Do you still celebrate holidays from your home?

[dulcemariamar]

I go crazy celebrating American holidays. My DH doesn't care that I decorate our house for every holiday because he know that holidays=cookies, cakes, and pies.

Do you still celebrate holidays from your home country or are you too lazy for it?

[dorothyinAus]

Absolutely! I celebrate Twelfth Night/Kings' Day/Epiphany and Mardi Gras. And I go to my priest on March 19 to have my Lucky Bean re-blessed -- it's St. Joseph's Feast Day in New Orleans and is a big church celebration www.neworleansonline.com/neworleans/seasonal/stjosephsday.html

And I have friends over to share the bounty of Thanksgiving and this year, we'll do a barbeque on July 4th.

[travelingturtle]

I do. We'll celebrate Mother's/Father's Day on the US dates, July 4 and Thanksgiving. I usually do something for Cinco de Mayo (mostly an excuse to make Mexican food, even though I make it a lot anyway) and St. Patrick's Day (we just wear green).

[pittpurple]

We have always made a huge dinner for Thanksgiving for around 10 people (or however many we can cram into our flat) and I try to celebrate some of the Jewish holidays as well (which feel like American holidays to me since there are no other Jewish people here). We tried to celebrate 4th of July a couple times but the weather here is all wrong!

[clogged]

Thanksgiving we do. Easter and Christmas we do more USA style. We don't do anything for the fourth, but we may change that in the near future. The rest we skip or just talk about them.

We do all the Dutch and all holidays around our religion except Mardi Gras/Carnival.

[Deleted]

We do Thanksgiving. I love doing Thanksgiving with H's family because in the US, everyone has their own family traditions that aren't always the same. Here, whatever I say or make for the dinner, they just assume it is correct because they don't have their own traditions for the holiday. Which means, I make only the foods I like Christmas we usually do with H's family.

[doctoranda]

We do Thanksgiving, 4th of July and Pesach in addition to the Dutch holidays. We love to invite Dutch people to give them a new experience. We also have done a 5 Mayo party this year and my husband observes Yom Kippur and I make a break-the-fast feast.

[ktkl09]

Totally. Thanksgiving and the 4th of July. God bless 'Merica.

[rhiannonsage]

Definitley! I just love decorating and baking/cook outs(depending on holiday)

[crimsonandclover]

I do Thanksgiving - it was getting progressively bigger each year until last year, our first with DD, I put a stop to it. I'll probably pick it up again in the future, but cooking a Thanksgiving dinner for 10 in our mini-kitchen was really stressful.
Once in the past I also celebrated the 4th of July, but we were moving apartments that day, so I just did a cookout for all our friends who helped us move. Otherwise I don't do anything for it.

The other American holidays that I celebrate are also celebrated by the Germans.

[fernane]

Jun 20, 2012 3:19:00 GMT -5 travelingturtle said:

I do. We'll celebrate Mother's/Father's Day on the US dates, July 4 and Thanksgiving. I usually do something for Cinco de Mayo (mostly an excuse to make Mexican food, even though I make it a lot anyway) and St. Patrick's Day (we just wear green).

This is us exactly except for Christmas and New Years as well.

[GilliC]

Halloween.

I never really cared that much about Thanksgiving. Or American-style Easter. Or Christmas really, though I do like to put up lights and have a small tree. But my first order of business when I became social club chair at work was to shove a full-blown Halloween party down everyone's throats with a costume contest, pumpkin carving, crazy decorations, and creepy Halloween candy. Good fun!

Back in Austin, I also hosted an epic Halloween party for all of our work friends (most of whom were XH's colleagues from India). Costumes were mandatory, and we spent a fortune decorating (most of that stuff was reused for the office party). That party will live forever in infamy -- though this may have something to do with the mist-covered punch bowl full of top-shelf margarita (which was consumed far too quickly and degenerated to empty cups being thrust under my cocktail shaker before I could even finish the next batch.)

[anna7602]

Jun 20, 2012 3:17:05 GMT -5 dorothyinAus said:

Absolutely! I celebrate Twelfth Night/Kings' Day/Epiphany and Mardi Gras. And I go to my priest on March 19 to have my Lucky Bean re-blessed -- it's St. Joseph's Feast Day in New Orleans and is a big church celebration www.neworleansonline.com/neworleans/seasonal/stjosephsday.html

I just put another check mark in the "move to New Orleans pros" column. The Catholic holidays are big ones for me, even though I am not particularly religious. It's the cultural aspect. I loooooove Kings' Day. And in my family, we celebrate Father's Day on March 19th.

We also make a big to-do about Saint's days (mine, DD's, my parents', but not DH's since he is Jewish).

So, if "home" can be counted as a non-physical place inhabited only by the traditions your parents brought from their home, then yes, I celebrate these holidays.

I haven't been in France long enough to think about Halloween, Thanksgiving, etc. In Spain, I celebrated them because I was around a bunch of other Americans. Not sure what we'll do this coming fall.

[ktkl09]

I forgot about Halloween, we just celebrate by eating a lot of Reese's cups .

I mention Mardi Gras every year but we never do anything for it (St. Louis has a big celebration too, I think it's the biggest after New Orleans in the US?)

[cupcakes]

Jun 20, 2012 3:17:05 GMT -5 dorothyinAus said:

Absolutely! I celebrate Twelfth Night/Kings' Day/Epiphany and Mardi Gras. And I go to my priest on March 19 to have my Lucky Bean re-blessed -- it's St. Joseph's Feast Day in New Orleans and is a big church celebration www.neworleansonline.com/neworleans/seasonal/stjosephsday.html

Well those are all things I wouldn't have thought of as American. TK and TN has opened up my mind so much to the variation of the US.

I had no idea how much weddings varied through out the country until TK. Which sounds so dumb.

[doctoranda]

Oh yeah I forgot about St. Patrick's Day! My husband cooks some sort of stew with beer.

[Deleted]

Yep, I celebrate Australia Day and I make Anzac biscuits on Anzac Day.

[ninjatofu]

Yep, we're planning to go to Trafalgar Square for Canada Day, decked out in hockey jerseys regardless of the weather and grinning like idiots.

Should be a good time!