Can you tell me your Christmad Day routine?

[KrayKray00]

Not really an AIBU but got Christmas Day makes me stressed. We end up visiting that many family members that next year I am saying “no, if you want us to visit you can come to ours.”

The day starts quite early 7am open presents at home, go to the in laws, pop to the pub for 1 drink at lunch time go to my parents and have lunch. After lunch we visit elderly members of the family then on the night go to someone’s house for a party.

It is such a long day. One drink limit with lunch due to having the car for travel too. I just want to stay at home, play with the kids toys, lounge around, drink, eat and be merry!

Can you tell me your routine for Christmas I love hearing about other people’s day

Christmas Eve wide family all get together for our Christmas meal. Gifts are exchanged. Children get to open one. We all go home late. Stockings first thing with hot drinks. Breakfast whilst opening presents. Cook for a late lunch, usually going to the park or a walk. Everything on hold for Dr Who. Then play with toys and presents. Leftovers for meal quite late with a movie. Boxing Day off to visit family again.

Up at 6/7 for kids to open stockings in our bed while we all have a cuppa.
Downstairs kids open pile of presents left by Father Christmas.
Breakfast, play with toys, me & husband prep lunch/get ready
11 meet my parents in pub
12 all back to ours for littlest one to nap
1:30 all eat Christmas dinner together
Afterwards presents under the tree
Play more
Buffet tea
Kids to bed
Adults play games & drink
Perfect!

We do about 3 hours travel Christmas Eve and Boxing Day but we get our Christmassyness on in the car. Which is rare as there's very little Christmas in our family (few gifts, decorations, no cards).

Up when DC wake.
Open stockings/drink tea/attempt to wake up.
Have breakfast. This year it’s bacon & Brie croissants for us. Chocolate for DC.
Slowly open tree presents.
11am ish, my DPs come over and DC open presents from them. They stay for an hour or so.
Continue opening presents/playing with toys etc.
3pm - Christmas dinner.
Spend rest of the day slowly getting pissed and eating more food than is natural.

Getting dressed, leaving the house forbidden.

It varies.
This year only the two of us so will get up, bacon sandwiches or something. Go and visit my mother for an hour ( she can't come here any more because of endless, attention seeking dramas and an inability not to get pissed out of her head).
Will stagger the food a bit. Starter around lunch time, main course for dinner and pudding and mince pies later on.
Stockings and presents first thing!

We do presents on Christmas Eve instead.

Just to add something different you might like to consider!

go to work

Times vary as kids are getting older but:
Stocking/Santa gift (Santa provides the stockings in our house)
Dog walk
Put meat on
Presents
Prepare food
Eat food
TV/games
Eat more food
More TV/Games
Bed

That whole routine is of course accompanied by lashings of booze

6:30am get out of bed. Open presents
Eat breakfast
7am phone great gran, DD will phone her dad, DSD will phone her mum
8am-12am play with toys, take scooters/bikes whatever outside to try
12pm my parents will come through for an hour, so open more presents
1pm go for a short walk
3pm have Christmas dinner
Then spend the rest of the day watching TV or playing with toys/games. Kids go to bed around 9pm.

We live around 20 miles from my family and around 10 miles from DPs so we wait until the days after Christmas to visit relatives

DC wake up and bring stockings into our bed to unwrap.
Downstairs for breakfast of pastries/cinnamon rolls/bagels/crumpets.
Get showered and dressed, ready for church.
Church is 10:30-11:30.
Home to get dinner started and open presents under the tree with whichever friends or relatives are joining us that year
Christmas dinner at 3pm-ish, followed by playing games, maybe a Christmas film.
Snacky bits for supper (Indian snack selection this year).

Christmas Eve rather than Christmas Day as that's the day we celebrate. Goes like this:

Wake up when DD wakes up (which isn't early, so maybe around 9, might wake her up if she's not awake by then) and she opens her stocking.

I put the rice porridge on to cook for breakfast and while it cooks me and OH open our stockings and we all open presents from my family/OH's mum and a few other presents.

Then eat breakfast and chill out, listen to Christmassy music until midday when we watch the Declaration of Christmas Peace from Turku.

Then time for the Christmas sauna visit, either at home or at FIL's.

In the afternoon (not sure what time exactly) we go to FIL's to eat the Christmas meal. After that someone (neighbour or grandma's gentleman friend) dresses up as Father Christmas and brings round the rest of the presents and hands them out after the children sing a song to him. Then all open the presents and hang out.

Head home in the evening and relax.

I had my 3rd baby on Tuesday 💙 so this year is a quieter one for us ( normally we spend it with 30 people)

My parents are arriving from France Christmas Eve, my 2 brothers, sil and nephew plus Mil will be here too

My dc are only toddlers & new born so they don’t really understand Christmas as such yet so I doubt the toddlers will get up until their usual time between 7:30-8am.

Then presents. Breakfast smoked salmon bagels & champagne for adults, Christmas tree jam crumpets for little ones.

Play with dc new toys, watch films, new born cuddles & champagne of course

Dinner at 3pm ( dh & mil will cook)

Play some more & eat as many sweets as one can & some alcohol

My dc go to bed about 6pm

We try and be organized and have everything done before dc's go to bed on Christmas eve. We don't do stockings but they each get a wrapped present from father Christmas at the bottom of their beds. Then dh and I have a Chinese takeaway and Christmas film.

Christmas morning we get up and the dc's open their father Christmas presents. We get dressed, nappies etc and I phone my mum. Church at 10am and then to the in-laws for lunch and presents. Then turkey sandwiches for anyone still hungry. Sometimes we go home and sometimes we stay over. We usually watch TV once the little ones are in bed and then the older DC go to bed too.

We did our 'Christmas day' yesterday, as the dc are at their dads this year.
Went like this:
9ish kids wake up and ds1 makes coffee. Open stockings in my room and then bring through gifts from under tree. Once presents are opened everyone chills / plays with gifts.
12ish salmon and cream cheese bagels for brunch.
Lazy afternoon, prep turkey dinner, watch a movie.
6.30 turkey and trimmings (lots of short cuts!)
Watch end of movie, play cluedo.
Bed about 11ish.
The main difference if it had been the 25th we would have got up a bit earlier so we could go to the Christmas service at church.

• Up early.
• Moan about breakfast/lack of.
• Open presents.
• Follow D.C. around with bum bag collecting wrapping paper.
• Eat something light/moan at children for chocolate based breakfast.
• speak to my mum and Dad on phone.
• chase D.C. to get them to speak to nanny and grandad on phone. Fail.
• drink wine.
• play with children.
• start to prepare prawn cocktail starter.
• have children moan about starter.
• drink wine.
• prepare main dinner.
• argue with DP about his being in the way in kitchen.
• drink wine.
• eat dinner, while children moan about being made to eat when they could play.
• tidy up.
• play with children.
• Christmas pudding no bastard likes but it's tradition.
• listen to DP moan about lack of brandy in brandy cream.
• drink wine.
• visit my parents in the hotel their staying in, a 3 minute drive from their house.
• deal with grandmother
• drink lots of wine.
• home.
• film.
• bed.

First Christmas in our new home so we may start some new traditions but usually DD gets up & comes into us about 6.30. She opens some pressies in our bed then we go downstairs & take it in turns to open one pressie each. We open the ones from my folks when they arrive. Breakfast is usually smoked salmon & cream cheese bagels ( DH has porridge). We have Christmas CDs on or the tv & generally chill although not for long as we have to get dinner sorted. Veg prep all done Christmas Eve. My folks arrive about 12 & we aim to have lunch about 1.30 but it’s always later! None of us drink except DF so he brings some wine. After lunch we half watch the Queens Speech, play games & DD will do some sort of activity with DG. Our visitors leave around 5 then we flop! Tea is leftovers - I love cold turkey sarnies with stuffing, bread sauce, cranberry sauce & maybe leftover roasties on the side mmmmm. Once DD is in bed we watch tv.

Each year varies greatly- from me cooking for 18 to us going out.
This year:-
Ex will stay over the night before.
Up about 6am boys (13 & 18) will open there stockings in their room before the youngest will wake us.
Coffee for us two whilst watching them both open their santa presents, and we will exchange adult presents. although there is only a handful of presents for the boys this year as they didn't want hardly anything.
Youngest will probably play straight on his new Xbox games and eldest will go back to bed.
As I'm not going out this year, I get to stay in my new pj's all day :)
About 10am ex mother in law, sister in laws and brother in law will come up, presents exchanged and they will leave about 11:30.
The boys will then go visit my mum and dad (seperatly) and take presents.
I'm not doing dinner this year as i don't feel well enough, so youngest and ex will go down his mums for dinner, and I told eldest to go down his dad's early and have dinner there. However he doesn't want to go until later as all of his soon to be step mums family is coming over- ummm no thanks mum I'll stay here until the evening.
So ex has said to go down with him and the youngest for lunch to his mums but he's undecided.
So me and eldest will have something easy to eat, put on a movie, I'll start my new book and he'll be texting his gf, then we'll probably have a sleep cwtched up like a pair of bookends on the sofa under the throw.
Afternoon, youngest and ex will be back up about 5, and eldest will go down is dad's about 6 (he'll then have a Christmas evening meal down there) and take their presents down.
We'll then just veg with picky food, a couple of drinks, a film (and my book), and have baths using Puebla Christmas smellies before getting into new pj's (which we will get as gifts lol)
This year will be the simplest and easiest we've ever had.

To not be convinced over new blue passports in 2019? I get why they are doing it to show we are not part of the EU etc. But, will we have to pay foe them? At £70 a pop, likely to be a very nice revenue earner for the government. Does anyone know if we will need to pay for them or will they get swapped like for like?

You'll just get the new one when you pay to re-new your old one. We aren't being made to buy new ones.

Up at 7.
Open presents. Eat breakfast then drive an hour to mums.
Lunch presents drink sleep over.

Work, have microwave meal, go to bed.

Up at 7. Stockings. Big Santa presents. Breakfast. Church. Walk. Dinner. Presents under the tree from family. Board game. TV. Bed

@foxyloxy78 😂

It's going to happen as they need renewing.

Wake up when the kids wake up
Put pain au chocolat in the oven and make coffee / juice
Kids / we open presents
Kids play with their toys
Xmas lunch at 1/2pm
Kids play with their toys
Family movie
7pm kids go to bed
8.01pm - open Baileys...

Up early. Kids come into our bed open a couple of stocking presents.

Downstairs, kids open rest of stocking, whilst DH cooks breakfast. (Cooked breakfast is his thing!)

DH dresses and goes to work by 8am (vicar)
Kids and i have a leisurely morning. I cook turkey, prepare some food, kids eats chocolate and get hyper. Then out to (a different) church for 11am.

11.45 dh home, finishes cooking dinner.
12.30 rest of us home. Kids whinge about opening presents.

1pm diinner
Watch the queen.
Open main presents, all under the tree.

Phone/FaceTime round the family.
Maybe play a game or watch a film. Play with presents.

Buffet tea for those who want.
Bed for kids.
Grown-ups watch festive TV till bedtime.