Christmas traditions that you do and don't do

[Honkwiching]

Obviously I'm unreasonable for saying the C word so early, but idc - anyone who doesn't want to chat Christmas can leave a snarky comment below for Krampus to enjoy and then hide the thread.

For everyone else, what are Christmas traditions that you enjoy, and are there any popular ones you don't do?

For us, we have some things which are non-negotiable. On the second weekend in December we go and choose our tree, then we decorate it while listening to Christmas music before watching a festive film with sherry and mince pies.

We have a fancy-but-easy Christmas Eve meal (because it's usually the only time it's just our immediate family at home). I make it in advance, usually a pie or similar, so it just needs defrosted and chucked in the oven on the day. We use the posh crockery set I inherited from my great uncle, and the whole room is candlelit.

We give the children a Christmas decoration each on Christmas Eve, usually related to a particular interest for the year. This year my son is getting a ballet slipper and my daughter is getting a rabbit.

We also do a full Christmas meal foodbank shop a couple of weeks before Christmas. I let my kids choose what fun treats to include (along with the necessities / what the foodbank has requested, which I check in advance).

In terms of things we don't do, we're die-hard Elf on the Shelf avoiders. I have ADHD and a million pets so I don't have the time or inclination to create an amusing daily scene for that creepy guy.

We also don't do Christmas Eve boxes or expensive advent calendars. I think my kids enjoy the chocolate calendars as much as anything, and they get enough presents as it is without the Christmas Eve box.

(I've seen people get and give a lot of joy from these things so absolutely no shade, they just aren't things we prioritise).

I want to hear yours!

We’re an adult only household

Do:

Advent calendars
Christmas Eve pjs
Stockings
Watch It’s a Wonderful Life and/or The Shop Around the Corner every Christmas Eve

Don’t:

Send cards (except to our parents)
King’s speech
Church

MASSIVE CHRISTMAS FAN!!!!! Been on a count down since end of August.

1st world problem, what colour to do the tree? 2nd, get the Christmas LEGO out and reconstruct for under the tree.

Definitely huge into Elf on a Shelf. Despite the grandkids not living with us I love organising what the elves are up to. I’ve made props and upped the anti every year.

3 weeks before Christmas 🎅🏻 hubby, daughter and grandkids go and pick our tree. Hubby puts the lights on and I decorate it, absolutely no kids,(not even our daughter when she was a child) are allowed!

Christmas Eve. Now my daughter has her own family we meet the at their house for food and drinks. New tradition since the kids have arrived we all wear matching pjs, (praying we don't break down on the way home lol). Daughter does a Christmas Eve box, something I never did but heyho things have to change.

Christmas day morning I still insist on hubby staying in bed while I make bacon butties and mugs of tea. We eat in bed and open our stockings. I know our daughter does this at her house, it slows the morning down or it’s over by 7.

We have everyone here for Christmas dinner. Arrive no earlier than 2 and food at 3. Relax, eat, drink and be very merry!

Do:

church with carols (cathedral nearby)

Long boozy pre-Christmas nights out

love buying presents

love the downtime between Christmas and NY

Dont

hate NYE
hate markets, mulled wine
put tree up too early (first weekend Dec featuring red wine)

overthink it

and the Elf can fuck itself

Don’t Do
. elf on the shelf
. sit around in matching PJs with family
. put up tree and decs around 15th Nov then put away on Boxing Day.
. Xmas Eve boxes
. buy new decs every year
. Xmas bedding, cushions

There's some lovely traditions here - I love the bauble one, although we try to buy baubles of places we've visited.

We host a Christmas cocktail party in the evening on Christmas day. (Adult Christmas)

Advent calendars

Things we do:

Make mince pies for santa on xmas eve
Xmas eve buffet dinner with nice nibbles and drinks
Xmas stockings
Bucks fizz and orange juice in the morning of xmas day
Homemade crackers personalised for each family member
Xmas dinner late lunch time
The kings speech
Xmas music

What we don't do:
Elf on the shelf
Advent calendars
Xmas eve boxes
Santa sacks (mixed presents under tree and we all take it in turns)
Church
Chocolate and sweets
Turkey (veggie and vegan house)
Pyjamas (new or matchy)
Expensive decorations or real trees
Christmas cards

My children are adults now.

what we do do
visit a Christmas market. We don’t always buy anything just have a mulled wine and spiced nuts. We enjoy the atmosphere.
Have a row when getting the tree and decorations out of the attic 😬
I mainly decorate the tree but when they were younger they helped.
A new jigsaw is started on Boxing Day.
Dh and I are always awake by 6am. We walk the dog together before the business of the day. X

Oh yes santas cookies are always homemade.

Some of these are really lovey

We love christmas.

We do:

• A show in December. This year it's a kids version of the nutcracker ballet.
• Advent calenders - we have beautiful fabric ones that we fill. But we also do a book advent calender and DH puts a clue in the box as to where the book is hiding.
• a trip to the garden centre (10 minute walk) to pick out a new bauble on tree up day.
• Muppets christmas Carol once the tree is up and decorated. With popcorn and hot chocolate.
• 1st december box. This has new pj's, christmas crafts, teddies etc that only come out for christmas.
• swimming on christmas eve.
• stocking on bedroom doors that are opened on our bed in the morning.
• christmas stuff. I have bedding, crockery and a tablecloth that come out.

We dont do:

• elf on the shelf
• the kings speech (or any tv on christmas day!)

We do panto on Christmas Eve, my DC are 14 & 16 but they still love it were horrified when I suggested not going this year. After the panto we go home for a Christmas film then a big roast. We also go to midnight mass as that’s important to me.

They are always with their dad from midday on Christmas Day so we have our celebration early.

Don't do that sodding elf, Xmas eve boxes, matching pj's etc.

We do a light trail, watch the tractor parade and refillable cloth advent calanders. DSs make a gingerbread house with Granny.

We do the neighbourhood lights tour and a hot choc when home. Also started during covid.

We also go to Blackpool Illuminations the weekend before Xmas once they started having them on until Xmas which was another covid thing.

We watch all the Nativity films through Dec.

We usually put the tree up in November 🤣

Xmas eve we always go to the pictures

We don't really have traditions we do every year. The kids are grown now and I guess we always did advent calenders, until they were maybe 10 or 11 we went to see Santa. Tree went up first weekend December. We do different things each year - a few times Kew Gardens for the lights, for several years we had a big xmas light show on our house. Now I keep it simple and we just do xmas day at home with MIL and FIL then our friends come over in the evening. That's it. I like to do as little as possible as we have such busy lives the rest of the year.

We don't do Xmas dinner. I love a roast but my family aren't fussed, we used to get an Indian takeaway but now we have hot buffet food to snack on all day, great for DM or PIL to pop in and help themselves if they want to.

We don't do rigid plans anymore, we had years of running about visiting family on Xmas eve and Xmas day and were exhausted. We tend to stay home, drink and eat. We will do a visit on Boxing day.

DDs are teens now so no early starts on Xmas Day, Elf sits around behaving itself and they love a beauty advent calendar instead of chocolate ones. They love decorating the house early in Dec though, I'd do it mid month if I could but they want the tree up from the 1st.

We have christmas dinner on Christmas eve and a fry up followed by picky bits on the actual day. It sounds mad but my MIL always did it this way to take away the stress of spending all day in the kitchen amongst the chaos of present opening etc. My now DH suggested it when we first moved in together and it's actually genius. Wouldn't have it any other way now.

We don't do xmas eve boxes but my parents send the kids a few token gifts to open every year on Xmas eve. DH and I exchange our gifts Christmas eve.

Decorations go up mid December, after DH bday. Not allowed before then 😂

Never done elf on the shelf. Don't get the appeal of gonks. Kids decorate the tree (and then I tidy it up once they've gone to bed so it looks more presentable). We dont leave out milk for santa. He prefers whisky.

We don't have many traditions but advent calendars are a must! My grandmother always bought me a Cadbury one well into adulthood so it's just not the same if I don't have one. I bought a refillable calendar for my DD when she was very young and her Dad made miniature Christmas cards for each drawer. Now she's 20 and fills it up for herself with her favourite sweets, and all the little cards are still in there!
Oh and we must watch The Muppet Christmas Carol and The Nightmare Before Christmas in the days before the big day.

Some of our traditions vary between years as depends if we are staying at home for Xmas or going to family.

We do
xmas tree not up til at least a week into December and I’d like to push it later (it was week before Xmas when I was a child)
advent calendars, but usually chocolate only
get in a big piece smoked salmon or gravadlax for the period as well as the meat
have homemade stollen and (if it works, it’s a night mare to make but results if it goes right are amazing) pannetone
Do At least a couple of Xmas pub trips
Church with carols on Xmas eve (if at home) - not church goers but like the singing at Xmas
festive over the period but sometimes after Xmas

we don’t
eat turkey for Xmas dinner - usually beef, sometimes goose instead
have Xmas pudding or mince pies (stollen and pannetone are nicer )
do elf on the shelf or New Year’s Eve boxes

Christmas pj's on Christmas eve, stockings in bed, New mug / egg cup / glass / plate with breakfast presents after breakfast (it was the only way of being sure to get fruit into them on Christmas day! The Game after lunch (lots of little cheap wrapped presents, some great, some terrible, there are always Danish butter cookies in there - family tradition dictates it! 2 packs of cards, one distributed amongst everyone, one to draw, as your cards comes up you pick a present, when you run out of presents you steal from each other..... so much fun, Danish butter cookies are the booby present, they are always disguised)

Hate to break it to some of you, but the Queen has been dead for more than three years 😳

@stovokor @neverbeenskiing

Oh god I already overdo this and now I’m going to find more ideas here!
tree up on first December and take the kids to buy a new bauble each for the tree (the idea being that when they move out they’ll have some already).

A 1st December box that is full of crap that comes out every year - Christmas mugs, plates, dvds (it’s that old), cookie cutters etc.

A Christmas photo album that I update every Boxing Day with pics of all our Christmases since we had kids in.

Same shitty panto every year.

A drive round to look at the Christmas lights every year.

we take the kids to do a food bank shop with their pocket money each December.

christingle on Christmas Eve.

Christmas movie night each Saturday of December - we each take turns to choose our favourite.

I love Christmas but I’m very guilty of overdoing it and completely crashing by Boxing Day! I think I do need to scale it back.

Yours sounds so lovely! 🥰

My Dh works shifts, he’ll be out most of the day on Christmas day. I’ll be walking the dogs. We therefore don’t really have traditions other than I like to listen to Carols from Kings whilst decorating the tree.

Mine aren’t little any more.

Daughter was terrified of both elf on the shelf and Santa moving around our house, so dodged a bullet there.

We always have Christmas pjs, Christmas Eve boxes, a bag of Christmas stuff on 1 Dec with the advent calendars (think thinks like Christmas earrings, hairbands, etc - stuff that really is wasted if you don’t have it to wear/enjoy through the whole festive season), trees up on 1st wherever humanly possible (we have 5 real trees downstairs so it depends what day the 1st falls on as to how practical this ends up being!). I start with a glass of gin as soon as I start cooking the Christmas dinner (even if it’s 9.30/10am!).

Now both kids are older, we started a new tradition last year of going out for dinner on Christmas Eve.