Christmas days out/in

[Snausage]

I live in West Kent, close to the Surrey and Sussex borders. Christmas is a Big Thing for me, and it tends to last the whole of December.

I am planning to take DS (3 in September) on the Spa Valley Railway Santa train, and to the grotto at Penshurst Place.

We spend a lot of December doing road trips to visit family and friends to drop off gifts.

I spend some days with my DS crafting cards and decorations and baking, and he helps me bake the cake in September (so soon!) and making mincemeat and then mince pies in December.

I am hoping to go on a wreath making day course, too. My wreaths are very "homemade" looking

What do you plan on doing with or without your kids and families? I'd love to know!

Cards, shop, wrap, trees the week before. Cook, eat, have guests. Go to church. Get rid of all decorations (two trees and a wreath) asap. I detest home made dust collecting tat.

Probably a Christmas concert and the opera or ballet between Christmas and BY.

we always go the local am dram panto, santa visit and school Christmas fair. we do lots of Christmas crafts and baking and this year attempting a homemade gingerbread house. next year im hoping for Christmas away somewhere snowy

We have a special Christmas envelope I made from felt that gets delivered by the Christmas elves every day or every few days. Inside the envelope is a Christmas activity or task for the dc (2 and 5 this year). We have a Christmas film day, a few baking days, writing cards, winter walks in the park, big DD and I are going to the theatre on Dec 22nd, and we're going to Butlins as a family the week before Christmas.

I don't know if it's too far for you but the Brook theatre in Chatham have a brilliant little interactive theatre show.

I took my then just 3 year old last year and will book again this year.

It moves around a few different stages and there are elements of interaction but at no point are the children expected to sit silently.

We thought it was really sweet.

DS1 has asd and gets stressed by too much going out and excitement. So ours tends to be low key and predictable from one year to the next but still fun for the other kids.

I usually kick off with a forest walk to find pine cones etc which makes for an afternoon of crafting a day or two later.

We carefully compose our letters to Santa and post them

We have various baking and making days: the gingerbread house and stained glass cookies are a tradition.

And we do some art and craft things too. Much planning and discussion bickering and squabbling goes into these

We decorate the back windows with snowflakes and the floor with confetti

Writing cards to everyone in the class is an obsessive one that has to be spread out over several months so I've learned from painful experience to start that in October

Decorating the tree is a big day too, and both sets of grandparents need help with theirs too so that's another two evenings.

Dragging all the boxes of crap precious decorations out of the attic is an evenings activity too

I try to take each child shopping separately for gifts they want to buy and then we go for cake and coffee. It can be tricky to organise the childcare but they love their special mum time

And we have one food bank shopping trip too.

We make bird feeders and fat balls and decorate the trees in the garden.

And take a trip to the park to feed the ducks and the aggressive dive bomber seagulls

And we visit the most wonderful Santa Claus ever.

Any other outings I save til after Christmas. By then boredom has set in, and everything is more low key, the crowds are less intense and I'm focused on the kids and not distracted. There's trips to the ice rink, a show with dd, rides on the Christmas train at the local shopping centre and visits to cribs. And more feeding of ducks.

It all has to be fitted around homework, dinners, after school activities, therapy work and playtime so while it sounds like a lot it's generally 20 minutes or so here and there.

I'm a little envious of some of your outings and excitement but still we enjoy the build up albeit in a very homey way and hopefully without meltdowns