Dec
#HumansOfSoton – Christmas Traditions
What are your Christmas traditions? Have you been doing them since childhood or is it a recent trend you want to introduce? Whatever you do at the most festive time of the year, our Marketing and Communications crew member, Alice, has been chatting to students about how they celebrate Christmas…
“I’m French so we celebrate a little differently at home! On the 24th, we always have traditional French food like snails, foie gras, salmon and everyone dresses up really fancy to eat. Christmas Day itself… we spend it in our pyjamas!” – Emma, Film Studies
“My family likes to go on a cruise for Christmas. But if we don’t do that, we always watch EastEnders and Doctor Who on Christmas Day. Always!” – Nikki, French student
We always have drinks up in London on Christmas Eve night. Christmas Day is standard family and massive dinner then my friends all meet up to have a games day on Boxing Day; basically we play loads of board games. By about 4pm Articulate turns into an argument. Bring on this year” – Lewis, Physics student
“I play Chris Rea’s “Driving Home for Christmas” on the way to whoever’s house we’re spending the day at. We always have a cheeky glass of Baileys to kick off the Christmas drinks then have a massive, family dinner and loads of games for everyone. After Eights seem to be a big thing for my family! Then to burn off the Christmas calories, we always go on a long dog walk for Boxing Day.” – Alice, Spanish student
On Christmas Eve, my family and I have corn beef hash and jacket potatoes for dinner then we go to church. My Grandad, Dad and I all then go to the pub then have so much food on Christmas Day, like salmon, the traditional meal too – which makes leftovers for a Christmas sandwich – and watch a film in the afternoon.” – Charlie, Law student
“In my family, we always have a clothes-theme for Christmas. For example, one year we all wear red, or Christmas jumpers, or just dress really fancy! We always have Christmas Pudding for dessert but last year it wouldn’t light so we had to put a giant sparkler in it. We also always have one special bauble for the tree for every year. OH! And my brother and I have giant stockings with our names on them!” – Chelsea, German & Chinese student
“My whole Christmas revolves around food. We start by having smoked salmon and scrambled eggs with Bucks Fizz for breakfast (classy, I know). I can’t open presents until everyone’s there so we get all the family together then swap our gifts. Mum always puts on cheesy Christmas songs then we all cook together, lots and lots of food.” – Elliott, Biology student
“Christmas Eve is the start of the festivities as we have our Christmas dinner and receive our first present – a pair of pyjamas to wear that night! We spend Christmas Day seeing family, opening presents and relaxing in the evening with a glass (or two!) of Baileys.” – Hannah, French student
“Despite my brother and I now being in our early 20s, my parents still put stockings on our bedroom door handles on Christmas Eve. Inside there’s always an orange which never gets eaten.” – James, English student
“Before Christmas, my family and I always head into London and spend the day there, eating, buying stuff and seeing the lights. On Christmas day, all the family come over to us and we get merry! And of course, watch the Queen’s speech.” – Simon, Portuguese student
“We always went up to Scotland to see my family for Christmas. It always snows up there so we’d go sledging, make snow-men and everyone would mess around in the snow. Edinburgh always had cool things to do so we’d normally go there, or to a church for Midnight Mass, on Christmas Eve.” – Charlotte, History student
“I’m from Germany and to put it briefly, we always have a beautiful Christmas tree. Singing Christmas carols is a big tradition and we have a lot of good food: fish on 24th December then on 25th, we have goose, red cabbage and German dumplings.” – Frederik, Electrical Engineering student
What’s your favourite Christmas tradition? Tweet us @Union_Soton and let us know.
#HumansOfSoton
Tags: #HumansOfSoton, #ideas, celebration, Christmas, custom, festive, students, traditions, union, university