At home or away

[ArriettyMatilda]

Where do you spend Christmas? I would love to spend it at home again as we did last year. We then travelled on boxing day to see family and it didn't really feel the same with it not being Christmas day and having the pressure to also see lots of extended family. Ideally I'd at least spend Christmas morning at home before visiting both sets of parents at some point during the day. We live two hours away though, so travelling would take up a chunk of the day when we could be celebrating eating and drinking

Dd is just a toddler so isn't bothered with tradition right now and me and dp are intent on doing some things differently each year so that it won't feel like a drag. What do you do at Christmas if family isn't round the corner?

I hate travelling anywhere on Christmas day....I don't mind popping in to see people locally but no car journeys.

Last year, DH and I weren't invited anywhere....so it was us and our 2 DDs at home. We had a lovely, lovely time.

It is a very good idea to do things differently every year (or every other year) so that you don't get stuck in a rut - ie: always going to your parents one year, in-laws the next etc etc. Also don't give in to the 'pressure' of having to visit all your relations in the relatively short Christmas break. There is no Law that says you have to visit relations at Christmas - sometimes it is nice to have a longer visit when the weather is better, the roads are less busy and people are less stressed.

In our 30 years together we have done lots of different things - sometimes we invite family to us, sometimes we go to them (no longer now that ILs have died and my DPs are quite elderly), we have helped at Church Christmas events, I have worked at Christmas - restaurants & old people's homes, sometimes we stay on our own and sometimes we go overseas. All are good - all are different. . This year we are staying at home and inviting my parents (I keep thinking 'this might be our last Christmas all together' ).

We don't have any parents alive and neither of us had siblings, when FIL was alive we used to have him here. Now we just have the day on our own quietly and do stuff either side of Christmas. If you fancied that could you see some relatives before Christmas and spread it out a bit, could they come to you? It's a bit horrid if you are the only ones expected to travel.

TheHouseOnBellSt that's what we did last year, but I can see it would be nice to see family too, it's just the travel. girlywhirly They could come to us I suppose, but we don't particularly have space for lots of people to stay.

Ragwort that brought a tear to my eyes, I sincerely hope it's not your last. We don't exactly have pressure, but my family always have a boxing day get together and I'd feel like I was missing out if I didn't go! So the pressure is my own.

Interesting to hear what others do, it's very easy for traditions to become a chore.
Equally some ideas for traditions that we could do wherever we are would help get us all in the Christmas spirit.

We used to go drop presents off to our niece and nephew on Christmas morning and Dm would always come to us but I sadly lost her this year so it'll just be us and dcs on Christmas day this year and we'll see everyone else at a get together on boxing day. I quite fancied going away this year to a nice cosy cottage but we'll probably do that when dcs are older.

Sorry to hear about you dm Zurgle I hope you had lots of lovely Christmas' together
A cottage sounds like a fab idea, I looked into doing that near to our family so that we still had our own space. It was a bit pricey around Christmas though.