MrsK, we alternate admittedly between the large family chaos (both sets of DPs live close to each other, a few hours away from us - we normally rent a cottage to have a small breathing space in amongst the chaos of both houses!!), and our nice smaller event at home. Where it's just 3 - DD, DH and I.
At home looks like:
DD wakes at stupid O'clock and opens stocking.
We make a nice breakfast (often something like rashers, a pack of jus-rol croissants freshly baked, orange juice and lots of coffee) and enjoy some quiet(ish) time with the radio on.
Out for mass, where we meet lots of local friends.
Go visit my maternal DAunt and also my paternal DAunts/Uncles in my DGP's family home (DGPs now passed away but 1 DAunt still lives there and that's still where the family gathers on Christmas and other events).
Between the visits, we usually get home and turn on the turkey - rest of the cooking is done when we get home properly.
Get home, check turkey, put in some "nibbles" in oven (party food bits), light the fire, open some bubbles, turn on Christmassy music...tell DD 100 million times that we are coming to do presents in just a few minutes once the jobs are done (about 15 minutes after we walk in the door).
Once the jobs are done and nibbles cooked, sit down and open presents while having our bubbles and nibbles.
Intermittantly check on turkey, add spuds and veg as needed, DD generally plays with toys or turns on a Christmas movie in the background once presents are done, she does do some jobs with us too. It's a quiet, relaxed part of the day while things cook and we just enjoy the peace.
Dinner is formal in that we use the good crockery and glasses, at the dining table. But not in a "sit still and children should be seen and not heard" way - it starts with the pulling of crackers, DD eats a lot as we put things out in dishes to serve yourself, and we all are pretty relaxed. DD can leave the table once she's finished to go off and play with her things, while DH and I relax over finishing up and chatting.
Load everything into the dishwasher and put leftovers in the fridge.
After dinner, we take out some board games some years, or just watch a good movie on others (although Christmas night tv is usually utterly pants!). We have some old favourites, but we generally buy some new game most years to challenge ourselves. And always have a pack of cards handy too.
Apart from the day itself, things that we enjoy over the season include:
Visiting the "Live Crib" outside the Lord Mayor's house (it used to be daily when DD was in crèche 4 minutes walk from there, nowadays just a few times when she's in the city centre - but she still asks to at age 10).
Having a "Christmas shopping trip" just me and her - she can buy whatever presents she needs (other than mine!), I try to not have things I need to buy that day, but it's mostly about visiting the Crib and enjoying a nice hot chocolate and bun trip to a good coffee shop and watching the people and enjoying the atmosphere around town. Usually get public transport home and she buys her own ticket (or now uses her own Leap card - our version of Oyster).
Going to buy the tree when we have a real one (the years we stay at home). It's usually a whole family occasion, with DH reckoning we'll never fit it in the car; or else DD and I getting gleeful about how well the girls can do without Daddy.
Baking cookies on Christmas Eve for Santa. We bake a fair amount in December. DD used to bake spiced Christmas cookies for crèche from when she was about to turn 1 (her actual involvement in the baking grew from mixing eggs with a fork and having her own bit of dough to roll and cut (but not for consumption by others) at age 1, to making them completely herself apart from the oven by about age 6/7). But for Christmas Eve, we have a more normal chocolate chip cookie recipe - and I always freeze a half batch from early December, so we can either do them from scratch if we have time and want to, or just "slice and bake" if it's too chaotic or we are very busy on Christmas Eve.
DD usually does some crafty thing - making a card for DGPs or a decoration for our tree. When she was smaller, she used to love having a shoebox of strips of coloured paper and pieces of sticky tape. Over the course of a couple of weeks, she'd make a string or 2 of paper chain to hang in the hall, and she could choose the colours herself, and just toddle over to it and do some when she was bored or wanted to but also easily put it away for later too. And it wasn't too messy for me to clean up on multiple occasions!
I'd keep an eye out in early December for houses putting up lights, and we'd do a family drive to look at them the week before Christmas one evening after dark. Quite a few years, this involved hot chocolate in a travel mug for DD - nowadays it is more likely to be part of a "going out for dinner" drive.
We didn't tend to go to grottos in shopping centres too often - Santa visited crèche and school always, there is a party for DCs at work too, and her various Clubs have some sort of celebrations either at last meetings before the break or on the weekends running up to the break. But we would try to find a fun outing too - a good few years we went on the Santa train (steam train trip of about 90 minutes, with carol singing groups wandering on board, Elves giving out selection boxes, Santa wandering through to talk to every child, and the engine moving from the front to the back halfway for the return journey). Another year, we went to a "Stately Home" place about an hour away who do a Green Santa - you go through the Narnia's wardrobe (fur coats hanging and all) to a winter wonderland (Christmas tree forest and loads of fake snow), then in to meet Green Santa, in green robes, plant a Christmas tree together to take home, talk about his hedgehog pal and the importance of plants, and also given a packet of wild meadow flower seeds and a candy cane. That sort of thing.
Some years we've gone to musical performances. There is a showing of the Snowman movie with an orchestra playing the soundtrack live which happens every year - that's lovely. Sometimes just carol services in church. When she was 8, we did "Carols by Candlelight" which was in 18th century dress and orchestral/choral music, and had dinner together in the city beforehand. I usually only inflict 1 of those on her - she enjoys 1, but wouldn't enjoy more than that. Another year, we went to the Panto on 23rd December, which she loved.
A big part of our run-up to Christmas is the advent calendar. DM made one for her with pockets for each day - and I put a choc in those each night (I buy nets of little figures in Aldi, a lot cheaper than M&S versions). When she was smaller, I did a mixture of free printable colouring and quiz sheets (almost all schooldays), occasional treasure hunts to find a small toy around the house, and notes of things we'd do that day (sometimes outings, sometimes "Baking Day" etc, sometimes just "Today is the day we sort out the broken toys"). Nowadays, I still have some notes and always still a chocolate, but she's not so into the colouring/quiz sheets so I don't bother much with those - but she does have a Lego version alongside the fabric one.
It's not LOADS and LOADS of things in your face everyday and all day long. Juggling the diary so she can get to all the things she wants to, and not having everything happening the same weekend. Making sure that we can organize the things she wants (like baking sessions or buying certain presents), and also that I get her involved in the preparations at home (doing some jobs, helping sort through the toys, putting up the tree etc).
And making sure that it is not just a consumer-fest. That we enjoy good music (often free or cheap performances), nice food (not gluttony, but having a few nice treats in that we'll all enjoy), and making time for the season. So crisp fresh air walks (even crisp rainy walks all snuggled up in proper gear), going to Church, curling up together with movies or stories, going to see family and friends and having them come to see us, doing our Christmas Candle ceremony and remembering the good and bad of the year and making time to remember family members who are no longer with us.....those sorts of things as much as the presents.
Christmas Eve is also quite special to us.
After dinner, DD (as youngest in the household) lights the red Christmas Candle (to show there is "room at the Inn" for any weary travelers - Irish tradition). We have a short time of reflection, where we talk about the good and bad highlights of the year, and remember the family members and friends who have died. We say a prayer together. (We are not a terribly religious family - but a little, and many of our observances happen around Christmas).
Then DD gets out the Christmas Eve box. It has new PJs for all 3 of us, Lush seasonal bath bombs for DD and I, naice hot choc on a stick for each of us, her stocking, our copy of "Twas the night before Christmas", and her Christmas plate and glass and snowman hot water bottle usually get added in as well (always well used throughout December). DD outs out her stocking, the cookies she's baked and a glass of milk, then heads up for her bath and PJs, comes back down for her hot chocolate and then I read TTNBC to her in bed. The quietness of Candle "ceremony" and then the bath, hot choc and story in cosy new PJs in a snuggly warm bed all help to settle her down for a good sleep rather than being wired to the moon at midnight still.