What Christmas traditions do you have in your family?

[GingerAndLemonn]

It’s just dawned on us (husband and I) that we’ve never ever spent a Christmas just us as a family. We’ve always gone to various family members homes or had people here. We’ve decided this year we just want it to be us and the kids.

Im just scouting for some ideas of what other families get up to over Christmas? We’d love some traditions that we can do each year and that our kids might then do with their kids.

So happy to see a Christmas thread !!!!! We usually do just the 5 of us. We always get new pj Christmas Eve.. make cookies for Santa and watch home alone! Beyond excited for crimbo

Ooh, we love Christmas! We have quite a few little traditions that we enjoy. My absolute favourite one is not going on about Christmas when it's still only August. Love that one ❤️

In our house TV is banned
Xmas eve is the big party night for extended family as on Xmas day we all spend it with smaller nuclear family units

My mum, myself and my DC have only ever opened our stockings in the morning. The tradition is that they would always have something in them to keep you busy.
We then open the presents under the tree after lunch.
It's a tradition that has been around since 1950 and I can't see it changing in my lifetime.

We open one present late Christmas Eve

We got a Christmas Memory box tradition from International Elf Service - so you can record your Christmas days as a family for 20 years - and we love love love their elf letters - how old are your kids? They’re just brilliant for their reading and we all have a right laugh together over them.

Christmas ham is a must - as is

Yearly Christmas cracker competition, usually something like who gets the best wind up toy or the biggest value of chocolate coins or a puzzle and the quickest person to solve theirs

Every year I take the children and they each pick a decoration for the tree. We have a lovely day out together and our tree is a miss mash of memories

On the days leading up to Christmas, as a we watch Elf as a family. The teenagers now have to be bribed with copious snacks. This year I ha e ELF monopoly, so a family have of that before hand.

Christmas Eve is the big ticket here Scandinavia, so Scandi presents are opened after the Christmas table dinner but the children get stockings on Christmas morning and English presents too.

The only thing we do is take the D.C. to pick an Xmas ornament each for the tree. I keep a list of what they pick each year and they will have them when they set up their own home for their own tree.

We have the same ornament that has been wrapped and gifted from the last recipient to the next for over 20 years. If you get gifted it you make a big fuss of how rubbish it is but really everyone wants to be chosen. It’s not a substitute for gifts but an extra.

@PainsandAches - we always did talcum powder and wellington boot prints under the Christmas tree to make it look like Father Christmas has "been" . Also the carrot and a glass of whisky. I have to say DS is now 25 and we still do it. 😊There are no emoticons to express my embarrassment

DS usually breaks up on the 15th Dec. Then we put up the tree, xmas lights on the eaves. I decorate the hall with evergreens and ribbons, winding up the bannisters. Xmas cards all hung in the sitting room.

We also do school carol concert, and a theatre or show, generally have open house that week. Relatives & friends visiting.

Xmas eve - make Yule log, prep veggies, put presents under tree. New pjs.

Xmas day - special breakfast - maybe scrambled eggs, smoked salmon, glass of fizz. Open xmas stockings and one big present. Stick meat in oven, on low, then out for a long walk. Back by 1pm. cook veggies, eat. retreat to sitting room for rest of presents, board games, video calling relatives. Supper of nibbly bits - ham, pickles, salad, bread - no cooking involved.

Boxing day - DS goes to his dad's for a week. I spring clean/redecorate 😃 Start the new year

"Yeah this is what I’m worried about! It’s going to feel boring just the 4 of us."

I can't understand this at all, although we're all different.

Every few years DH and I have Christmas just the two of us and it's wonderful!
Some of the things we've previously done over December:

• gone ice skating
• made sloe gin
• taken a trip to a nearby town to see the lights
• seen 'owls fly by lamplight' at a nearby sanctuary
• attended carols by candlelight
• and I always go foraging and make my own door wreath

Christmas Eve we always go to an ancient country pub for one drink, then home to something like fish pie and some Christmas films (such as Bad Santa, which my husband will tolerate!)

On the day itself we go for a walk up a mountain near where we live, then home for smoked salmon blinis and champagne for breakfast, and we open our presents by the tree with a roaring fire.

Then we have a slap up Christmas roast for late lunch and watch some more Christmas films and TV and maybe play a game. Some cheese and crackers in the evening and then bed!

When it comes to childhood, my favourite memory from my childhood each year was sitting with mum on Christmas Eve, prepping the Brussels (to feed 14!) and listening to Carol's at Kings.

Last year and the year before were our first "just us" Christmases (thanks covid) It's not for me. I love going around my parents house and having my siblings there with their children. The kids didn't enjoy it as much either. We tried to do the same things, but it was just too quiet and not as fun. DH preferred it though!

Before I moved in with my partner, there was me, mum, dad, brother and sister at home. On Christmas eve we used to put on a buffet of picky foods that my mum let us cook and we would exchange gifts that we’d bought each other! I remember we also used to try pass time by picking a Christmas card from the many we received and we’d try and draw the front of it! When we got older we used to go to the cinema on Xmas eve. Christmas morning was usually the same, we’d get our stocking and open them in my parents room. Then we’d go down and open presents, whilst my dad supplied us with thick cut toast!! Me and my mum always decorate the Christmas dinner table together whilst my dad nipped out to the pub out of the way 😂 We had table presents during dinner, usually all linked so one year we got a Nintendo Wii with games etc. There’s only my sis still at home now and me and my brother both have little boys 6 months apart so starting to do our own traditions x

We always have a chippy tea on Xmas Eve while watching a family Christmas film. Then once DS is in bed DH and I crack open the Bailey’s and cheese and crackers and watch Die Hard (1 or 2 - we rotate!)

Our family Christmas traditions are mostly about wider family - we go to stay with my parents and one set of relatives come for lunch, then another joins us by teatime. Some people come and go, and then the day ends with about 15 people squashed around the seldom used dining room table at midnight. I would never choose a small Christmas, although I would make the best of it if I had no option (Coronavirus Christmas was ok).

We don't really do all the wreaths and pigs in blankets and new pyjamas and fancy advent calendar stuff, although I always intend to.

I miss big family Christmases but we've lost a lot of family members so ours are just the 4 of us and my mum.

We don't have Christmas dinner because no one likes turkey and I'm a veggie. We have a fancy roast on Christmas Eve (beef usually) and pork on Boxing Day. We have had buffets on Christmas day but I'm refusing this year as no one eats them either. Makes me sad as I love to cook and like the feasting aspect of Christmas day but I am the only one.

We do however always play family games, don't get dressed and get my mother on the sherry by 10.30. Other than the food battle it's very relaxed and fun if small.

When I was younger my brother had a friend whose mum did this and he genuinely believed until he was 13!!

That's where I got the inspiration from

I will tell mine before 13 though

Keeping Christmas chatter and nonsense to December is a good starting point.

We do a Finnish Christmas so celebrate on Christmas Eve but I add in elements of British Christmas so we have stockings in the morning (except they're elf hats, not stockings, and then we wear the hats all day) on Christmas Eve, rice porridge for breakfast, some presents under the tree but Joulupukki (Father Christmas) brings the rest later.

We hire a Joulupukki to come to the house (I put the presents in a sack in the porch for him to pick up on his way in) and hand out the presents and chat to the children. Its the big tradition here but at 50 euros hire price I'm starting to think we might have to skip it this year but I don't want to :(

One family present is a new boardgame and we play it, if not on Christmas Eve then on Christmas Day.

Visit FIL and eat one Christmas meal there and usually another one at home as well.

Christmas Eve we was allowed to open one present and it was always new pjs that is a tradition that I've carried on and it aways takes me back to being a child excited Christmas Eve

It was boring when we tried this when the kids were small but now I have late teen DC it's actually really really nice.

We see family on Xmas Eve and Boxing Day on the years we have Xmas day to ourselves but when we do it's so chilled and relaxed, everyone sleeps till they want, dh and I walk the dogs, we eat what we want when we want, do presents in a really relaxed way, go to the pub to meet friends at lunch time, have a really good laugh. No pressure or stress.

I never though I would enjoy it and would not have done it when kids were small as had a really structured day doing all the traditional things but these days it's alot more relaxed. And better imvho.

Just 3 adults for Xmas day...we go for a 5 mile walk in the morning a few miles away with glorious views, pub for a couple of drinks after.....home, shower, a couple of gifts...then to a local restaurant about 4 for a non English lunch.
Home for rest of gifts, more drinking and music videos.
I never cook or invite other family members...we see them Xmas Eve for drinks or Boxing Day.