Hanging out with your family, stuffing your face with food, or ripping open presents are fond Christmas memories that many share.

And from the "World's Largest Christmas Tree," to the Christmas Flounder and Collard Stealing Night in Pender County, there are a few wonderful and unforgettable tales that connect the Wilmington area to the season.

In the fall of 1928, James E. L. Wade (1889-1980), a city commissioner, came up with the idea to have a living tree as the city's official Christmas tree. A contest was held in New Hanover County to select the largest live tree. The winning selection was a massive live oak, over 70 feet tall and estimated to be more than 200 years old at that time. The live oak was located near the City Water Works at the northern end of Fourth Street, in Hilton Park.

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The first lighting of the live oak was on Christmas Eve 1928. The tree was decorated with more than 500 multi-colored lights entwined in its enormous spread of limbs and loaded with tons of Spanish moss.

It became known by the impressive name of "The World's Largest Living Christmas Tree."

The grand celebration of lighting, became a tradition that continued for more than 80 years (except during World War II), the live oak tree was decorated and lit annually.

In North Carolina winter collard greens have been eaten up, and folks eagerly anticipate the early spring crop.

According to a North Carolina Folklife Institute article by Sarah Bryan, "thinking about collards put us in mind of a tradition we learned about some years back, Collard-Stealing Night." Though it may have been practiced in various parts of North Carolina, it seems to have been most especially a Pender County "thing."

The tale of Collard Stealing Night, was a tradition rather popular and unique in some areas of Pender County, especially St. Helena and Burgaw during the first half of the 20th century.

The tale it seems originates with the youth in St. Helena, but boys in Burgaw joined in and it spread to other rural areas such as Maple Hill.

The prank of stealing collards might have been carried out anytime in the winter months, but it seems that in Burgaw it was done mainly in observation of Old Christmas, in early January, on what was known as Collard-Stealing Night.

Collard Stealing Night was looked forward to by young people with the same kind of fervor as Halloween is today.

Burgaw residents would sneak into each other’s collard patches after dark, and cut down a few plants. They would then tiptoe onto neighbors' porches, where they would pile or strew the leaves, before ringing the doorbell or knocking on the door, and fleeing.

Burgaw native D. Vann Harrell Jr., in a 1985 article in the Raleigh News & Observer, described the ideal collards for the job. "You want big ones," he said. "Ones the size of foot tubs, ones that have a lot of manure on 'em. The stinkier the better."

On a cold December night, collard stealing was engaged in by groups of teenagers who would spend hours walking the dirt roads and trails of their rural communities to play tricks on people thought to be wealthy or eccentric. In this folk activity, a few mature collard plants would be pulled from a roadside garden, then taken to a nearby residence and dropped on the front steps.

The tales continues that the celebrating youths would knock on the door of the unsuspecting recipients of the collards, yell loudly and run away. And during the hard times of the Great Depression, the practice of collard stealing was sometimes feigned by teens who would bring stolen collards to their own homes and leave them. The unsuspecting parents thinking that the collards were left by mischievous neighbor kids, of course, would cook and eat the needed food.

An old Christmas tradition of Wilmington, after the days of the Revolution War and through the post-Civil War reconstruction, which happened during the week of Christmas and New Year's was called "John Kunering."

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The custom known as John Kuners (or John Kooners, John Canoes, Junkanoes, or Jonkonnu) were troupes of slaves and free Blacks, brightly dressed and often masked, who sang and danced. This custom is closely similar to the annual "John Canoe" celebrations that survive today in Jamaica and the Bahamas.

A tradition practiced mainly by Black slaves, was a way in which Blacks, free and slave, would imitate the Christmas traditions in their own manner.

The custom that would find noisy and gaily dressed processions singing unusual tunes, which would be accompanied by banjo, accordion, tambourine and other instruments.

In Wilmington, the "John Kuners" (all men, but some would dress as women) would dance throughout the town to the rhythmic chants, decorated in brightly colored rags sewn to their clothes, and horned masks (in order to keep their identities a secret).

The Kuners stopped to collect pennies at houses. On plantations, they received small treats, rum or desserts.

In the 1880s, the custom was not being used because it was being tabooed by Black residents, which believe it belittle them as a race.

Historians note the procession was just not limited to Blacks; many white youths would dress and march as well.

And, of course, it will be unforgivable not to reminisce about the tale of the Christmas flounder, which started out as a StarNews editorial page tradition, dating back to the early 1980s. Published each Christmas Eve, the tale grew more legendary by the years.

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So, the story goes, it was written by former StarNews Editorial Page Editor Chuck Riesz, based on tales told to him by the StarNews reporter and columnist Paul Jennewein, who started at the paper in 1946, retired in 1984 and died in 2000. 

It was Jennewein, supposedly, who first publicized the largely unknown local tradition of cash-poor people catching their own Christmas dinners when money for turkey or other store-bought meals proved too dear.

The Christmas Flounder is a Yuletide custom unknown outside Southeastern North Carolina, according to Jennewein, the origin of The Christmas Flounder is obscured in the mists of memory, but according to Jennewein it apparently began during the Great Depression, when people in this area were even poorer than usual.

Buying and stuffing a turkey for Christmas dinner was out of the question for many. Something else was needed, something that poor folks could procure in the days before food stamps.

And so, it came about that one Christmas Eve in the reign of Franklin the King for Four Terms, the merry glow of kerosene lanterns and – for those who could afford the Ray-O-Vacs – flashlights gleamed over the waters of the sounds.

More:Wilmington's tale of the Christmas flounder is a fanciful piece of area tradition

Westward wading, still proceeding, went wise men who knew that dull-witted fishes would be sleeping in the mud at that time of night. Suddenly the sharp splash of steely gigs shattered the starry stillness.

A tradition born of hardship, the unfortunate flounders, lovingly stuffed with native delicacies such as oysters, crabs, collards and grits, graced Christmas tables all over the area. And of course, if you were non-Baptists and knew a reliable bootlegger, your Christmas Flounder would be accompanied by a jelly glass of high-octane cheer.