HOLIDAY TRADITIONS IN ALL SHAPES, SIZES MAKE FESTIVE GATHERINGS FUN.

Byline: Carol Bidwell Daily News Staff Writer

It came in the mail three days ago, mixed in with a big box of other Hanukkah gifts.

But Noli Wiesen knew instantly what that 5-by-5-inch square box covered in multicolored Hanukkah gift wrap contained.

Aunt Ellyn had chosen Wiesen as this year's recipient of the family heirloom - a 17-year-old plum pudding.

``This is our most valuable treasure,'' Wiesen, 28, of Canyon Country said, laughing.

As far as traditions go, this might be one of the weirdest.

When the Daily News asked readers to reveal their families' unique ways of celebrating the yuletide, we weren't expecting some of the unusual, silly and downright touching traditions Valley residents practice. And the fun they have doing it, year after year.

For Wiesen's family, it all started 18 years ago when her father, Larry Gershman, got it into his head he could make a plum pudding just as well as the folks who celebrate Christmas.

``My father was in the kitchen all day making this thing. Finally, he said: `I'm done.' And we all came in to taste it and we all went: `Ugh!' '' Wiesen remembers.

That experiment got tossed in the trash. But that wasn't the end of it.

``The next year for Hanukkah, my aunt went out and bought a real plum pudding, wrapped it up and gave it to my father. `Aha!' he quipped as he wrapped it right back up and gave it back to her for her birthday the next month.

``Later that year, when he was visiting her in San Francisco, she sneaked the same wrapped package into his suitcase ... Seventeen years later, the same box, with many additional layers of gift wrap for Hanukkah, birthdays, weddings, baby showers, engagement parties, bar mitzvahs, silver wedding anniversaries, still comes back again and again. The plum pudding has been canned, baked into a cake, shoved into a Jell-O mold, delivered on a room service tray in a Las Vegas hotel and delivered by a rabbi and by a singing nerd telegram. Although my father is gone, his legacy lives on.''

And so do the family traditions. Some harken back to Old Country traditions, handed down through the generations; others are as new as today and will become tomorrow's traditions.

Holiday charades: Even though his mother was Christian and his father Jewish, Earl D. Horwitz of North Hills said that meant twice the reasons to celebrate each December, with both a menorah and a Christmas tree. And Christmas Eve, when friends were invited to come for a potluck, was a special time.

``The fun of the evening was the playing of charades,'' Horwitz wrote. ``We chose sides and had a ball trying to guess ridiculous riddles ... We still try to carry on the tradition every Christmas. It is now the children who are having the celebration, and the parents, who are now grandparents, enjoy every minute of it.''

Strength in numbers: For three local families, who have grown too big to fit the holiday into just one day, the answer is an extended-family get-together the Sunday before Christmas with gifts, family stories and special meals.

Gretchen Kirk of North Hollywood said her family's pre-Christmas dinners began when her father was only 9 years old; he's now 90. This year, there'll be 65 people or so around the table.

Nellis Stefanello of Palmdale said the highlight of her family's big shindig is a money tree: the Christmas tree, containing an envelope of cash for each family member.

An English touch: For Jeanne Davis and their family, the tradition comes not only in the revelry but in the menu: scones, potato soup, bean soup and pies. Her English grandmother started the tradition of scone-making, handing the work down to her own daughter, then to Davis; now Davis' two sons-in-law do the scone-making.

Straight talk: Do old legends ever come true? Marcy Young's Van Nuys family stays up until midnight Christmas Eve just to check.

It's at the stroke of midnight, according to folklore, ``when animals are supposed to be allowed to speak,'' Young wrote. ``We had a cat once that we were sure went directly up to the tree and, in a loud meow, said `Merry Christmas.' So far, the two we have now have been mute, but we remain hopeful. I fear they'll just ask for more food.''

Fond memories: For some older people, their favorite Christmas memories are of holidays long ago.

Pogos Lakisian of Glendale recalls yule celebrations in the remote Armenian village of Moussa Dagh in her native Turkey, including services in an old stone church, houses decorated with olive tree branches, feasting and children marching through the village, singing and carrying lighted candles.

Community togetherness: Even when times were hard, there were Christmases to remember, like the one in the 1930s when Marion T. Nichol of Granada Hills was a little girl attending a one-room school in North Dakota. Although there was no money for gifts, her parents organized a community celebration at the schoolhouse.

``All the parents and children rode in their horse-drawn wagons on a snow-covered road to an early-evening gathering,'' Nichol wrote. ``As the crowded room lit up with red lanterns aglow, our school play began. After the children's performance, my mother played the organ and my father, his violin. They were joined by all the people's voices singing Christmas carols. As the evening was ending, in came Santa Claus with a gift for everyone - a big box of red, juicy apples.''

All for Santa: No matter how old we get, sometimes the thing we remember best about the holidays is our childlike, dogged belief in Santa Claus. Alfred Guidet of California City said his parents went to great lengths to keep that belief alive, convincing him Santa's elves were recording his behavior (he was a really good boy) and that Santa had miraculously appeared in the middle of the night with presents and a decorated tree in their previously bare living room.

``There would also be a trail of brand new shiny pennies and nickels leading from my bedroom window to my bed and to the bedroom door,'' Guidet wrote. ``I was told that Santa had come in through the window and then made his way downstairs to put out gifts and to put up our Christmas tree - and that he must have had a hole in his pocket because the coins had fallen out. I would even find some coins in the snow below my bedroom window.''