to decorate their homes.
In Southern India, Christians often put small oil burning clay lamps on the flat roofs of their homes to show their neighbors that Jesus is the light of the world.
Christians in Goa love to celebrate Christmas! Goa has lots of ‘western’ customs as part of their Christmas as Goa has historical connections with Portugal. Most Christians in Goa are Catholics. People like to go carol singing around their neighbors for about a week before Christmas. Christmas Trees are also very popular as is a ‘traditional’ rich fruit Christmas Cake! Lots of local sweets are also eaten at Christmas in Goa. Favourite sweets include neureos (small pastries which are stuffed with dry fruit and coconut and fried) and dodol (like toffee that has coconut and cashew in it). These are other sweets are often part of ‘consuada’ when people make sweets before Christmas and give them to their friends and neighbors. Most Christian families also have a nativity scene with clay figures in it.
On Christmas Eve, Christians in Goa hang out giant paper lanterns, in the shape of stars, between the houses so that the stars float above you as you walk down the road. The main Christmas meal is also eaten on Christmas Eve and is also ‘western’ with roast turkey or chicken being popular. After the meal, Christians head to Church for a Midnight mass service. After the service the church bells ring to announce that Christmas Day has arrived. Many Christians in Goa also celebrate Epiphany and remember the Wise Men visiting Jesus.
Christians in Mumbai use many Christmas traditions from Goa including the star lanterns and manger scenes (people like to make sure they have the best the nativity scene!).
In north-west India, the tribal Christians of the Bhil folk, go out night after night for a week at Christmas to sing their own carols the whole night through. They go to surrounding villages singing to people and telling the Christmas story.
In South West India, in the state of Kerala Were, 22% of the state’s 33 Million population are Christians and Christmas is an important festival. Traditional Catholics fast don’t eat from 1st to 24th of December - until the midnight service. Every house will be decorated with a Christmas star. During the start of the Christmas season, almost all the stationary shops will be filled with new and variety Christmas stars. People make cribs in their homes and Churches.
In India, Father Christmas or Santa Claus delivers presents to children from a horse and cart. He’s known as ‘Christmas Baba’ in Hindi, ‘Baba Christmas’ in Urdu (both of those mean Father Christmas); ‘Christmas Thaathaa’ in Tamil and ‘Christmas Thatha’ in Telugu (both of those mean Christmas old man); and ‘Natal Bua’ (Christmas Elder Man) in Marathi. In Kerala state, he’s known as ‘Christmas Papa’.
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We don’t have any.
My family’s and neighborhood Christmas tradition is a Mexican tradition of Las Posadas. It is basically a reenactment of the pilgrimage to Bethlehem by Mary and Joseph. We sing and ask for entrance to the hosts house and give thanks. It is awesome!
We celebrate Yule instead of Christmas 
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I don’t think our traditions are very unique. We usually have dinner with the family on Christmas eve, open a few presents on Christmas day, and I don’t go anywhere Christmas day
I celebrate Festivus on December 23rd with my family. 
Our house faced a small triangular park when I was a kid and the neighborhood has a tradition.
One of the trees in it is pretty much a perfect Christmas tree so it is decorated every year with lights. But the best part is that the whole neighborhood goes out and gathers around the tree on Christmas Eve and sings Christmas carols. The last carol is always Jingle Bells and halfway through the song, Santa shows up with a present for each of the children! (Santa is one of the neighbors and the parents have surreptitiously dropped off a gift at his house beforehand.)
It’s not a spectacular tradition, but for some reason we always have curried squash at dinner. I’m not sure anyone likes it all that much but by gum, it’s going to be there, waiting to give us all heartburn.
We also always go into the woods and cut a scraggly wild tree, although there’s nothing unique about that in rural areas (the orange vest is for hunting season).
Years ago, my dad got tired of having turkey at Thanksgiving and Christmas, so my family has ham for Christmas dinner. Since he’s also diabetic and shouldn’t have them too (at all, really), he’ll also make a pot of baked beans, so dinner is ham & homemade baked beans for our family. Just a simple thing that has become a tradition for us.
Congrats @Daiross!
Nothing crazy in terms of traditions - we have some “older” ones and some newer ones… Old would be watching “A Christmas Story” and the new of course is watching “Elf”. We also try to do destination Christmas’ about every 2nd or 3rd year - nothing expensive or exotic, just close drive-able getaways to feel like we’re escaping the madness of the season.
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My boyfriend and I open gifts on winter solstice (praises to the sun)…and on Christmas Day we do something fun like go on a hike, or go to the coast.
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Congrats @Daiross! That’s awesome!
I LOVE Christmas traditions and have several. The newest is the Elf on the Shelf. Francisco the Elf has been getting into some great situations this year! This is where we found him this morning:
We also watch White Christmas while decorating the house each year, Edward Scissorhands every Christmas eve, and we all get new Christmas PJs that we open up on Christmas Eve.
One Christmas tradition that I’ve been doing with my family since I was a little kid and now do with my own kids is the yearly eggnog toast. Right after Thanksgiving we get our first pint, quart, half gallon, gallon, keg, or drum of eggnog (whatever the largest size is at the store), then we sprinkle a little nutmeg in and go around saying what we’re thankful for and then cheers to a happy, safe, and healthy holiday season. I’m so thankful to be able to do this with my kids now, because it was always one of my favorite traditions as a kid each Christmas.
Cheers!
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I have a few odd traditions in my family. First of all, we watch Will Vinton’s Christmas Claymation, starring the California Raisins:
It’s hosted, inexplicably, by two dinosaurs:
And features a stirring rendition of “Carol of the Bells” in which a choir of bells play the song by whacking themselves on the head with mallets:
This movie comes with my strongest recommendations. I truly believe everyone should watch it. Out of 10, I give it an 11.
Also, my family eats at Burger King on Christmas eve. This tradition began when I was too young to remember and my mother did not want to cook one Christmas eve. Burger King was the only place open, so it’s where we went. If I ever find myself in Burger King (which is rarely), it’s always odd how a whopper smells like the holidays to me:
I guess it just goes to show how American I am.
More recently, my sister has taken to sending us all silly string for Christmas, so now I always have a silly string fight with my kids on Christmas day. It’s become an important tradition for the kids now 
We also do the 1 present on Christmas eve - that’s been in my family as long as I can remember.
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One family tradition is that we always open stockings first and then it’s the responsibility of the kids to cook breakfast for everyone. It’s been a nice tradition to wake up slowly before opening presents.
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My family has a lot of fun traditions, but the one that always seemed to cause the most stir and even gets battled with now is a very old mouse advent calendar my folks have. For 25 days every December there is open warfare in their house for who gets to move the mouse. Even when my brother and I were younger there was always an argument, we have even made trips there specifically to move the mouse after we both have moved out. It has to be one of the most corny traditions, but seeing the smile on my moms face when we fight over it to this day is one heck of a tradition for me.
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I live near McAdenville, NC (also know as Christmas town) and every Christmas Eve we all get together and go walk it.
People who live there for many years has been decorating of the entire town in Christmas lights. Even though it gets too crowded and it’s kind of a long walk, watching the younger ones get excited for all the lights, it’s worth it.
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