What are your traditions this time of year?

Sunday on Cross Country Checkup: Holiday traditions 

'Tis the night before Christmas.

Hopefully, you've got the gifts all taken care of. Or maybe you're like host Duncan McCue: #lastminute

Well, it's time to take a deep breath and share some holiday spirit with Checkup. Even if Christmas is just a statutory holiday for you we want to hear your traditions.

Right now, McCue bets his mom is gently plopping balls of sweet dough and raisins into a pot of hot oil. Her family came to Canada from Germany generations ago. Every year on Christmas Eve she carries on the tradition of making what she calls "portsils." For him, it's not Christmas without gorging on little Christmas donuts.

In the community of Chisasibi, James Bay, where McCue spent his teens, Christmas Eve was a traffic jam. It's a Cree tradition for everybody in the extended family to get a gift. Cree families are big. For him, Christmas Eve was spent in pickups and Suburbans, driving around all night delivering presents, visiting and getting a bite to eat too.

So many holiday memories revolve around the kitchen. McCue's family friend once kept him enraptured, as he grated raw potatoes, and told the story of the miracle of one night's oil lasting eight nights in the temple over 2,000 years ago. Then he slid those pancakes into the frying pan, and everyone ate crispy latkes to celebrate fellowship.

What do you do for the holiday season? What do you eat, what do you make, where do you go?

Our question: "What are your favourite traditions at this time of year?"