Tell me about your traditions: I want to steal them...

[storminabuttercup]

and i wont hide it :-)

I am currently on mat leave, baby will be 4 months old by xmas.

We of course had traditions as children, i'm sure we did. But i want new ones. i know baby will be way to young to fall into these now but me and OH are yet to grow up so will be happy to start them now.

I'm so looking forward to xmas this year as i have always worked lots over xmas to allow people with DC to have time off, obv this year im off.

The only tradition me and OH follow at the min (for the last 2 years of living together) is getting up and having a yummy breakfast and a glass (or two) of champers before going to my parents for a big family xmas dinner.

So i want to hear about all yours and get all excited about xmas

please indulge me.....

It's to counteract all the sweets

I love these threads! I know they've been done before but I personally never tire of reading peoples traditions.

DS will be 2.5 at Christmas so we're doing:

New pjs on christmas eve - yet to decide on hamper arriving from the elves at the door yet though. Could surprise hubby with that too.

Reindeer food, mince pie and milk for Santa.

Champers with chocolate croissants while opening pressies. Lovely relaxed moring.

We start by going out to town on Late Night Shopping night - very exciting! We buy presents for grandparents, and then split up into 2 mini tribes and the dc's buy their presents to each other. We get fish and chips on the way home, and see Father Christmas.

We always buy a real tree from the same place in town is always 6ft and dh always carries it home! Old ladies stop and tell us we look like a Christmas card

Christmas Eve is movies - ALWAYS Muppet Christmas carol (is the LAW!) and Home Alone. We then Bake something yummy for santa and go to the Crib Service. When we get home we have new pjs (tradition since I was a child), hot choc/wine and read The Night Before Christmas. Stockings hung on Fireplace with treat and milk.

Dh and I drink wine.

Christmas morning is always stockings open on our bed, smoked salmon and eggs for breakfast, presents opened under the tree, I give them out one at a time!

This year we will go to my parents at this point and i only need to do dessert (hurrah!)

We drink and play games and be merry, and ignore any grumps!

No music other than Christmas music is allowed on the stereo in December!

This year i am hiding a lot of pressies to give out over the week between Xmas day and New Year as they get far too much and it annoys me to see stuff not being played with!

oh wow - i never expected so many replies, these are great. i'm feeling all christmassy now. i wasted spent the entire day yesterday reading the christmas threads.

keep them coming :o

Gosh these are lovely! I like the idea of the glitter runway, the box of decorations for each child and the pjs and films. DS is only 2.8 and DS2 just 9mths so they are not really that into it yet.

When we were kids we were not allowed to open our Santa presents until after mass as my mum wanted to spin the day out a bit, we don't go to mass [heathen emoticon] but I do insist on breakfasted and dressed before we do presents.

Oh my goodness this is making me all emotional. I love Christmas.

Christmas eve is a day full of christmas films, christmas books and christmas music cranking the excitement up as far as possible.

Then when it's dark everyone wraps up as warm as possible and we go off on a christmas light walk through our village, looking at all the lights in houses and shops, soaking up that lovely christmas feeling but mostly loving the children looking to the sky every five seconds wondering where he is.

When worn out back home for a hot bubble bath, fresh pyjamas (not new I have three and christmas is expensive enough without having christmas eve presents) hot chocolate with all the trimmings and a pile of crispy bacon sandwiches.

We will watch The Snowman, read The night before christmas and then leave a mince pie, sherry, milk and a carrot out and place present sacks by the tree then off to bed for the dc's whilst dp and I have a glass or two.

In the morning everyone has cereal for breakfast but it is the variety mini packs so everyone picks which one they want. Then everyone lines up in front of the sitting room door in age order and we go in to see if he has been. The most important part for me is that the dc's haven't seen a single present up until this point, so when they open the door they have no idea what they will see. All the presents are in piles for each person and santa has turned the christmas tree lights on before he left so when you first walk in it is like going into an Aladins cave (this is the most amazing feeling from my childhood and I want my dc's to have it).

Sorry this has been a bit of and essay but it has made me stupidly happy to type it all out remembering what we do

Last year was awful for us, Christmas practically didn't happen. I'm hoping through being orgnised everything will be ok.

You may have noticed all our traditions cost either nothing or just a few pennies which is how I think it should be.

In November my mum and I watch Albert Finney's Scrooge followed by Blackadder's Christmas Carol. We drink tea and eat cake during these and, when they are over, Christmas has offically begun and we start talking about presents and who is doing Christmas.

I have a couple of tree decorations from my grandmother's tree and I blub every year when I put them up. Anything like that is lovely. DD chooses a new decoration every year and she'll get those for her own tree when the time comes.

Well, my pfb is in for a shock his year! He'll be 10 months for christmas-so pretty much oblivious to anything.
We watch christmas movies on christmas eve, whilst I we wrap the presents all by myself together (the last minute ones at least, the usual gifts novelties are wrapped by November). We wake up and have one gift for eachother in bed (not that kind of gift!) and go downstairs, dh puts the kettle on (I was pregnant last year! No champers for me) and I open my gifts as fast as possible, making a mental note to send thank you cards which I never get round to send the following week. We get showered and dressed, have a big fry up, ring the relatives, then head to my mums for a giant 12 course meal with 7 of me nieces and nephews and 5 brothers and sisters + their spouses, and any other dwindler my mother manages to pick up. We play games, and everyone has to write/choose a reading for after dinner. We play charades, end up fighting and everyone goes home vowing never to speak to anyone again.

When I was a wee nipper, we used to have a little nativity scene of tiny clay figures. Some years we would make a new backdrop of hills / night sky covered in enormous silver stars. We would move the 3 wise men little by little each day until they finally reached the cardboard stable on Jan 6th.

Lots of the things above plus we always bake some gingerbread for Father Christmas (it's his favourite) on Christmas eve to leave out for him with a carrot for Rudolf. Christmas stockings first thing, new clothes wrapped up on their chairs that they find when sitting down for breakfast, then dressed washed etc before starting to open the other presents one at a time while the adults get drunk drink champagne. A break to go to church and have lunch. Top tip, if you open the presents one at a time they last most of the day.

I am amazed people can sit and eat breakfast BEFORE seeing if HE has been!!! No way I could even now

I am still sniffling over the idea of having their own box of Christmas decorations...do they not put them on the tree each year as they have a new one each year?

Most of the above, plus I cut out Santa's boot and reindeer hoof cardboard templates and DH sprinkles talc footprints across the floor to look as if they've left snowy footprints in the house

Then dog has sneezing fit on Christmas morning and my dad puts his back out slipping on the talc/oak floor combo...

I would love to get everyone dressed before present opening - unfortunately the tree is the first thing you see when you come down our stair. Mayne i will hide most of the pressies until after we are dressed - or is that mean :o

maybe not mayne. duh!

Growing up Father Christmas left small presents in pillowcases stockings, usually underwear, chocolates and stationary which we could open as soon as we were awake. I say open but in fact none of our stocking presents were ever wrapped.

Larger presents came from parents/family and were wrapped and placed under the tree to be opened together once everyone was up, dressed, breakfast, attended mass in the years before midnight mass etc.

I'm amazed I never questioned why friends received bikes/dolls/computer consoles from Father Christmas whilst we got knickers!

As other half is Danish we do a mish mash of stuff now. We watch the Julekalende everyday from the first of December.

The rest depends exactly on where we end up for Christmas but we normally do presents from the Danish side of the family after evening meal on Christmas Eve and we speak to the Danish Grandparents then and watch them dance round the tree and sing on the webcam. Living in England we don't have a room big enough that you can put a tree in the middle and dance round so we have to be relieved content to just watch this tradition.

Then we leave stuff out for Father Christmas, traditionally from my upbringing milk and a mars bar! and porridge for the Nisser before bed.

Stockings are opened as soon as awake in the morning, kids come up to our bed to show us what they got. Large presents opened together after breakfast.

We ended up eating our main meal as an evening meal last year and will probably do the same this year as it was really nice, unrushed and we got to have a whole day of enjoying the snow. We eat a mix of the best bits of Danish and English food.

ha ha tyler80 that made me chuckle, I would pay good money to see my inlaws sing and dance around a tree looking ridiculous like they're enjoying the festivities. I just don't understand how you can wait SO LONG to open the good stuff. I think I'll open them all before my ds has had a chance to notice any difference to the sitting room!

I work on christmas eve morning so my lovely MIL cooks Nanny's Notorious Chocolate Cake with DCs at home. When I get back (or before if DH isn't working) the turkey goes in the oven and we have the full Xmas dinner thing at about 6pm, after which DCs have baths and How the
Grinch Stole Christmas for bedtime story.
They wake up at godknows o'clock to find stockings at the end of their beds with enough low priced play value to keep them moderately quiet until we are feeling human, at which point everyone gets cups of tea and brioche and we all open one present each (DCs are steered towards a large one with lots of play value). Then we go off to the playground for a walk (taking new toy if appropriate) and come back for a cold turkey/ham in coca cola/salad/bread/baked potato based meal followed by the Notorious Chocolate Cake. Only then do we do the rest of the presents, and tbh the DCs don't seem to mind. I always do it that way because that's how DPs did it, and the One Big Present in the morning rule means you have lots to entertain you in the meantime (also I do good stockings).
In the evening DH cooks turkey hash for the grown ups, and the next day PILs leave and we go down to my DPs and do it all over again (apart from the turkey).

Every Christmas Eve we go to a service in a HUGE barn with bales of hay for seats and real animals all around. The music is v.loud, the service is normally VERY funny, aimed at kids with message for everyone. They finish with chocs and mulled wine, and a tractor is on hand to pull cars out of the firld if it was too wet

We slice the Christmas cake on Christmas Eve sometimes (if we remember!)

Presents are After dinner as we have church in the morning.

Everyone comes to Milli-Towers.

The Delia Ice Cream Christmas Pudding is also a firm tradition now

Our neighbours take a trip to collect their tree every year from local farm, then have a "bringing the tree home" drinks party :) (We enjoy that one!)

Oh, and it's traditional not to put the Christmas tree up until the 23rd.

This is becoming harder and harder to stick to, as Christmas trees go on sale earlier and earlier. I had a mad dash round various tree selling places to try and find one last year on the 20th, ended up with a potted tree that was reduced in Wilkinsons. It actually turned out to be really nice and I've still got it in the garden.

Don't understand how people who buy cut trees on December 1st have any needles left on the tree by Christmas day.

Dcs are 5 & 2 this yr and we will be doing:

New PJs on Xmas Eve

Watching Polar Express on Xmas Eve

Sprinkling Reindeer food outside

Leaving santa's special key outside (we don't have a chimney)

Mini cereal boxes in stocking (big hit last yr)

each DC has a personalised Xmas decoration so we make a big thing about hanging these

We read the Night before Christmas

Stockings hung downstairs (DS doesn't want a strange man in his room late at night understandably )

This yr I am going to pinch:

Toothbrushes in stockings

Candle lit bath (lovely idea )

One of my childhood friends Christmas tradition was to put the Christmas tree up on the 1st September ever year. You've missed that one though.

wow the 1st of september?