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Christmas

From present ideas to party food, find all your Christmas inspiration here.

To tell you that it is only

926 replies

RabidEchidna · 21/02/2012 07:53

307 days till Christmas

Do I have the record for the first Christmas thread of 2012? Grin

OP posts:
RabidAnchovy · 24/06/2012 09:12

183

70isaLimitNotaTarget · 24/06/2012 22:35

And tommorrow will be six months till Christmas Day
and my baby DD 10th birthday.
How the heck did I blink and end up with a 10yo? Grin

RabidAnchovy · 25/06/2012 07:23

182

Happy Birthday baby 70

funkybuddah · 25/06/2012 09:39

6 months today peoples! Yaaaay

So much to do!

buzzgirly · 25/06/2012 11:15

Only 6 months to go! I had better dig out the Xmas music Wink

Happy birthday to little70isa

BiddyPop · 25/06/2012 12:50

Happy Rudy Day!! (Magical Holiday Home, as well as about 3 other Christmas Planning plans, designates every 25th of the Month as Rudolph Day, to do some planning for Christmas). Today is a special one as we are as close to next Christmas as we are far away from the last one!!

I am sitting here with my Christmas mug for my tea this morning. And looking at my list to try and think about some crafting next month.

Happy Birthday baby 70's!!

LordFlasheart · 25/06/2012 21:53

Did anyone do lapland UK last year? Was it any good? Should I start saving?

RabidAnchovy · 26/06/2012 07:02

181

RabidAnchovy · 27/06/2012 07:28

180

fuzzpig · 27/06/2012 20:41

Fabulous thread!

I am desperate to be more organised this year although I doubt it'll happen as I am working FT and at some point DH will be having two operations. I'd really like to do more baking/crafts.

I hope nobody minds but I have a question that is a bit depressing. Xmas threads sometimes makes me sad because I read about people with massive families. We have no family really, my parents are also getting divorced so even more divided than before. No friends around either. We have a fantastic fun-filled '2nd Xmas' during the holidays with my teenaged DSCs who spend Xmas itself with their mum (I would never expect them to change that, it is what they want and their mum would be alone otherwise). On the day it is just me, DH, DD (5) and DS (will be 3). That's the best way compared to other options such as inviting my parents, but TBH it just ends up like any other day with extra toys and food. It is nice, but lonely, and I end up quietly resenting our crap childhoods/families. How do I change that and make it special? I always feel like we are letting the DCs down. Help! Thanks

(sorry for the essay/hijack)

RabidAnchovy · 27/06/2012 22:49

Fuzz as nice as t is to have a house full I think you can have a beautiful Christmas with just your husband and children

I have always had to have family round for Christmas and as much as I love then I would have loved to have just one Christmas just me DH and our two sons

fuzzpig · 27/06/2012 22:51

Aww thanks. I know I can, I just don't know how! Which is why I want to steal all your ideas :)

Magneto · 28/06/2012 07:16

Fuzzipig, Christmas in my house is me, dh and ds. I have had a rule since ds was born that Christmas day is for us only, Christmas eve we visit Dh's side of the family and boxing day we visit mine. They are under no circumstances allowed to come to our house because then opens a whole can of worms with one side not liking the other and jealousy and horribleness.

Christmas day is special because it's Christmas day! Presents, big dinner, Christmas films etc

RabidAnchovy · 28/06/2012 07:23

179

fuzzpig · 28/06/2012 07:25

I think possibly it is because I'm not very organised so I end up a bit stressed and feeling like I've not done it properly. Still much better than any Xmas me or DH ever had as kids though :)

I am probably expecting too much of myself, this kind of thing doesn't come naturally to me. This thread is very inspiring though so I will be nabbing more traditions from you all :o

BiddyPop · 28/06/2012 10:06

Fuzzpig, it is usually only DH, DD (6) and I for Christmas in our house. We do some visits to family locally (wider family as both our immediate families live 160 miles away) early in the day, but once we are home, it is just us.

If we didn't have to do those visits, it would be even more relaxed. Santa in the morning, with a nice early walk followed by big brekkie (full fry or bacon sarnies with buck's fizz would be ideal), pottering around making the dinner (I don't tend to over-do that anymore), fire lit, nice nibbles for peckishness during the day, presents mid-afternoon from under the tree and dinner in the early evening.

If you are home all day, you can prep the dinner on the day entirely (especially if you plan to start eating between 4-6 say). But you can have lots of the "heavy lifting" done in advance. Depending on what you like - soup frozen, potatoes for roasties can be parboiled and frozen, sprouts can be blanched and frozen, cake and pudding done (or bought) well in advance...But as I am not great on having freezer space or remembering those sorts of things, I tend to peel potatoes and veggies the day before - potatoes in a pot of cold water overnight, veggies in other pots of water or airtight containers (depending on which suits better - carrots best in water, sprouts either, courgette, cauliflower, mushrooms, garlic, onion etc all best no water). Dh makes the stuffing the day before too, and if I am bothered, I boil up the turkey neck and giblets with the carrot and onion peelings to make a cheat's stock for the gravy.

There really is no point in stressing as then you don't enjoy it and kids may pick up on that too. But it's really just a bigger Sunday roast than normal - and if you don't want that kind of dinner, that's fine. Go for something that suits YOUR family's tastes and your pocket better.

Having a few board games to pull out too can be handy - it tends to say that it's a different day when we do that here!! (They come out either on hols or Christmas here mostly for family play - it's usually DD's friends playing them other times with her).

70isaLimitNotaTarget · 28/06/2012 23:19

We do our walk on Christmas Eve (used to go and feed the reindeer at the Visitors Centre but they are stuffed to the gills so a bit meh when we offer them carrots) - last year we went to the park.

We have just DC, DH and me.

And something will go wrong no matter how you plan. My mince pies were like concrete, pastry was sooooo hard I couldn't bite it ! Blush

This year- no cake. No-one eats it.
Mince pies- Sainsburys Taste the Difference
Christmas Pudding - not on Christmas Day. I've got a Portmerrion 'Holly and Ivy' pudding basin and cream jug so I should have a pudding really.
Maybe a syrup sponge this year with custard?

fuzzpig · 29/06/2012 06:39

We never have fruit cake or Xmas pud, as I don't like them and DH is coeliac (and doesn't like them either anyway). I have also never really been into mince pies, though at a work do last year I actually ate a whole one for the first time ever at age 25 (mainly to be polite, though it was fairly nice)

RabidAnchovy · 29/06/2012 07:07

178

RabidAnchovy · 30/06/2012 09:27

177

70isaLimitNotaTarget · 01/07/2012 00:05

ooooh, we're into the second half of the year now. Grin

RabidAnchovy · 01/07/2012 08:46

176

BigBirdsFriend · 01/07/2012 08:50

Happy happy happy, half way there, half way to dd's birthday too and only 5 months until we really start partying with thanksgiving in Texas!

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
Lovely Texan Christmas shops here I come!

Sorry, I apologise for that gratuitous boast about our holiday plans but am very excited about going to see my US cousins for the first time and at thanksgiving

fuzzpig · 01/07/2012 09:35

That sounds fab BBF!

RabidAnchovy · 02/07/2012 07:51

175

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