13 of us, and our Christmases were major holidays. Started cooking cookies weeks in advance- made dozens of varieties. Bought a new garbage can...the big one...and made dark fruit cake for all the neighbors....dozens of cakes. Of course, our own cake was several years old, wrapped in cheese cloth that was soaked in brandy three or four times a year. resulted in a very dark, moist, solid delicious cake. Christmas pudding also made, Dad did most of the stirring because it was so heavy, but we each stirred once and made a wish. That was always served on New Year's Day, on the silver platter, brandy alight, served with hard sauce.
Back to Christmas: along with many other cookies, we made a sleigh, reindeer and santa of gingerbread which we mounted on a large wooden carving board (covered with foil) and decorated with icing. We made cookies for Santa.
Got up early Christmas morning, had to wait for the parents before we were allowed downstairs. Dad went down first with the camera and positioned himself in the bigroom door. Took photos of the younger children as their faces delighted in the sight of the stockings hanging from the fireplace in the living room. We opened our stockings, which were handed out one at a time, youngest to oldest (all watched each open his/her stocking). each had a large shopping bag for Christmas presents. Each stocking always had a tangerine in the foot, underclothes, a few neat toys. Then we had to get dressed for Church...went to 8 o'clock Mass. Then home, and Dad made breakfast....he was only home to do this Christmas, New Year's and Easter. He squeezed fresh orange juice, a real treat in those days, cooked scrambled eggs and sausage and bacon. We had breakfast, then the older children cleaned the dishes, then we got to see the Christmas tree. The door to the bigroom was finally opened and the tree was there fully decorated (final decorations and lights had gone on the 24th..our tree never went up before the 22nd.) Dad handed out the presents one at a time (he loved playing Santa: I found out years later that he dressed as Santa at Memorial Hospital each year and visited all the children in hospital, as well as is patients), and we all watched each open his/her gifts. We usually finished around noon....I guess we had lunch, though I don't remember that. We spent a good part of the afternoon getting Christmas dinner ready, getting out al the silver and special serving pieces and linens. Christmas dinner was always turkey with stuffing and cranberry sauces, potatoes, peas, corn , broccoli and beans (we had to each have three vegetables of our choice). There was usually a carrot/raisin salad with vinegar and sugar or waldorf or waldorf winter pear salad. We had olives and sweet pickles too. Dessert was Christmas cake with hard sauce, ice cream, Christmas cookies and fresh fruit. There were always mints and Christmas hard candies in silver bowls. .Most our elderly neighbors came for Christmas dinner. We usually had about 26 people around he table, which was 16 feet long and built in Perth, Ontario in 1867.
Christmas was a really big deal. We made ornaments and chains of paper and cranberries for the tree, put the icicles on the tree one at a time. We made kissing rings, and stuck cloves over the entire surface of naval oranges...those kept for years and still smell good today, although the oranges have really shrunk over the years. Made stencils for the windows out of snow. Put lights outside in the yew bushes around the veranda.
All our relatives lived in Canada, we lived in NY, so we had neighbors, who were like grandparents to us, not relatives, spend the holidays with us.