Holiday Traditions In the Burg
Spartanburg is fortunate to be a diverse community, and a place where longtime holiday-season traditions have persevered.
We asked for reader submissions on how you and your family spread cheer during the holidays. Thank you to everyone who shared with us! Here are a few of our favorite, unique traditions:
Every Christmas Eve, my parents give everyone in the family a new pair of pajamas, that we open together. We wear them that night, and to open presents the next morning. I no longer live at home, but every year, my mom still mails me pajamas if I cannot make it home for Christmas with them.
I'm an only child, and neither my parents nor I are fantastic cooks. Or even passable cooks, to be honest. Every Christmas, the three of us put on our ugliest sweaters and order Chinese takeout, to eat while watching TV reruns of our favorite classic Christmas movies.
My family has two menorahs-- a fancy one that my great-grandmother passed down to my father, and a (more colorful) menorah that I decorated at school as a kid. It has beads and pasta glued to it, but some of them have broken over the years. I always wondered if the candles would slowly cook the pasta....
I used to play in band in high school, so most of my Christmas memories (other than opening presents on Christmas morning) were from performing in parades. We always performed for the Woodruff and the City of Spartanburg's parades.
Four years ago, I decided to personally challenge myself to give only local or handmade gifts! Almost every present I've bought since then has been from small businesses, except for a few technology pieces. It feels good to support my favorite businesses, and the presents also seem more sentimental.
My dad and I go hunting, early every Christmas morning. I first went when I was six years old. We don't always catch something, but every now and then, we have duck for Christmas dinner!
My husband and I have been together for close to ten years, and one of our first dates was a picnic on the Winter Solstice! Since moving to Spartanburg, we find a new, outdoor space to picnic each year, (with plenty of scarves and blankets.) This year, we're celebrating the Winter Solstice and a decade of being together at the Glendale Shoals Preserve.
Every Hanukkah, my mom, sisters, and I make our own jelly-filled donuts, sufganiyot. The fried desserts celebrate the miracle of the oil that kept lanterns burning for eight days. We also fry potato latkes, but I have a bit of a sweet tooth and prefer the donuts!!
My family hides a pickle (a metal ornament, not an actual pickle) in of the Christmas trees. (We have three trees-- a real one, a fake one with all of our handmade school ornaments, and a smaller fake tree that was my grandmother's and still has her original ornaments.) Whoever finds the pickle first gets a $5 bill and reads the Christmas story aloud before we open presents.We heard this pickle tradition A LOT, in several variations! Read more on where this tradition came from here.
My kids and I mix oatmeal, baby carrots, and a little bit of glitter together on Christmas Eve, and then sprinkle the "Reindeer Food" on the front lawn for Santa Claus.
Do you celebrate any of these traditions too? Let us know which ones!
(Some stories have been edited for brevity.)