User blog comment:Puckentine/YOUR Holiday Traditions! :D/@comment-2219055-20111221211620

My family has a holiday party where my dad bakes about 30 to 40 desserts, and we invite family and friends over, and they help decorate our Christmas tree. Then, my dad tells the "Star Story" about our tree topper, which is a cardboard star wrapped in tin foil.

Before my dad was born, my grandparents and their (at the time) two kids, unpacked their Christmas tree decorations to find their usual tree topper, an angel, was broken. And they were so poor, they didn't have the money to buy a new one. So my grandmother cut out what my father calls, "the saddest looking star you've ever seen" out of cardboard. She wrapped it in tin foil, and attached an empty toilet paper roll to the back. That was their tree topper for a few years.

When my dad was a kid, his family had enough money for a new angel for the tree. But my dad and his siblings didn't like the angel, so my dad and his brother snuck out at night, took the angel, and set it on fire. My grandparents didn't find out until years later, but they had no choice to use the star after the angel was destroyed.

After my dad and his siblings grew up, got married and started families of their own, they each got their own star for their trees.

tl;dr, you don't have to have a lot of money to have a Merry Christmas.