Christmas when I was growing up was all about family and friends, my mum would buy gifts for every family member and we would enjoy visiting family to give them their gifts, my parents never spent a fortune it was just the fun of giving and visiting people you hadn't seen for a while. We used to have a family get together at my grandparents ( mums side ) either a few days before Christmas or after, we would visit Father Christmas at a local shop a few days before Christmas. The run up to Christmas was fun and exciting, decorations would go up when we broke up from school and Christmas food would come out on Christmas Eve ( tin of roses, nuts, twiglets etc..).
Christmas Day would be spent at home with grandparents visiting for lunch, we would get up early and open presents, we would get one decent gift and then a sack with smaller things in and presents from other people ( we always got a colouring book, pencils, underwear etc... ), after lunch the older people would fall asleep in front of the tv.
Christmas with my children is a bit different, my family no longer bother much, not many bother with gifts or visiting ( lucky if we get a card ), I do try and make Christmas exciting for the dd's and we try and do exciting things during the run up to Christmas. We spend Christmas Day on our own, both dd's have ASD so going out is tricky, they would rather be at home. We go OTT with gifts and food and then we go shopping in the sales.