We need your Christmas customs and family traditions

we normally pick the tree up xmas eve morning and decorate it in the afternoon before going to church. am going to do the lights on thing to show santa has been this year.

oh yes we have the 12 days of xmas presents too. we put them on the table and eat them at breakfast. they are called table presents - don't ask my mum came up with that one.

Whe the dc were little we used to put the dec's up after they had gone to bed, they thought the christmas fairy's had done it, their face's were a picture, they do the same for their lo's now.

Xmas Eve ham cooking followed by ham'n'eggs breakfast - fab idea MrsMattie, am going to adopt that one!

Christmas eve, long walk in the afternoon no matter the weather (nearly) come back for dinner for the boys early bath for the boys then they get to come downstairs to put their stockings on the hearth and we sit with milk and hot chocolate and look at the Gratitude Journal - (this years scrapbook) of all the great things we have done this year tickets for train journeys and photos etc.
Kids in Bed DH and I have a supper of cheese, apples crackers and port whilst we put the hidden pressies under the tree and fill the stockings, early bed for us.
Christmas morning, DH makes tea or milk and we sit in our bed with the children and we all open our stockings. Croissant with bacon for breakfast 1 pressie from under the tree then church after church coffee and mincepies and more pressies and chat until lunch (about 2pm)after lunch walk or film depending on mood of house.. few more pressies.

I love the fact that the pressies last all day seems to make the magic last longer..

I LOVE Christmas getting over excited now...

A generalised sense of horror and panic starting some time around mid-Novemeber and growing to an inevitable crescendo around the Very Special Day.

This year I may well take Mandelbrot's approach.

On the good side I always remember I am not enduring the absolute horror of Family Christmas inflicted on me every year by my insane parents.

LOL@Kathy

Xmas Eve afternoon - mulled wine / port / sherry & mince pies while listening to Carols from Kings and wrapping presents. DS has 'Xmas pyjamas' and leaves out the obligatory carrots for Rudolph and mince pies for Santa, and hangs his stocking.

Also, I always cook the ham on Xmas Eve so the house is filled with the smell (then have some of it with eggs for Xmas Day breakfast)

Xmas Day - nothing that different from anyone else really!

The traditional three hour discussion between parents and MIL on Boxing Day about 'what did you call muffins when you were growing up in the 1950s?' 'Oh really, we called them crumpets,' 'What about bread rolls?' etc.

Oh I LOVE this thread. I'm going to read it every day

I LOVE CHRISTMAS (will put in my traditions when I'm not...ahem....supposed to be taking dc to school/nursery)

My family is quite relaxed, children open presents first thing, quite manic, dinner and leftovers later.

PIL is more organised, they demand sherry and the Queens speech, presents after lunch and you have to open one at a time and everyone watches you. I tell you, I'm fed up of the whole present thing after about an hour or two of it, says nothing for the kids.

12 days of christmas....

You get a small gift (approx £1 each max) for the 12 days following Christmas. It keeps the magic going longer and stops that deflated "well is that it?" feeling.

oooooooooooooooh where is cod
someone needs to say

'we dn't gvie afl ying FARK about yer CHritmas trditionas

stokgings and biucks fizz and borad gamesm and all that shjt'

so I've dopne it

We're in Australia now, so still working on our change of hemisphere traditions.

At the moment I buy all of the toys in the July sales [job done emoticon], so that's when it all starts for me .

In October I start the extremely brandy-ridden Christmas cake [can fell elderly neighbours in one bite].

1st December we start with the felt advent calendar and possibly a playmobil one too.

We start playing the Christmas Compilations I put together on the Apple TV, which has all the old christmas videos and dodgy Christmas compilation albums.

Then I get a real tree a few weeks beforehand and we decorate it with one new outrageously overpriced bauble from David Jones every year, supposedly topical.

Dec 16th is DD's birthday, just to complicate things.

Dec 21st I generally remember to send the cards to the UK, always emblazoned with my motto "better late than never" on the back of the envelope.

Christmas Eve we make the reindeer food and put it outside with a carrot for rudolph and a mince pie and drink for Santa.

Then after DD is asleep we put the presents under the tree and fill her stocking (chocolate coins, satsuma, pens, little books etc).

At about 5am DD gets up and the morning starts with champagne for us while she unwraps her presents.

After the present unwrapping frenzy we play and DP starts with a huge traditional Christmas Lunch, despite the 38' heat. We have brussels (specially imported), roast potatoes, stuffing, roast parsnips, lamb and turkey joints, cauliflower cheese, peas, carrots in honey, gravy, bread sauce and yorkshires. We eat it outside and marvel at the sun and say how it isn't the same when it's not cold.

Normally too full and too hot to eat the alcoholic cake after that.

Then play with DD and her new presents, maybe watch a film. Later in the day we video skype back to mum and family in the UK.

This year DD and I arrive back in Sydney on Christmas morning, so will all be different.

For me it always used to be and has remained the same minus one thing. I'll get to the minus one thing in a minute. Slightly amended due to where I now live.

Tree goes up first weekend in December - new tradition. Christmas Eve, mince pies baked, turkey, duck or lamb prepped and the veggies ready.

Stockings that have been left by the boys are gathered and filled and replaced outside doors.

Christmas am - Await excited screams, then one by one we open or Stockings . Breakfast, Bucks Fizz for mummy and croissants with ham and cheese for all. The review stocking fillers. Christmas Dinner is 2pm and we always used to be finished in time for the Queen's Speech, corny but true. Now we just retire to the Family Room. Then we hand out all the presents to one and all and one by one we open and admire. Then more alcohol and bad television. PM, smoked salmon and nibbles, more alcohol and if the weather's snowy, sledding yeah.

Tree still goes down for Twelve Night. Some traditions are hard to break.

I'm working this xmas

Phil Spector's Christmas Album

Champagne and nibbles

Log fires

Expensive wines

kids present overload

tasty food overload

more wine

more tasty food (-perhaps finally the cheese board extravaganza!)

games, crosswords,

more wine

chocolate

pass out

I can't wait

We have eggs florentine for breakfast.
And always end up having dinner too late.
Then we have the most amazing Christmas pudding made by Granny - although this will be the last Christmas we get to do that; fortunately she thought to make the puddings before she passed away. They will taste extra good this Christmas.

BCNS- had to lol at your post!! The Christmas tree arguement is a firm tradition in this house too! DH ALWAYS starts muttering about an artificial one this year, I insist on a real one. WE go to the garden centre where I immediately fall in love with one which would be more at home in Times Square, he spies one that would fit on top of the TV

And so the haggling begins. We come home with a tree that he thinks is too big and I think is too small. We knock 75% of the needles off it trying to get it in and out of the car (cue more moaning from DH!), then we ALWAYS need to saw a bit off the bottom to fit it in the pot (cue more moaning..)

I refuse to ever throw a Christmas decoration out, and I buy new ones each year too- each one reminds me of the year we.....Drives DH crazy- he would have a fibreoptic thing on a shelf left to his own devices.

Every Christmas I slave over the Good Food mag to make the PERFECT Christmas dinner, and it is always too much. I like everything to be completely traditional and insist on making mince pies and cranberry sauce even though noone likes them, then I get cross that noone eats them.

Every year we decide that we are cutting back, and that the kids really don't need or appreciate the huge amounts of stuff they get. But every year we go OTT and they get too much. And they don't need/ appreciate it.

The adults open their presents at midnight on Christmas Eve so we can concentrate on the kids in the morning.

I take the kids to church while DH walks the dogs

We always play Trivial Pursuits on Christmas Night

We always have a glut of wrapping paper and cards, then forget and go out and buy more the next year, only to discover last year's stash in february.

On Boxing Day we take bets on how long it will be before MIL says "Well, that's it all by now!"

• Make biscuits to ice with golden balls and hang from the Christmas tree (tree is extremely tasteful affair: my colour scheme only and one new ornament each year chosen by me )

• Week before Christmas start reading 'The Best Christmas Pageant Ever' to the DCs as bedtime story.

-Christmas Eve I always intend to do what my friend does and make Shepherd's Pie and Angel Delight for dinner, but always forget. We do read the Christmas story to the DCs when they are ready for bed from my favourite Children's Bible

-Christmas morning is a working morning for DH but the kids are allowed to open one present before church. The rest are opened before lunch.

-The best bit is putting the children to bed and watching dodgy Christmas telly with the leftovers.

Normally we all go to my parents for Christmas, they have a big house in the country and me and my siblings, some cousins, often a couple of great aunts and uncles... around 60-100 people pile in, all the children sleep in the playroom and everyone gets new pyjamas the night before.
On Christmas ee we go to church and have a party with friends and nibbles, wine etc.
Children go to bed at about 10ish, tree is put up in the drawing room and presents left underneath! Stockings are delievered at about 2-3am by the 2 or 3 most sober grown ups!
Children normally wake at about 6-7am but know 8am is when they can come through to their respective parents! Stockings are opened when they wake up!
At about 8:15 everyone goes down for a big champagne/bucks fizz breakfast with lots of danish pastries, bacon, nuts etc.
After breakfast we all go into the drawing room, light a big fire and open all the presents!
After present opening the DCs play with new toys until about midday when everyone gets dressed and goes for a walk around the woods and lake, if its snowy sledging is involved
Meanwhile Christmas lunch has been prepared by an assortment of adults (I am part of the cleaning up team as I cannot cook for toffee) The main meal is eaten at about 4-5ish and after that in the evening at about 7-8ish friends often come over again for old school party games (pin the tail on the donkey anyone?) the kids tend to fall where they drop throughout the evening and by about 2ish everyone goes to bed.

Xmas has been this way for as long as I can remember and its so magical!

Then between boxing day and new years we often go to DHs parents or they come to ours.

My mother always serves up half a grapefruit with a cherry on top for breakfast. I'm sure it was probably chic in the 60's.

xmas eve - we always go to the crib service and look at all the xmas lights on the walk back, have xmas eve dinner, open xmas eve pjs, get dressed for bed and watch a xmas film. the kids drink hot chocolate with marshmallows and the adults drink mulled wine/baileys/scotch. then we put out water and a carrot for rudolph and one of the above drinks and a cookie for santa and we put our pillow cases in the living room where we would like to sit and open our pressies in the morning.

xmas day - first person to wake up gets everyone else up and we all go downstairs together. everyone picks one present out of their pillowcases to open and plays with it whilst the adults make breakfast and drink bucks fizz. All the pillowcases have a £1 coin in th bottom cos of the story that father Christmas once dropped some gold coins while coming down the chimney. The coins would have fallen through the ash grate and been lost if they hadn't landed in a stocking that had been hung out to dry.

After our yummy english breakfast we go to church. We come back and open the rest of the pillowcase presents whilst lunch is cooking. we have xmas cds playing non-stop throughout the house all day. we eat at about 2-3pm then we open family/friends presents and watch tv, play games etc. For supper we always have sandwiches and nibbles and then the kids go to bed and the adults stay up and get drunk tehe.

Just general acute depression, normally.

We like to keep things simple.

When I was growing up we would go out and tramp around in the snow to find the right tree,(grew up in Vermont) cut it down, drag it up the hill, let the snow melt off it, then put it up in the living room and decorate it as a family, then turn out the lights, sit in front of the fire and admire it (no, really!)

My MIL has a nice tradition of having proper real tinsel on the tree (made out of lead) and also having real candles which are lit and we take bets on the first candle to blow out. (Someone always in the room when they are lit, obviously!)