To steal your Christmas traditions

[HappyMamma2023]

Hi everyone. Our son is 20 months. Last year was his first Christmas and it was nice but he was too young to understand. Now he's older and at nursery, he's much more excited and it feels like a special Christmas this year, having him help put the tree up, dancing to Christmas songs and seeing his smile when we turned the Christmas lights on 💖 Please post your Christmas traditions which I will blantently steal. Thank you and Merry Christmas!

We have a book (it's actually just a scrappy old exercise book, it's not 'insta worthy') and it lives in our decorations box. Every year we write what we did, favourite presents, our goals for next year etc, then it goes away with the decs. It's like a little time capsule and now we have over 10 years worth of entries in there. I didn't start it when they were babies though, I wish I had done.

Christmas movies on Christmas Eve afternoon
christmas pyjamas
new Christmas tree decoration each year
picky dinner for Christmas Eve eg pizza, pakora, chicken nuggets, onion rings
read “A night before Christmas “ book before going to sleep on Christmas Eve
chocolate coins from their bedroom door to the living room to let the children know Santa had been.

'Christmas light safari', we drive around the area because we are rural but you could walk or scoot if there are lots of lights nearby. Stop for refreshments. We have fish and chips in the car for dinner. Proper, cheap, old school fun.

This. The stocking is intended to keep the children occupied until they are allowed to open gifts under the tree. (Gifts are hidden and only appear under the tree on Christmas morning. Less tempting for children and safer if burgled!) We then get to open gifts as a family mid morning.

When mine were very small, I’d saved jam/pickle jars and they decorated them with Christmas stickers. On Christmas Eve I would drop a tea light in each one and they would put them in the front garden as a lighted runway to guide Father Christmas and his reindeer to safely land.
They’re 18 and 15 and still do it!

We buy a Xmas tree decoration every year from somewhere we visit, it might be from a holiday or just a day out. Some are from Summer holidays in Germany, a couple from Cancun airport a couple of Octobers ago, one from Seville and others are just from places we have been in The Uk
Whenever I decorate the tree I remember where we bought them and what we were doing so I get all the happy memories of our holidays

When my dcs were little I did a book advent, I brought or borrowed from the library 24 Christmas themed books, wrapped them up and unwrapped one each night to read at bedtime. The last book was always it twas the night before Christmas, we still read this on Christmas Eve and my dcs are now 18 & 14.

I bake Santa cookies each year and dcs helped as they got older. The Santa cookies are cranberry & white chocolate, happy to share the recipe.

Decorating the weekend before school breaks up so that the house feels special to come home to. This has evolved a bit as school seems to break up later now than it did. We have a lot of old and homemade decorations that come out every year. Christingle, Chinese takeaway and watching A Child's Christmas in Wales (80s TV movie based on the story by Dylan Thomas, we used to watch it when I was young and then between VHS ending and Youtube starting I didn't see it for years so it's nice to have it again. Weirdly and hauntingly emotional though). We usually do baking in the bit between Christmas and new year as it's one of the few times we're not rushing round. 3 kings cake for 12th night and the tree is never down before then.

Our tradition is to have little presents on the tree (we call them "Tree presents" one for every day we're home after Christmas until they go back to school. It means that they have little extras (I'm talking about things like a nice pen/rubber/mini jigsaw - £1-2 presents) so they don't get the opened everything let down.

Each year we ask our daughter to pick a new decoration for the tree, simple and as cheap as you like but I love how her style as already changed from 2 to 3 years!

Well, I wish you’d told me this one 17 years ago!!!

We still make time for a garden centre trip. The "kids" pick the truly ugliest decoration they can find and it gets added to the tree - which seriously looks like an elf vomited all over it. Doesn't look very stylish but we have fun.

We do similar to this only it's not the ugliest decoration it's just free choice and the smaller the child the uglier the decoration as a general rule. I love my tree now we are several years into this, it's a real eclectic mix of lovely mad decorations.

I usually just wander around the house eating Terry's Chocolate Orange and muttering darkly to myself whilst trying to plan.

We do go and buy a new fancy bauble every year though. This year was a robin on a bit of log. I've started doing a Christmas jigsaw too!

Sorry my mum only told me she did it a couple of years ago go! My mind was blown 🤯

We have a Nativty set (3 actually!) - baby Jesus gets put in the manger after midnight and the 3 Wise men move around the room starting at the most eastern part of the room and arrive at the stable by Epiphany

Tackles the issue of any little ears which might be listening out, and you not have to stuff awkward things in total silence

A single present can be opened after midnight on Christmas Eve (when he's older maybe)
A new Christmas decoration every year. You could make it a present to you from him while he's still little and then when he can choose it's special and when he's old enough to buy without supervision it's lovely and a recognition that the family tree has all the decorations on it from him. Makes it easier to buy for you when he's 27!
We buy party food for Boxing Day so it's just 20 minutes in the oven and the whole meal is nibbles.

We have lots but one of my favourites is that DH would take the DC on an emergency dash on Christmas Eve morning to get something we’d forgotten to buy - cream, batteries, carrots - that sort of thing. I’d stay home supposedly peeling the veg and roasting gammon etc. Once they’d gone, I’d down tools, open the chocolates and put my feet up for an hour in front of a Christmas film.

There was a rule that they had to come back with a random surprise too, a reduced price cheesecake or a Christmas tree for a £1.

I found out last year that they also go for bacon and sausage rolls during this excursion.

They still do it every year and the youngest is 27.

Put icing sugar round a big shoe to show Santa has been. Small glass of brandy and mince pie on the fireplace.
Homemade Christmas cards.
Watch Box of Delights on BBC4

HippyChickMama, I think the 24 Christmas books is a great idea!

That's great, everyone is a winner in this situation

Put the kids in the car after their bath, wearing their christmas pjs and dressing gowns - drive around so they can see the christmas lights.

@DrCoconut - I watch that film every year too! And cry every year when they sing all through the night........ Best christmas movie ever.

We do the new bauble every year - but we choose one that represents something that we did as a family.
Eg a funny thing that went wrong, a holiday, a new job, a joke, a lost pet
Our tree is a beautiful tree of memories and very special

We all reciece a christmas present, 'from the tree' on christmas eve. Just a silly little gift, everyone gets one. I have been doing it since I was little, and I still do it for everyone, now that I host.

We make reindeer dust to sprinkle on the drive so Santa's deer can find us even on stormy Christmas eves.

We bake cookies Xmas eve to leave out for Santa, and a carrot of course.

Pancakes for breakfast on Xmas Eve and fresh baked croissants on Xmas morning.

Santa letters are posted in our Xmas stocking, which get left on the tree the evening it goes up. Santa's elves come that night to collect the stockings ready for presents and the ever precious letter.

Stockings delivered to each child's room but sometimes the eleven and Santa are in a hurry, so the stocking may end up in odd places. Stocking opened including the parents stocking open in our bed, which looks like an explosion at a Christmas grotto by the end of it.

Hot chocolate with marshmallows and making popcorn and cranberry garland. Paper chains and hand print rudolphs, thumb print snowman Christmas cards. Have kept one each year to see how they've grown. Any old Christmas craft makes them happy