It was Christmas today

I'm borrowing this from JB, 'cause I liked hers so much.

what was one of your favorite childhood gifts that you gave?
I think it was the year before Dad died (or maybe a couple years before) and we gave him and Mom a print of John Green's “A Family Christmas”. It was significant to us because it was actually a painting of Dad's homestead. He had seen a small picture of it in the local paper one Sunday advertising a show coming up of John's work. My sister happened to live in the same town as John and knew him so she asked him what his inspiration was. When he indicated the farmplace right near our exit, exactly the place Dad grew up, we knew we had a winner. That same year I gave Dad nose-hair clippers. He was ecstatic.

what is one of your favorite christmas recipes? bonus points if you share the recipe with us.
Well, our tradition is to make krumkake and flat bread for our family. These were traditions on my father's side and so when he and mom married, Grandma Emilie took Mom aside and trained her in the technique. Now I'm learning so mom can retire sometime.

Krumkake:

Beat until light and fluffy:
3 eggs
Add:
½ c. sugar
Blend in:
½ c. melted butter or margarine
½ tsp. Vanilla, lemon, almond or any other flavor desired
¾ c. sifted flour.

Stir until batter is smooth. Place 1 teaspoon batter on preheated Krumkake iron. Bake and remove, rolling on Krumkake cone. Makes about 3 dozen.

Flat Bread:
2 c. white flour
½ c. rye graham flour
½ c. yellow corn meal
1 tsp. Salt
½ c. bacon drippings
¾ - 1 c. boiling water

Mix together and add only enough boiling water to make dough stiff enough to roll. Form loaves and cool before rolling. Flatten as thin as possible and bake on heated griddle, turning mid-way through.

Again these take a little practice so if you have questions on these, let me know.

what is a tradition that your family can't do without? (and by family, i mean family of origin, family of adulthood, or that bunch of cool people that just feel like family.)
See above and add in spichamere. It's a ring of meat that is specially cured. I don't know how to make this or I'd add that in. Another is that the 'adults' play Cranium. This is basically my sister and I taking on my brother and his wife. Usually my sister and I win, but this year there were way too many distractions and the Wonder Twins won instead.

pastors and other church folk often have very strange traditions dictated by the "work" of the holidays. what happens at your place?
We have thousands of Christmas parties. The building has one on our weekend work schedule for everyone as well as our section (I've never been to this one because I hate it but whatever). Then there is the building party for the full-time workers which involves a white elephant gift exchange. And then there is the base-wide Christmas party which basically consists of eating, drinking, door prizes, and a short, clean, censored skit.

if you could just ditch all the traditions and do something unexpected... what would it be?
One year I did spend Christmas in Turkey (on a work trip). No one wanted to work that day (we were staffed 24/7) so I volunteered. It helped keep my mind off what was actually going on back home. That holiday kind of sucked, but New Year's in Turkey was a blast! My other thought was to travel somewhere – London maybe - or I don't know, maybe just give up all the traditions and do nothing. I'm getting close to that one this year.