To ask about your Xmass tradition

[AnxietyLevelMax]

Tell me about your Xmass tradition? I am not British. Been living here for half of my life but never actually had a proper british xmass.

when do you unpack the gifts?
what do you eat on xmass eve and xmass day?
when do you put your xmass trees up and take them down?
what are your other traditions?

I am really curious! thanks!

It's 'Xmas' not 'Xmass', and I personally don't even like the word and use 'Christmas'.

I unpack gifts in the morning with family
I snack on Christmas Eve and have Christmas dinner on Christmas day
I put up the tree on the 1st of December and take it down during the first week of New Year
Other traditions include: playing board games, watching Christmas films, drinking, eating, etc.

Growing up we had a real tree that went up on 20 December and came down on 12th night.

We had a card Advent Calendar with a nativity scene. No chocolate involved!

We received gifts from Father Christmas overnight. Always a satsuma at the toe of the stocking, chocolate coins, notebook, pencils and Emery boards. (Christmas Eve boxes and PJs hadn't been "invented" yet! No "Elf on the Shelf" either).

We were allowed to open our gift from our parents before Church - dressed in our Sunday best - and the rest after the Queen's Speech.

Lunch was turkey with ALL the trimmings served at 1pm. Desert was Christmas pudding with a brandy flamed holly sprig on top and an old penny to find inside, served with homemade brandy butter.

If we were hungry in the evening watching the BBC film or whatever it was a mug of tea and a homemade mince pie.

Boxing Day was always a long walk somewhere.

If friends came to visit, they went home with a small box of sweeties that had been hidden in the tree.

My parents still have the same Christmas decorations as they did then.

We burn an Advent candle now. I like to start Xmas morning with a Bellini cocktail and a black pudding breakfast. We eat lunch at 3pm. Presents are opened throughout the day so they are played with / used. I have a special Christmas table cloth and linen napkins and I still like to dress up.

Wake up early and open gifts with DD immediately, presents exchanged between adults and grandparents gifts to DD opened after lunch.

Christmas Eve usually eat a nice meal, sometimes a Chinese takeaway. Christmas Day have traditional turkey roast at lunch, and picky bits/leftover meat for dinner.

Christmas tree(s) and other decorations go up in mid-November, most rooms of the house are decorated and it take a few days! (the decorations are my favourite thing about Christmas!) They come down after New Year's Eve but before schools go back - and as most people ask, no I never get bored of them!

Traditions leading up to Xmas - going to Nutcracker ballet, visiting as many garden centres with Xmas displays as possible, visiting a Christmas markets, visiting Santa, reading a Xmas storybook each day with DD, doing Xmas crafts including making cards for family and teachers.

Home traditions - trees decorated with baubles and decorations collected from holidays and since childhood, no one allowed to start opening presents/DD not allowed to see present pile until everyone is up, and playing Xmas music whilst opening presents.

I love Christmas in case you couldn't tell!

I'll add when I say presents are opened with DD immediately, this isn't rushed. We take our time, looking at each and playing with some as we go - it takes a while but is lovely.

First - it's Christmas! (Celebration of the birthday of Christ, though often it's become just a retail event, non religious spending spree to buy gifts for family and friends followed by eating, drinking, family get togethers)

Everybody makes their own 'traditions', but for my family it is decorating the tree and home, buying the special Christmas food, celebrating with DH and children, exchanging gifts, Church, eating, drinking, watching TV then attending various parties at friends homes if we don't throw one ourselves. This goes on until Hogmanay where we have a big party with just about everybody we know in our area.

Oops - leading up to Christmas I always includes a theatre visit, shopping and sending cards and gifts all around the country to friends. Our special tradition is a donation to CRISIS so that 2/3 people can have a Christmas meal and accommodation.

Get up early, take the dog for a long walk. Open presents when the kids get up, start cooking around 11am - eat at 3pm - put a movie on and watch everyone around me getting drunk thinking about how next year, we’ll do something different. We never do.

One of the nicest things about being an adult, particularly a childfree one, has actually been not having to keep or make any traditions. We’ve had Christmases one way with my parents with a traditional roast turkey; and another way with DH’s parents and a traditional Midwestern Christmas ham and corn dressing; we’ve had Christmas on a yacht off the Florida coast with SIL and BIL, barbecuing off the tail, and doing a pot luck supper and long walk with half a dozen friends. We’ve had Christmas just the two of us, going for a chilly Parkrun and having a Chinese takeaway; and on the beach in Phuket, eating seafood before going snorkelling.

I think the only constant traditions we have are going to buy and hang our Christmas wreath and tree on the first weekend in December and decorating the tree together; and the Elf recite-along showing at the Prince Charles cinema in Leicester Square with a hang of friends.

We open our gifts on Christmas Day.
On Christmas Eve we'll usually do buffet food. Christmas Day is traditionally a roast dinner, usually turkey and beef or lamb, with roast potatoes, cauliflower cheese, vegetables, yorkshire puddings, stuffing, pigs in blankets and gravy.
Christmas tree goes up usually the weekend before Christmas in our house but some people will put theirs up at the start of December or even earlier.
Make your own traditions! There are no real rules 😀

We all open our stockings on Christmas morning, leisurely morning drinking tea, smoked salmon scrambled egss for breakfast. Cook a traditional turkey roast dinner around 1pm. Queens speech in the afternoon and opening presents under the tree. Spend the evening watching tv/falling asleep/looking at gifts.

We changed our childhood traditions as mine and Dh's were different so we took a little bit from each to create our own. The children hang up their stockings for Father Christmas on Christmas eve, they used to leave a carrot for the reindeer and a mince pie and beer for Father Christmas. As they are now teenagers they don't do that but miraculously those stockings are always full in the morning.

Christmas morning they come down and open their stockings first, there are items that go in them every year such as chocolate coins and a tube of smarties. Christmas day we have a the whole turkey and trimmings at lunch with one side of the family then nibbles later on with the other side of the family.

Boxing day is our day at home in our pyjamas with the children. The tree goes up around 8th December and is taken down on 30th December as we like to see in the new year with no Christmas decorations.

King's speech this year - that will be strange to not watch her 😥

Relaxing day and Christmas dinner (not like that one) on 24th, then presents brought by baby jesus.
25th goose roast with one side of family
26th roast with other side of family.

If I am not there, but in UK, I keep the same but it's just us + some guests for 25th and 26th is recovery woth reheated goose😁

Tree is now done first weekend of December but used to be done on 24th, comes down 6th Jan.

I still cut apples on Christmas Eve to see what the year ahead will be like.
We also always keep the table settings on Christmas Eve to even number even if nber of guests doesn't correspond because if you set for uneven, the odd oerson will not be here next year.
I put coin under plates as well (traditionally it should be fish scales)