What do you do on Christmas Eve?

[byefelicia62]

Looking for ideas. In previous years I’ve booked breakfast with Santa or we’ve gone to the pantomime but haven’t been able to manage to get tickets for anything this year. In the evening we will get cosy and have a buffet tea as we do every year but I’d like to try and do something nice during the day. Both Dh and I have the day off work. Kids are 4 and 12.

Love reading these!
We tend to get up early and go for a nice breakfast somewhere. Depending on weather we'll walk into town. I do enjoy the busy feeling and buzz but only because I'll have had all shopping finished.
Go to parents and see brother, sil and kids. Come home, prep any xmas day bits, fire lit, have freezer buffet for dinner and watch xmas film then bed. Have a newborn this year so will be quite different to an extent!

Mine are in their 20's now so do their own thing. But we used to bake cookies for them to decorate and hang on the tree, make mince pies so one could be left out for Santa, go out for a walk so they could charge about with the dog to try and get some energy out, bath (to be clean and nice smelling for Santa lol), watch the Nordic santa thing, new pj's and then watch all the xmas things on tv.

We also used to have a nice dinner as xmas day we just had lasagne (as all they really wanted to do was eat their xmas chocolates and play with their toys) so xmas eve was our main xmas meal (usually around 4pm).

Once they were in bed DH and I would bring presents down, have a bottle of fizz, some m&s party food and watch tv.

DH used to spend xmas eve morning doing veg whilst I did the baking and cookie cutting.

I miss those days!

Now Xmas eve is spent doing veg in the morning, dropping presents off in the afternoon, a nice quick meal and then meet friends at the pub.

It’s not a season of joy for me at all. Money, family, everyone else having more of the above in one way or another. Christmas adverts… the usual shite.

I let out a huge sigh of relief when December / Christmas is over and normality resumes. It’s like a pressure cooker coming off the boil. I ADORE January.

We go to the church crib and Christingle service, wrap the last few gifts once DC are in bed, put out the mince pie, carrot and sherry for Father Christmas and the reindeer, maybe see family depending on who is visiting and when, hang up stockings and have fish pie for dinner. We usually prep the veg and bake the ham.

This year though I’m going to aim to have the wrapping all done before Christmas Eve, and if we can go for a nice walk or a visit to a National Trust property before church, to make it feel like more of a special day that isn’t just taken up by food prep and wrapping.

If we are working, dd used to come to my office (we had to show up for an hour or take a full day off, and loads of kids visited). Then meet DH for lunch in the city centre and any last bits of shopping before going home to prep the veg etc and have a picky tea.

If we were not working, go for a long walk in the morning, and go for lunch locally. Then home for the prep and picky tea.

DD always made cookies for Santa as part of that prep. I always had half a batch from earlier in autumn frozen to slice and bake if time was against us - but if we had plenty of time, we’d make them from scratch.

I’m from a French/Catholic tradition (though neither of those things 😂), so Christmas Eve is the main event of Christmas. We have a big evening meal, known as the Réveillon, which involves an elaborate dinner (seafood starters, lamb leg as a main, with many potato and other side dishes), many desserts, which are fiercely negotiated by the kids, but will include nougat glacé, monkey bread, pistachio Yule log and maple tarts, and then we go into diabetic coma and do stockings. Other presents are open on Xmas day.

The upside of having your main event on the Eve, is that our Christmas Day is very chilled. We have scrambled eggs and gravlax for breakfast, but for the rest of the day there are tons of leftovers from the big meal before, and our traditional meal on the day is a meat pie known as tourtière, which I make and freeze in November, so I just pop one in the oven and Bob’s my uncle. It’s a pyjama day and we just open presents, watch tv, play board games and chill. It’s heavenly. I don’t understand why our set up is not universally adopted.

Always baffled by all the people who require new pjs every year. Especially if they’re Xmas themed. You must be overrun with pyjamas that never get used!

@Tintackedsea this is amazing, I need more info. Do they go out and catch the shellfish or is it just that they buy it for you? What great neighbours.

I’ve got visions now of crabs running around the kitchen 😂

@HeyThereDelila
Och, they have pots and can’t shift it over the Christmas break so it’s going spare. We live coastal and we have a close community. We are very lucky!

We have a pizza delivery and play boardgames from about 4pm onwards on Christmas Eve. We've done this for the last 20 years and it's always something we thoroughly look forward to. It's a nice chilled out way to spend Christmas Eve evening and we usually have a slice of left over pizza on Christmas night! This year we'll be playing Ticket to Ride, PacMan Monopoly and Frustration - and possibly Jenga too.

Me and OH work term time. So we finish the 19th of December

Christmas is eve for me is one of those rare days I don’t go out. I’ll have the carols playing on the radio and spend a good few hours making the chocolate Yule log, till the kitchen is covered in icing and chocolate. It’s become a tradition that I make it every year. While everyone’s out either for a walk or last minute shopping I’ll wrap up the presents etc while watching some films Father Christmas or the snowman. I’m not sure when I’m putting up the Christmas tree, this years theme being gold finger so everything decoration has to be gold. I’m kind of tempted to leave it till Christmas Eve so it feels extra special x
Oh and eat plenty of mince pies, last year I gave my self a third degree burn from one they can be deadly !

Christmas Eve is a whorl getting things ready for Christmas Day. My kids are now older teens / twenties so are in and out all day with friends and do their own thing most of the time. DH works Christmas Eve so he’s out until 8pm ish. Usually arrive at supermarket at 6am as it opens to get fresh food. Driving to fetch DM in the morning. Making mince pies and Christmas cupcakes, possibly with DD who likes baking if she’s home at that point in time. Also make stuffing and sometimes prep some veggies. If it’s been a busy week finishing wrapping. We nearly always have hot home cooked ham baguettes for dinner in the lounge as soon as DH gets home, which is nice and easy and I collapse into the settee and watch silly Christmas rubbish TV for a while before bed, possibly with a glass of port. Those that are out can easily make their own dinner when they get back home. Last thing is to put out the presents under the tree when everyone else has gone to bed. Though it’s a rush it’s a lovely day and satisfying to have everything ready for the big day…

Have you got room for one more? I'll be no bother. 😇

I'm sure my lot can manage without me for two days!

We go to a farm in the morning so the kids can burn off some energy in the fresh air, it has a Santa so they get a last minute Santa visit and some cute activities. Then home for lunch and a nap for my youngest. After naps we tend to stroll to the local pub for a drink and then back home for picky dinner and some Christmas tv. This is the first year my eldest is wild with excitement so we will see what time she gets to bed! 😂

We visit relatives Christmas eve. We dont actually do anything big, just a nice get together with some drinks and nibbles. Christmas Day is at home with family. Both of us work Boxing Day.

As a clergy family its a busy day. Between us we have 3 crib services and midnight mass.
There eill be the usual chip shop tea that our girls have become accustomed to, bath and new pj's and then we'll get the girls back up for midnight mass. I'll then hope and pray they go to slep quickly once we get home so we can do stocking and presents under the tree!

Time outside if weather is not completely awful. Then we have Chinese for dinner. Sometimes a takeaway, but often I just make it with bits thrown in from the shop. Then we watch a Christmas film.

Sometimes family visits us, but it’s really too much to ‘do’ something like a day out.

We all pile into the in laws house. Too many people in one house. Very noisy with lots of food and fun. The bairns love it as they get to play with all their cousins. We go home with hyper but tired children that are all moaning because they want to stay and play 😂Then we get home and spent the rest of the night sorting the living room. Every year I say I am going to be more organised so I am not up most of the night wrapping presents. I of course won't and end up watching die hard, eating chocolate, while I wrap up all the presents before falling into bed. I love it 😍

We go out for brunch, then head home and have a glass of bubbles watching a christmas movie. Bit later we have a specific dinner and then more bubbles and watch Elf usually. Done same thing last few years and it’s a lovely special day.

Dh grew up celebrating on Christmas Eve as his dad was German. So we now have a nice meal on Christmas Eve at around 7, after dc get in from work. This year ds has the whole day off so he’s in charge of food - we usually have steak or venison.

After dinner we light the final candle on the advent wreath, do our Christmas Eve readings from the Northumbria Community prayer book and talk a bit about what Christmas means to us this year. Then dh reads a highly personalised version of “Kipper’s Christmas Eve” that we’ve been doing since dd1 was a baby. Now they’re all grown up, Kipper is often drunk or on drugs!
We don’t stay up too late as I’m a big kid when it comes to Christmas and want to get up early!

DH and I frantically tidy and clean the house, take the kids on a long woodland walk, have a small buffet for our main meal and bath the kids, leave a carrot and mince pie for Santa and pop some reindeer food in the garden before watching a film and taking the kids to bed. Usually finish wrapping, sort stockings and lay presents out once kids are fully asleep. Very last thing before we settle down for bed we shower and sit down and give our gifts to one another and enjoy a glass of wine and a movie. Christmas Eve is manic in our house!

It's usually just me and DP and one or two elderly parents on Christmas Eve. We don't have a particular routine but in previous years we've done things like gone for a walk in a country park that has a nice cafe, been for a drive out to a nice town that we know will look pretty and festive to wander round the shops and have lunch/afternoon tea or whatever, or we've been out for a boozy lunch to somewhere like a Thai, Turkish or Indian restaurant (basically anywhere that does cuisine that won't be anything like what we'll be eating on Christmas Day). Evening would be drinks, something like a cheeseboard to eat, maybe a board game or some festive telly. I usually have some food prep to do for the next day, so at some point I'll invariably be trying to make stuffing or assemble a trifle or whatever.

As much as I love our parents and family in general, I do secretly dream of a Christmas where it's just me and DP in a gorgeous rented cottage somewhere in the middle of nowhere, where we'd rock up on the morning of Christmas Eve and hole up until New Year.

Think thats good, we are getting nearer and nearer the New Year.