We need your Christmas customs and family traditions

Christmas Eve treasure hunt for the DC's with clues leading to a present each (usually Christmas PJ's and a DVD) then off to bed.

Probably my favourite tradition of the few we have is making the crib. We have a set of Provencal santons - lifelike dolls of the holy family. Dh and the dcs spend a good few hours creating a crib for them from a cardboard box. The innovations year on year can be spectacular Last year ds2 drew loads of spiders and ds1 made them a loft extension.

Out to lunch on Christmas Eve with friends, crib service in the parish church at 4pm then home for a Snowman/Father Christmas/Polar Express marathon.

On the day itself it's always stockings as soon as they wake up on our big brass bed, Santa presents after breakfast, other presnts after lunch.

The timing of the traditional Christmas Dinner is very important in my house. It always starts at 5 pm on the dot. This gives everyone the best day: Mother doesn't have to panic in the morning and can be as chilled as everyone else. Father can help as well as play with dd. Dd can open and enjoy pressies without being rushed. It takes everyone nicely from day to evening with no anti-climax.

Bit late to this, but hey!

I always decorate the tree "tastefully", maybe 2 or 3 colours as a theme. At some point I'll go out and DH re decorates it with every single bauble, bit of tinsel etc he can find.

We stack the cupboards, fridge every spare space with as much food and drinks as possible, then spend all of Christmas plouging through it all!

Love Christmas, my only "rule" is that we have the day at home, not trapsing around GPs etc, they come to us , so that the kids can play with their new toys etc.

Excited now!

Oh and we all get a chocolate santa from my parents, all of us. Not one of those expensive jobs, just a common or garden choc santa, it isn't christmas without those!!!
Mum decided one year that we were all too old (The shame!!!) to have one and there was bloody uproar!!!

We have a few traditions in our family christmas:-

The men cook the meat, the ladies do the veg, children set the table.

dh makes his own bread sauce as my mothers is apparantly wrong. This splits the family as we all have to choose sides. There is tension.

Children over 10 will drink baileys and get tipsy and daft. Some of the parents will disapprove. No one will admit to giving the children booze.

The stockings will all contain a choc orange, one of which will be stolen and eaten by the dog at some point in the day.
The dog will be sick under the sideboard in the dining room.

Mother gets a Christmas Jigsaw with 1000 pieces which traditionally must be finished by boxing day evening. This is always taken over by my dh who, despite hating jigsaws, is compulsive about unfinished puzzles.

The children put on a show requiring hours of set up (sets, make up and ticket design). It usually includes ballet, magicians tricks, performing pets and a complicated light opera featuring power rangers, baby jesus and fairies.

Great aunty Marg smokes a fag all the way to the filter keeping the ash in tact (fabulous party trick).

We play Boggle.

Busy till 3pm then what isn't done/bought then won't get done/bought!

Christmas Eve my mum and dad arrive and they stay over till Boxing Day. We get them settled then go up to the church at 6pm for the Nativity service.

Home and get the drinks and tin of chocolates opened. Brother, sil, niece and niece's boyfriend arrive, we play daft games, then they go home.

Christmas Day, we all get up bout 7ish, and open pressies, drink bucks fizz and eat sausage rolls for breakfast, apart from my dad who doesn't function unless he has his porridge
We have gone out for Christmas lunch for the last 6 years and it is absolute bliss!! We get dressed up and head out to the hotel and meet db, sil, niece and n's bf, and our aunt and uncle. Have fabulous meal, then its all of us back to my house where we get our jeans and t-shirts on, open rest of pressies to each other and play more silly games, (the telly is banned on xmas day although we tape stuff we want to watch), drink loads, eat nibbles even though we're all stuffed, and have a fab time Couldn't imagine a Christmas without my family around me, tbh.

Boxing Day some of us go to the football and some of us go to the pub. mum and dad go home around 7ish, them me, dh and ds curl up together and chill.

My personal tradition though is just for me. The night I put the tree and decorations up (usually around two weeks before christmas) when I've finished and put everything away I get a drink and just have the fairy lights on around the fireplace and on the tree, then I find the part in "Its A Wonderful Life" (my favourite film!!!) where George realises he's alive, (you know, when he's on the bridge and his lip is bleeding ) and watch the rest of the film from there!! You can't beat it, its magic!!!!

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When I was little on the 4 sundays of advent me, my sis and Mum would light candles and my Dad would read to us from A Christmas Carol, finishing the last installment on xmas eve. Haven't really got any hard and fast traditions yet with my family cos we've only really done one xmas yet, though DSD and I decorated the tree with xmas songs playing and we made xmas stockings to hang over fireplace. Will need to make one for DD this year.

Ok, deep breath.....!

Xmas decs, tree etc go up on 1st Dec each year. At the mo cause dcs are still little, its done when they are in bed!! Letter written to santa.
They have a picture advent calendar and then an advent sack with chocs in from the grandparents which they get to open after bfast each morning.

Xmas eve we have fish fingers or something for tea whilst watching The Snowman. Then its bath and bed time. A little table is put out in the hall with stockings, mince pie & sherry for santa and carrot for rudolph. We then sprinkle some reindeer dust (oats & glitter!!) outside the window so he knows when to stop. Read a xmas story before bed, either Twas The Night Before or Follow the Star.

Xmas morning stockings are opened in bed with us. Then we get up and make tea and open pressies from santa. Then we have a full english breakfast with champers. Dp's parents usually pop over at this point for an hour and we open all the presents under the tree. Afternoon is spent playing and dozing and we have xmas dinner at approx 5ish then its countdown to bedtime and more snooze time!!!

I bake massively at xmas. We make gifts from the boys to all grandparents & godparents so cakes or chocolates with some sort of photo. Last year it was a chutney in decorated jar with a laminated calendar that had pics of ds1 (ds2 not born at this point!!).

I looooove xmas!!!!

This thread has actually made me feel quite sad because we spend every Christmas with my parents or the in laws and so everything we do is actually someone elses tradition not mine. Come to that if mil had her way there would never have been stockings - she didn't do them for hers and expressed considerable surprise when I insisted on it. Dh also tried to put a spoke in it when I was expecting dd1 by saying that it was tantamount to telling your child lies and he wasn't going to do that. After I threatened to leave him he backed off! I long for a Christmas that doesn't involve loading the car and trying to fit everything in. For a Christmas morning when I can wake up in my own bed and go to my own church. We do have a nice time at relatives of course but I was hoping now we have a bit more space that we could stay put and them come to us - maybe next year?

This thread is really interesting me.

I am this year having my first family xmas so can start creating our own traditions and not having to be tied to many i hated as a child.

I am deffo going to do the new pj's thing on xmas eve with mince pies and family dvd.

Also doing the carrot for riendeers and mince pie and milk for santa (not booze he has far to much already)

last year we tracked santa on the online radar tracker which was fun.

I am determined not to fight with dp this xmas day or when were putting dec's up like we did last year.

We decided in early 2002, after a particularly harrowing Christmas experience involving my family (mum, step dad, sisters), that we would stop feeling any obligation to spend Christmas with them.

So ever since it's just been me, dh, ds and dd and very lovely it's been too. No pressure or stress or arguments, just the four of us.

We don't even bother with a turkey, just cook roast whatever we feel like (it was duck last year iirc) and the children don't even have to join us if they've eaten too much chocolate to be bothered with real food.

So there aren't really any traditions other than the children get a stocking each and some other main presents and we all have a lovely time with none of that family shite stress. Best decision we made, that.

Christmas Eve - I get up at 4am to decorate the tree with hand-blown baubles and also a few ornaments that the kids have made over the years .

We go carol-sinign to all the elderly folk who live nearby then eat a hearty lunch of soup and crusty bread.

In the eveneing the moppets open their new pyjamas and drink hot chocolate by flickering candle-light.

Dh & I are woken on Christmas morning by the squeals of delight as the moppets tumble adorably into our bed with the stockings. We tousle their golden curls as they exclaim with delight at their gifts.

Ach, no. Fuck it. DH is usually working, MIL winds me up and my middle sister ALWAYS fights with my foul-tempered Grandfather. My mum will lose the plot & start shrieking somewhere between doing the sprouts and basting the turkey while my dad gets ever quieter and more pissed. It's fab .

Driving hundreds of miles. Arguing with those we have driven to see. Threatening not to do it again next year.

Just me that has inherited the maternal conditioning that forces me to hand out teeny nail scissors to anyone over 5 then?

So they can cut along the sellotape on their pressies v neatly, & I can salvage the paper to use for 'family' presents (ever smaller presents due to cutting off tatty sellotaped bits, obviously) for the next ten years?

drink loads

Tree goes up 12 days before, christmas music on in background. The whole of downstairs gets fully kitted out and it takes all day.

Stocking in dd's room once shes sleeping (even though shes too young to open it by herslef). We all get up really early, christmas music goes back on and presents get opened.

Then my dh goes to pick my mum up and once shes arrived and opened her presents its bacon/sausage sandwhiches with bucks fizz.

Then its dinner. A nice joint with all the trimmings. Plenty of wine and a nice bottle of chamapgne. christmas pud. to follow and then we pop the crackers.

After dinner its rest and relaxation time. We have an open house so friends come round and I lay out a buffet of sandwhiches, nibbles etc.

Then we drink and party until the early hours when everyone leaves and we collapse exhausted into bed.

We have a ix of cultures, english and spanish, so we open one pressie on Xmas eve and have a family dinner. ds goes to bed and dh and I put up the tree, although this year ds is old enough to help without "helping"!! so I think we'll do it together. We put out carrots, a glass of milk and some bickies that ds and I made earlier that day specially for father christmas. The bickies need to have silvery sparkles on.
Then on Xmas morning it's back to english and ds finds his stocking and runs around squeaking while dh and I scrape ourselves out of bed (6am ish), we snuggle up in dressing gowns and go downstairs to find the Xmas tree all lit up (mummy sneaks downstairs to switch on!) and pressies underneath. We have a present-fest while daddy opens the bucks fizz, then ad-hoc breakfast when we're ready.
Subsequent food is retrieved from the fridge as and when anyone is hungry - there's usually some prawns, dips, lots of crusty bread and a mountain of little silver trays all full of takeaway curry that Daddy collected on Xmas eve It's open house, and people keep popping round, so it's much easier this way and there's always something ready for a hungry visitor!

We go to bed when we're all ready and all the fizz is gone.

We have a 2nd celebration on 12th night, "kings night". Traditionally villages choose 3 men from the community who dress up as the 3 kings. Parents then give their children's presents to them in advance, and on kings night there's a knock at the front door and your children answer to find a fully costumed glittery king bearing gifts. Often with a horse and cart if your village is in the countryside. Cool huh.

No trsaditions here

am at those that have traditions they sound delish.

DH takes the children out to choose a tree a week or so before Xmas

Lots of baking - biscuits, cake etc

Xmas eve - crib service at church, new xmas pj's, might include a dvd to sit and watch this year

Leave cake and a drink for Father Xmas and a carrot for Rudolf

Up Xmas morning to find all the presents have arrived including a stocking for everyone

Xmas dinner around 2pm - traditional turkey with all the trimings

This year we are back in the UK for the first time in 3 years and we will be having Xmas at our own house. Used to go to my parents. Not sure if anyone will join us or if it will just be the 4 of us and a very big bump!!!

Our's is a truly Swedish and Bullerbyesque affair! Festivities begin at Xmas eve lunch with glogg and cold ham as we watch the snow fall outside in Kent. Polar Express goes on the DVD in the afternoon for children while grown ups prepare the evening meal. A bit a of a variation on Swedish Xmas dinner is served at about 6.30pm: Morfar (grandad) signals the start of dinner by putting John Lennon's "So this is Christmas" on the CD player - rather gloomy but a long standing family joke from 1982 - and we tuck into pickled herring and shnapps, fillet steak and Delia's choc log. Santa arrives in person after dinner making our place in the UK the first port of call once he has delivered pressies to all children in Sweden and leaves gifts for the youngest and oldest member of the extended family to distribute to those who have been good. We open presents but don't dance around the tree as living room isn't big enough. We then fall into bed or Midnight Mass and do trad UK Xmas on Christmas Day with stockings and a few pressies for children so they aren't completely overwhelmed on Xmas eve. Boxing day is double hangover.

We have always spent Christmas with my parents and brother and sister-in-law - either our house or theirs.

Every year, we put stockings at the fire place for every person in the house (currently 9, 6 adults, 3 children!). Then, magically, with not too much banging of toes on furniture, throughout the night, person by person the stockings are filled (tiny pressies for the adults from everyone). It is really lovely as the children are excited that the adults have also been visited by Santa and no-one quite knows what has come from where so it feels a little like magic!

Our main food tradition relates to the meat - there has to be turkey, ham, sausage meat stuffing and spiced beef. It is not Christmas for our family without the smell of spiced beef boiling on Christmas Eve.

We are hosting Christmas this year and all the family are coming from IReland so it is very exciting and I am v. smug - cake and puddings already made!