Come and tell me how you celebrate Christmas

[PamelaTodd]

I was musing how the run up to Christmas Day has changed over the generations from a period of fasting and anticipation to a season of hygge and indulgence, and how Christmas used to be the start of a period of celebration lasting into January, and now can mark the end of the madness. Or how it can be just a single day to be enjoyed or endured, and not a period at all.

I feel a little bit stuck between residues of my childhood and the demands of modern living. How Christmas is celebrated can become a morally charged issue very quickly, so maybe I’m seeking a tiny bit of reassurance that it’s ok to do things differently now and mostly I’m just curious about when and how other people do it.

We have all the boring stuff like shopping and wrapping... we always by att least one new decoration every year, it's become tradition.
Decorations go up in the week leading up to December (I like them to be up for the whole month of Dec)
Christmas box 'delivered' by Elf (on the shelf if you like)
This consists of Christmas themed: Crafts to make, books, colouring/puzzle pages, a cuddly toy (sounds like the generation game now) pyjamas, snacks & hot chocolate, mugs.
Last year I went overboard as I was convinced it would be DDs last Christmas believing so we had duvet covers & cushions etc too
In the run up to Christmas we play games (with a christmas theme if possible, holiday fluxx for example) have evenings where we read from the books in the box, watch films.
We have a visit booked in with Father Christmas at our local-ish wildlife centre for DC every year, usually we try to book it for the 22nd/23rd depending on how early or late DH & I finish work.
We also have a drive round at night to look at all the lights on houses etc.
The day before Christmas eve is spent doing all the final housework, as I don't intend to do any washing etc over the Christmas period.
Christmas eve is spent at home just us, we play games, watch films etc and a takeaway for dinner.
Christmas day, breakfast, some presents, Christmas dinner, more games/films
Boxing day, breakfast, presents, Buffet lunch/dinner that can be 'grazed' all day, we set it out in time for lunch, then everyone just eats when they are hungry from that point on.
The next few days are opening more presents, and seeing extended family/friends.
We don't ever open all the presents on one day, we spread it out over at least a week. That way the DC actually use what they have been given, instead of a pile of presents in a corner & only one thing being used/played with.

That's our Christmas in a nutshell.
I pretty much don't leave my house in Dec other than work. I love the run up to Christmas. It's my favourite time of year.

I am well aware that my version of Christmas is not to everyones taste, but I simply do not care, it makes me & my family happy, so that's what counts.
I know one person who won't put decorations up until 22nd Dec, and takes them back down on boxing day. That's it, Christmas is over and done with. She cannot get to grips with me having them up for the whole of Dec, it would drive her mad, but I can't imagine only having them up for 4 days!

We are all different and you should do whatever makes you happy in the Christmas season, there is no right or wrong I think

The festive period definitely starts at the beginning of Dec for us. I do a Christmas breakfast for my children and give them their advent calendars. Although they are normally the picture ones (which they love) - although we have done the Lego or Playmobil ones a couple of times. I was never allowed a chocolate one growing up - I think my mum thought they were a bit common! I think the picture ones are more Christmassy with the winter scenes and little pics and my dc enjoy the anticipation of Christmas day with each door opened.

I decorate the dining table for the breakfast so that is the first bit of decoration. Then I gradually decorate over the next couple of weeks then get the tree about a week before Christmas.

I must admit I am a bit about those that put all decs up as well as the tree at the beginning of Dec and then take it down on Boxing Day. For me Christmas is the 12 days so they have it all long before Christmas but take it down before Christmas is over! Mine don't come down til the 6th. But of course each to their own!

Over December we go and see the Nutcracker at the cinema and go to see the Father Christmas at the local fun fair. We usually go to a panto too but are going to Disney on Ice this year.

I do a Christmas Eve box for my DC. This year I am planning on onsies, mugs, bath bombs and a chocolate lolly which is a fun transition into bedtime on Christmas Eve.

We do stockings from FC and the presents under the tree are from us and other family.

Ummmm....we tend to like to spread the pre Xmas stuff out too so start the last week of November ish... decorations go up the Saturday closest to the 1st but if the 1st is a Monday or maybe even a Tuesday I have been known to sneak them up before December. The kids have a rag doll angel (advent angel) as I despise elf on the shelf. Angel is nice and kind and brings treats and good things and we don’t really even pretend she is alive or real as we don’t do that really. We don’t even do Santa I’m afraid. But we love Xmas!! We have a huge box of books that get read during the advent candle burning the day number... we graduallly bring out the pjs and bedding etc over the month. We have a North Pole breakfast and visit garden centres and do panto on the day the schools break
Off.

Buy all my presents online from my desk at work.

Go to my parents in Xmas day for a meal if they're about. If not, do not a lot with OH.

That's it.

I start my preparations for Christmas around now with a massive clean and declutter of the house. Somehow knowing it's for the Christmas period makes it more enjoyable!

The rest of the family starts Christmas at the beginning of December with our December box containing Christmassy books, toys, our nativity scene and advent calendars. Baby Jesus is wrapped up like a parcel and is hidden somewhere different every day for the children to find. He is unwrapped last thing on Christmas eve and placed in the nativity scene. Our advent calendars have chocolate in them but also a carol/Christmas song for each day. The calendars are opened after dinner and then we all have a sing song.

We decorate quite early as we do a lot of entertaining through December. There is a tradition in our family that I like the Christmas tree to be perfect but each day the children sneak random home made decorations (they make them purposefully bad) onto the front of the tree. I then feign to not know where they have come from and grumpily remove them, only for worse ones to appear the next day. The children seem to find this hilarious!

We do a lot of crafts and baking through Christmas and invite friends around to join us too. Dried orange slices, salt dough stars, pine cone ornaments, gingerbread houses etc.

We try to fill the house with candles and the children like to light them as soon as it gets dark (most are battery operated so they just press a button). We also fill the house with music and there are always carols playing in the background somewhere.

I like to reflect on the season and have just bought a book of Celtic advent meditations for this year - it's lovely to read those by candlelight when the children have gone to bed

We take the children to London to look at the lights but we don't really do santa so there isn't a trip to a grotto.

When we get close to the 25th there are lots of church services and the baking intensifies! On the day itself we go to church and then spend the rest of the day with family.

I tend to start prepping quite early (mincemeat, Xmas pud etc in September, buy presents through the year). This way I feel December is more relaxed and I’m not rushing around.

We put our outside lights (loads, we’ve got more ever year!) up at the end of November but don’t turn them on. The tree and indoor decorations go up on the first Saturday in December, and all the lights get turned on then too. Last year was the first year DD had an advent calendar and she loved it.

DD is only 2, so this is the first year I think she will ‘get it’ a bit more - although loved all the lights and music last year. We started taking trips to different local garden centres during the dark afternoons to look at all the displays. Was so much fun (and free!) - will do that again this year. Will go and see a Father Christmas at our RHS garden again as can combine it with a nice walk and lunch too.

We usually have a ‘lunch with santa’ that MIL arranges at a local restaurant in early December, which DD and her cousins loved last year. We also always have a Christmas lunch (minus children) with our oldest friends. It’s often the only time in the year when we are all together.

This year we will have Christmas Day at our house with my parents and our friends. Last year I managed to prep so well that we managed a lovely long walk in the morning after DD had opened her presents, so hoping to do that again. Boxing Day we will be with DHs family - we alternate the days each year.

Baby Jesus is wrapped up like a parcel and is hidden somewhere different every day for the children to find. He is unwrapped last thing on Christmas eve and placed in the nativity scene

I love this idea, I may pinch it, or something similar, to add to my own festivities.

I'm very pleased to see I'm not the only one who likes to have decorations up at the start of December, I feel like I am in my own family/friends circle.
I'm very often told it's too early etc, and I'll be bored of them by the day, but I never ever am. The kids LOVE it. Even my teens who are 'meh' about just about everything these days!

Christmas was always a big celebration in both mine & DHs families when we were kids too, which is nice as we tend to agree on all things Christmassy and we love finding and adding new things to either our decoration collection, or a new tradition each year.

We did Elf on the shelf last year for the first time, the only one who really enjoyed it was my youngest (she was 6) so I don't know if we will continue it through the years, just while my smallest enjoys it I think...

Lovely to hear about all the different traditions. Until I had dc, I didn’t put up decorations until the middle of December. Then we began putting them up the first weekend and between advent calendars, a trip to Santa, ice skating and lots of crafts and baking December is a very exciting month.

I love the slow days after Christmas, visiting family and eating Quality Street for lunch. By New Year, no one wants to eat anything anymore. I’ve never really gelled with new year - I’m not one for resolutions. I feel that September, when the dc go back to school, is my real new year. But the Christmas holidays drag on for another week. The weather is miserable, we’re all bored of board games and we’re tripping over piles of presents that haven’t yet found a proper home.

I think that trying to drag Christmas on until the 6th Jan is the bit that’s not working for me.

It's quiet, just DH, DS and me I have always loved Christmas and grew up wanting all the lovely traditional stuff - my family didn't make a big deal out of it, preferring New Year (older generation Scots).

I always order a real tree for delivery mid-December and keep it up til 12th night, decorations go up the same day the tree does. The trees are always fabulously fresh but I don't trust them to last all month in a centrally-heated house, plus DH is not a big fan of Christmas decorations (he indulges me). I have a box of Christmas books which comes down from the loft in October, mainly for Nigel Slater's beautiful Christmas Chronicles, which I then read daily.

My job is really un-festive and can be quite tough emotionally at that time of year, so I take a good chunk of annual leave over the season and the tree arriving usually coincides with the start of this. We have a festive afternoon tea in a lovely stately home on the 2nd weekend of December, and usually go to see some illuminations too.

I love Christmas cards and wrapping and filling a hamper and scribbling lists in my Christmas planner, playing Christmas music, our annual walk around the neighbourhood to check out the lights, all of it really!

Very reluctantly. I hate it - the rampant commercialism, the unachievable expectations, the hypocrisy (let's spend masses of money on mounds of tat while half the world is starving - and let's do it in the name of Christianity), the kids from poor families who have to endure the commercial onslaught and wonder why Santa doesn't bring them much. Oh it's just too awful 🤷‍♀️.

Last year a really lovely thing we did was a christmas craft afternoon. My dh loved it which made it more special. We did wreath making, candle making, christmas scratch art and bauble painting. My ds still talks about it

Dh and I have a fairly recent tradition of a trip to Budapest the week before xmas (missed last year because ds tiny but had been 3 in a row before that and are going back just the two of us for a couple of nights this year) - fairy lights, markets, mulled wine and amazing food! That feels like the start of Christmas to me.

Other wise we put decs up 12 days before or sooner if I can convince dh and I make gingerbread for the day. We used to have xmas eve together and xmas day at respective families but with ds we're doing xmas at one then boxing day at the others.

Love the build up with shopping and wrapping with a glass of wine in the evening, I also tend to coordinate wrapping with personalised details and charms.

At my families we do stockings, breakfast, presents, lunch and board games into the early hours.

Christmas in my head is a warm glowy light colour and smells like cinnamon.

I start to buy presents in October. My decorations go up last weekend Nov/first weekend of Dec (depending on when I can convince DH). DS is 2 this year so I have more things planned.

We will have an activity advent calendar, as well as a chocolate one, I have printed off and will laminate 24 lyrics to carols so he can pick one each night to sing. I will wrap up 24 books for him to open and read.

We are going to Kew Gardens, visit Santa on the Watercress line and host our usual open house mince pies and mulled wine.

Christmas morning we have pancakes for breakfast, presents and then I get cracking on dinner. We are at the in laws this year but they live round the corner so will be at home in the morning.

I live for Christmas but the day isnt my favourite. I much prefer the run up.

I put the decorations up at thr last weekend in November the start of December and remove them on New Year's Day. Christmas feels over by then! I have a cat now and last Christmas had to dismantle my tree early because the little bugger kept trashing it, so probably just a couple of pop up trees this year that she won't be able to scale and fling glass baubles on the floor.
We have Christmas day at home and Boxing day at my mum's. Might change things a bit this year and eat in the evening rather than lunchtime - fed up of spending all morning prepping food and then feeling like I have to rush before visitors come over.
I enjoy the build up rather than the event itself I think. My DC are too old to believe and mostly have lots of their own money do it's hard to buy for them now. I used to love the big pile of presents from Father Christmas that used to magically appear over night. I especially enjoyed finding that little bonus gift that they really loved but weren't expecting (light sabres were a particular success one year and lasted for ages, surprisingly). Now they want grown up stuff so I'm thinking of how to change traditions.

I am not sure it has changed all that much for those of us in our 30s and 40s however it has changed massively for those in their 60s and 70s and the reasons are the advent of mass consumerism, advertising etc.

Things I do the same as my parents did are;

• Department store Santa visit. We did the whole 'experience' thing and for me it took away so much of the magic.
• Pantomime with family
• Watch the Late Late Toy show (in Ireland)
• Go into town to see the lights
• Make a Christmas cake
• Week before make cookies etc
• Attend mass at Christmas and more regularly in the run up ( we are sporadic mass attendees)
• Spend lots of time with family

Things we do differently

• Chocolate advent calendar - we didn't have any as kids
• New Christmas PJs - they didnt exist when we were kids
• We put the decorations up much earlier in December but take them down New Years Day or Day after.
• We generally go to the cinema to see a Christmas movie

I don't do things like a huge Santa experience (did it once when they were little but hated it and felt the traditional one was much more magical)
We don't do smiggle / lego/ barbie advent calendars - it is gifts before Christmas. WHY
We also dont do Christmas eve boxes - I dont get that concept at all

I love Christmas and happily buy presents and plan all year but DH thinks I’m crazy . We generally put our decorations up early-mid December, whenever we have an afternoon to do it really. My children are still young enough to enjoy elf on the shelf so we do that. We always go to see Santa and his reindeer arrive at a local garden centre in early December. My mum likes to take them to see Santa which is usually in a department store at some point in December. Our elf ‘leaves’ on Christmas Eve and leaves behind a box for the children which contains new PJs, a bath bomb, and a new story - to wind them down for bed more than anything else! On Christmas Day - the children open their presents in the morning (stockings in our bed, presents downstairs) and sometimes we eat at home, sometimes we go out for lunch. Evening is spent watching TV in PJs with turkey sandwiches. On Boxing Day we do my favourite bit - a long cold walk at a local forest followed by cheese on toast and a mug of tea at the outdoor cafe. I love that bit We tend to see family in the days following Christmas. Decorations are always down on New Years Day, I’m not one for resolutions but I do like to feel fresh and ready for another year.

Bumping this thread because I love to see all the different ideas.
I'm hoping more people are looking at the Christmas subsection now it's September and Christmas is inching closer. [santa]