20-PERSON POLL:At the Christmas market on George's Dock in Dublin, stalls and amusements are getting shoppers, families and foodies into the festive spirit. UNA MULLALLY asks 20 of them if they have family rituals at this time of year.
Jenni Miley
Yes, we do. We all buy new Christmas pyjamas for Christmas Eve and wear them while we’re opening the presents on Christmas morning. So everyone has new pyjamas, if you can call that a tradition.
Kate Walsh
I can’t think of much apart from the usual stuff, like going into town to do shopping, but we do all drive around and look at the tacky Christmas lights.
Niamh Sullivan
I can’t pick out one specific Christmas one, but over the festive season in general, on New Year’s Eve, all the family get together in my mum and dad’s house and we ring in the New Year singing Auld Lang Syne. Then all the neighbours go out and wish each other a happy new year and a guy at the top of the road rings a big bell. I know the bell part sounds a bit mad, but it happens every year.
Margaret Stewart
Our Christmas tradition is going to Wexford to my mother’s and my brother does a Christmas swim for charity and there’s mulled wine and a bonfire on the beach. On Christmas Eve we go to Mass and walk along the beach if it’s nice. When I was growing up we didn’t have the commercialism there is now, with children getting three or four big gifts. I remember getting a bar of chocolate and an orange in a sock with a ball of tinsel in the toe and looking at the lights in the neighbour’s windows – it was that simple.
Darragh Maher
We open our presents on Christmas Eve instead of on Christmas Day.
Clare McDonald
We go to Grafton Street on Christmas Eve really early and get hot chocolate.
Kate McDonald
Mine is the same as Clare’s because we’re sisters.
Neil Evans
We open all our presents midafternoon, before dinner, and most years we go to Christmas carols as well.
Dean Brand
On the tree at home we have those balls or baubles on the tree. Each one has someone’s name on them, and we hang them on the tree. I got married last year, so we have an extra one on the tree. That’s our traditional really: Christmas baubles with people’s names on them hanging on the tree. It’s fun.
Ellen Brand
Ooh, namely a big, big roast dinner, but it has to be with Yorkshire puddings.
Simon Fogg
No, not really. I can’t think of anything that’s just us.
Fiona Dunne
My mother always makes potato cakes on Christmas Eve.
Tom Farrell
Every year we light a candle on Christmas Eve and put it in the window.
Margaret Hayes
I can’t think of any. Actually, yes: a poker game.
Avril Sullivan
I suppose the usual, really: Mass, opening presents and then having dinner on Christmas Day, although that’s kind of what everyone does really. Maybe without the Mass for some people.
Aimée Shekleton
We always go shopping on Christmas Eve with my dad. I don’t know if that’s a tradition or we just end up shopping with him on Christmas Eve, but it’s something that always happens.
Tracey Keane
Every year I end up staying up with my parents on Christmas Eve, wrapping presents until all hours, probably like 3am. I wrap all of the presents, every single one, apart from the ones that are mine. So then on Christmas morning mine are the only ones that are never wrapped or are wrapped differently. Every year, without fail, that happens.
Clara Lynch
Filling stockings with small things – sweets and that kind of thing.
Dearbhla Lynch
We open all the Christmas presents around the tree. When we had our dog Archie, he used to have to always open the first present, so that was a tradition, but he’s dead now, unfortunately.
Niamh Lynch
Filling the stockings with sweets and satsumas. Yes, filling the stockings – even though really we’re all far too old for it.
