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

Similar to poisoning
Get up, shower, makeup. Watch some TV, eat whatever is in the fridge - I usually have McDonald's but they're not open this year! Start work at 4pm

This year I expect to be up just after 7:30 when the dc are likely to wake. Open presents in pjs while drinking tea, shower, breakfast, dress etc Meet up with my parents at church at 10 am for a short service (few carols, kids take their presents to show off etc) Go with parents to visit elederly neigbour and have a quick drink, then back to our house to collect gifts to take to in laws where er will have lunch.
Home between 4 and 5 and veg out for the rest of the day!!
Boxing day we go to my parents for another Christmas lunch with my side of the family, it's a two minute walk and we will go home when we are ready!

Boys (11,9 &6) up around 7am with stockings.

Make coffee wait for DH to go to the toilet

Tree presents to each other - anything from GPs etc waits until later.

Big mediterranean type breakfast.

Cooking our contribution to food, it is all shared with my parents and cousins whilst kids crack on. Would like to try for a walk but not sure if there will be time/I can get everyone on board.

About 3pm parents and cousins arrive, large buffet type lunch/dinner that we can all just pick at all day.

6.30pm final relative will arrive and open rest of the presents and play games.

Mostly over by 8pm or 9pm at the latest.

Usually this occurs at my parents.

It's a pretty nice day to be honest.

Visit my family on Xmas eve. Then Xmas day it's me, dh and 3 kids, very laid back. Open early, open presents, then Xmas lunch, playing with toys and a few games and then Xmas films.
Boxing day we have dh family over and it's more of the same. The door is locked Xmas day and nobody is to visit.

Get up and unwrap the presents. Have coffee with a few chocolates. Open the Buck's Fizz and have Brie and bacon ciabattas. Put the turkey on. Watch the queens speech. Have a glass of wine. Vegetables prepared Christmas Eve, so watch a movie. Eat dinner. Watch another movie followed by another one. Have a few glasses while watching the movies. Tidy up presents and the kitchen. Fall into bed ready for visiting Boxing Day.

Up normal time (6.30am), open Santa presents and stocking with DD, have breakfast, Open presents from each other, visit my DM (DBro, GFather, Aunts etc will all be there), give DD a packed lunch, while we watch queens speech at DMs, Visit MIL (SIL, GPIl etc all there), then home for Christmas Dinner, play with DDs toys while half watching Christmas Films, then bath and bed.

Up with kids, presents, breakfast etc. Off to friends/neighbours house for drinks and nibbles. Then late lunch, relax a bit, then drive to PIL for raucous night of drinking and games with large extended family.

My kids aren’t early risers so normally I’m awake first about 7.30 then will wake them at 8. Sit in our bed and open stockings.
Go downstairs and open all the rest of the presents.
Get everyone ready and have pancakes with Nutella and strawberries for breakfast. H starts prepping the starter which is smoked salmon blinis this year.
My dad and stepmam call with their presents for the kids around 10am.
Kids play with their presents for a while.
At 12 we go to my Mam and stepdads house for champagne and the starter we bring.
1.30 is lunch time.
Watch a bit of telly and relax.
4pm my cousins come to mams for more presents and champagne.
6pm we walk up home and get kids settled.
Collapse in front of telly with nibbles or turkey sandwiches.

Get up early with DD and DH to do ‘pressies’. 20 minutes of fun after months of planning.

Have breakfast with small amount of booze of choice.

Loiter around house watching crap Christmas TV whilst getting eye twitchy over the mess of opened presents spread all over floor.

Call DM once I know she’s safely up.

Prawn cocktails for lunch

More loitering. More eye twitching. Bit more booze. Many coffees.

Christmas dinner cooked by me for around 4pm.

Smugly enjoy not having to wash up.

Try to tidy up mess to acceptable levels. Give up. Watch more crappy TV.

Bed

• getting dressed is also optional to add in to some point of day. Not compulsory.

Up about 8 (me, my parents, grandmother) - sort the turkey, do tea and coffee/posh biscuits in living room while opening presents (I still get a Christmas sack which gets opened first!)
About 10 have breakfast (smoked salmon and cream cheese bagels). Then get all dressed up/cook/sort out house.
About 1 the rest of the family comes round (they live next door) and we have nibbles and champagne. Lunch about 2/3. Turkey, goose, all the trimmings (there’s usually about 15 of us).
Dinner lasts til about 6, retire to the living room for games and more drinking, then mine and my cousins’ boyfriends come round to join in. Usually play games until midnight :)

Then Boxing Day do it all again!

We get up when the dcs come bouncing in with their stockings, anywhere from 6-7.30.

Go downstairs and open presents while eating celebrations/candy canes/biscuits, tidy wrapping paper and help dcs open/build/play with toys.

Put a dvd in and make bacon/sausage sandwiches after.

Put turkey in the oven about 11.

My dad gets here about 12 for Christmas Dinner, usually eat around 2/3. Have a few drinks.

Watch more dvds and play with dcs. Play a few board/card games. My dad goes home when he's ready to.

We basically eat too much junk, open presents, have dinner and chill out all day watching dvds/movies and have a few drinks. We tried to do the whole visiting everyone on Christmas day and it was too rushed and stressful and made the dcs cranky through tiredness and wanting to play with their toys instead of being in the car. Now we do our own thing Christmas day, my dad comes here for most of the day, and we visit the in-laws on boxing day and see other family and friends at some point over the holidays.

It's so much nicer and less stressful. It helps that both my family and dh's tended to spend Christmas day at home when we were kids so there was no expectation of seeing my parents, his parents, grandparents, aunt/uncles etc all on Christmas day.

Kids wake us around 7am and bring their stockings into our room to show us, then we all go in the living room together to open main gifts.
Breakfast is usually a brew and brioche or something similar.
We all relax/play with gifts and I do traditional Turkey dinner for around 3ish.
Around 7pm we go to a friend's nearby for a house party where we all have a few drinks and the kids all play. Home in the early hours swaying slightly.

Rossigigi

I Love the sound of your Christmas, I love that you let the boys do what they like regarding family and get on with ex

Awake at 6am, the kids come through to open their stockings, which santa delivers to our room as dd doesn't want a man she doesn't know in her bedroom(fair enough really)

Then downstairs for breakfast and no peeking at the lounge. Once we've eaten it's present time!! That tends to last all morning as the kids like to take their time and play with each toy as they unwrap it.

Start get Christmas dinner on, eat and drink whatever we want. People turn up or don't, we have an open house on Christmas. Eat our lunch. Pass out on the sofa watching tv. Eat and drink more. Maybe have a walk, maybe not. Just enjoy each and do what we want.

This is our first year ever not traveling on Christmas day. I'm SO excited.

Up when kids wake (not so early now they are older), open prezzies from Santa under tree. Breakfast. Start and organise buffet. Kids amuse themselves with new things. Parents and brother arrive around 1pm. More prezzies. Eat buffet food all afternoon and have a drink. Play games. Chill out basically and everyone goes about 9pm.

No children here.

Drive 70 miles to my parents Christmas Eve at some point. Pop round to my brothers about 5 to take my niece her Christmas Eve box (Christmas pyjamas, Christmas story, Christmas socks, plate and glass for father Christmas’ snack that we made together last year and hot chocolate stick thing!) bath and put her to bed. Prep veg for Christmas Day.

Christmas morning dad will make bacon butties around 7 and bring that and a cup of tea to mum and me in our respective beds (the only time I drink tea is when I stay at my parents and dad makes me a cup every morning!) we don’t do much but tv is not allowed on. We are going to my brothers this year (5 minutes down the road) so will pack up the many many presents for my spoiled niece (late and only grandchild) and head there about 10:30. Niece will ignore all presents in favour of wrapping paper and boxes and we all open our presents too. We will get a cheque from our parents. I will get a tube of orange smarties (my brother and his girlfriend will get the leftover smarties in a tube!) and a tube of green jelly tots (my brother and his girlfriend will get the leftover jelly tots in a tube! This has been a tradition since I was 5 and proclaimed the orange and green ones are my favourite and mum sorted them every year for me!) my dad will buy me two books my brother will buy me some silly presents and an amazon voucher.

I’ll end up cooking dinner because my brother will find an excuse and his girlfriend doesn’t like cooking. We’ll eat about 5 as that is nieces tea time, full turkey roast with crackers and nice fizz (usually from my employers) play games, bath and put niece to bed, play more games, chocolate puddle pudding for my brother, his girlfriend and me and Christmas pudd for my parents. Go home about 10:30 and bed!

Oh forgot that we play games or cards (now that my parents are getting older and can’t (or won’t) understand the rules to new games!) after dinner until we leave.

This year we are doing Christmas different to how we’ve done it before but this is the plan:
Get up & open DS (18m) stocking
Have breakfast
Open tree presents
Maybe go for a walk if time/weather is ok
Go to my sisters where my mum is cooking for 1230
Open family presents
Stay till evening
Home to eat cheese and collapse in bed

Routine?

The DC wake up whenever they do, open their stocking presents, we have breakfast, open presents throughout the day, have lunch, have Christmas dinner around 4 this year.

When DM was alive and I was younger:

Xmas eve - present by fire, family meal out, then either bed or pub for me and DB with friends, depending on age, whilst parents put out presents etc

Xmas morning - book by bed
One present each
Church (not every year - DM went regularly but the rest of not so much!)
Lunch - either in or at restaurant - table present (token) then pudding present (perfume or similar)
Afternoon - presents
Teatime - ham/salmon etc and games
Bedtime - stockings
Boxing Day - Utd match and a curry!

I had no heart for any of it for years after my mum died, and spent most Christmas days on a beach with my dad. Now my brother has kids and I have DD I can get into it again and am hoping to reprise most of the above, if I can.

Depends a bit on where we are, but it generally goes: get up whenever dc wake up (they have only once been cruel and work us at a silly early hour), stockings and presents. Breakfast of whatever each person wants wherever and whenever they fancy it. Someone makes bucks fizz. Playing with presents and eating chocolates begins. Dinner slowly cooked by various adults to be ready around 3pm. Wine and beer will have been started by midday. House will look like a bomb hit toys r us by the time we eat. Post dinner will mostly be focused on playing with presents and dancing to Xmas songs and at least one adult getting very drunk whilst the dc consume their body weights in sugar. Dc will all suddenly fall asleep at some point and there will be desultory attempts at tidying up by the remaining soberish adults, who will quickly give up and join the already drunk ones in alcohol consumption and TV and arguing over dead celebrities. It's always fun.

Up by 7am. Open half the presents. Start preparing the venison casserole, put it on at 9am, ready by 3pm.
Make breakfast (smoked salmon and scrambled eggs), first glass of light wine by 10am.
Watch a bit of TV. Start cooking the DDs turkey breast joint at 1pm.
Around 2 pm put on the frozen roast potatoes and parsnips and microwave the frozen vegetables (I refuse to spend ages cutting up stuff).
Dish up and serve. Only four of us. Never have anyone else over as they are either abroad or can't drive to us.
Meal finished by 5pm. Second bottle of wine
Watch Doctor Who
Snore in front of TV

Then on Boxing day, go to niece's to meet the rest of the family still in UK. Niece and I take turns to host every year as everyone else either lives in a tiny house or a bedsit.

This year we have my side coming round Christmas evening (we don't normally host) and won't be going over to our local for our normal few drinks at lunch time.
So the plan for this year is:
Up about 6am, coffee, fag and open the presents from my in laws.
Skype the in laws in New Zealand (this is normally for about an hour or so)
Open the rest of the presents (probably with a glass of peach bellini)
Phone other family
Get the potatoes, carrots and parsnips boiled up ready for roasting (with a glass of peach bellini)
Get selves dressed (hair and makeup too for me) (with a glass of peach bellini)
Get rest of dinner cooked (with a glass of peach bellini)
Eat dinner and clean up (with a few glasses of champagne)
Snuggle up on the sofa and have a little nap
Get nibble cooked (with a glass of peach bellini)
My side coming round at 6 so more presents, a few games with the kids, lots of nibbles and champagne.

Boxing day we have a bit of open house thing in the morning, with nibbles, and then round sDS and sDIL with all DH (adult) kids and grandchildren for presents, games, food and drinks

27th it's round 3 at a different sDS and sDIL for more presents, games, food and drinks. (we will see them on boxing day too but we always do something at their house too over Christmas)

The 28th will most likely be a pajama day (with a bit of online shopping thrown in for good measure!)

Up whenever the children get up - this year I'm expected it to be around 6:30. Which suits me fine because that seems to be my natural waking time lately.

So I will put a Christmas playlist on YouTube, tree on and DH will make the morning drink while i supervise the children with a couple of presents.

DH will probably have a cigarette then come join us, prepared with scissors and a bag.

Don't bother with breakfast until 8-9ish which is either bacon or egg sandwich. Tradition I grew up with, and it's just stuck.

DH will have a nap once presents have been opened and kids are happy playing. He is terrible on little sleep so I think he'll want a nap haha. I'll tidy up a bit at that point.

MIL is coming over at some point, possibly 11ish. So we'll see them for a couple of hours.

Then we go up to my mums who lives over the road in the afternoon. Stay there for the rest of the day/evening. Kids take a few of their new toys with them.

This year they are getting bikes so we might go out for an hour or so - if we can't persuade them to wait until Boxing Day!