What do you do on Christmas Eve?

[SummerRoberts]

In our house we tend to have Christmas films on all morning and last minute wrapping/preparations going on.
I always make Nigella's Christmas rocky road and put into little gift bags as sort of a little Christmas Eve gift for everyone.
Then we set off it my mums with all the prezzies, duvets etc.
We used to have a Chinese takeaway as our traditional Christmas Eve dinner while we watched a family film but the past few years we've gone for an extended family meal at the loveliest country pub. They make it look so gorgeous and we usually get the big table next to the open fire.
Then we get back to mums, get into Christmas PJs, make some cocktails and even though I'm almost 28, mum will make us all feel our presents and try to guess what she's got us and never confirm or deny
What are your family traditions for Christmas Eve?

Fun and food* how ironic 😂

Don't be such a Scrooge, Crowdie.

OP- well said.
I don't care about "stuff". OH and I give token presents anyway, so some posters are missing the point.

I love christmas eve, I like to have the house looking tidy, and organised, we light a fire, I have lots of candles burning, plates of nibbles. We have guests for a short while. the atmosphere is fizzing with excitement, we play christmas music in some parts of the house.
We all hang stockings, even though mine are teenagers, even my 85 yo mother gets to hang a stocking
I feel quite emotional on christmas eve because the motif behind it is common to us all.
I am in no way christian ( in fact I am a pagan and also celebrate the solstice), but christmas/solstice ( the same thing in my mind) is about the birth of new life, the hope we can have when all is dark and the chips are down, the return of light, the spark of life. and yes how lucky we are.
Many of our ancestors would have perished during winter time, but for those of us still with life in our bones then it's a cause for celebration.

We have neighbours dropping by, with the odd little gift or a last minute christmas card popping through the door, DD (teenage) assembling tablecoths and crackers for lunch the next day.

Crowdie, I am sorry if you think all this is fiction. but this is reality for many of us. We are a family that likes to celebrate festivals.

Oh, the horrific consumerism of going to church, out for a walk, sharing some food with friends and family, listening to music and maybe watching some TV!

Most people have been describing their day
as including many of these things: some time outside in nature ("sun through the trees") singing/listening to carols at home or in church (not actually "Mozart" but along the same lines, and I prefer Bach anyway) , time spent with the people they love ("cosy at home with family"), going to a church or community event or volunteering ("smile from a stranger"), and having something nice to drink ("a great coffee" or hot chocolate, or mulled wine or Bailey's). My traditional Christmas Eve does actually include lentils.

So I'm not really sure what Randomer is complaining about. Possibly the extreme waste of a much-loved 8 year old soft toy?

broomstick, I agree.

In fact an alternative title for this thread could have been-" Apart from gifts what do you love about christmas",

It is in fact the antithesis of christmas consumerism.

Crowdie why would this be creative writing?

I usually go to work. Who are all these people that have Xmas eve off? It's a normal working day. (Bah humbug)

I dont think randomer wasbeing horrible

But crowdie has basically plopped on here and called us liars

So thats not very nice

Indeed it isnt, this thread is just some harmless fun

DS (12) has decreed he has had enough of pantomime and we are to go bowling and then for a KFC!

I love reading all these Christmas Eve threads, but thank goodness for Iona Mumsnet, with a dose of reality!
Does everyone else live in a John Lewis ad?
No crying, overtired kids?
No last minute dash to get a forgotten essential and being stuck in traffic for hours?
No baking fails?
No annoying family members?
I read too many of these threads last year (I love them really!) and decided to follow you all, last minute bits in am, some cooking of christmassy things in the afternoon, friends over in the evening with their DC, Christmas with the Crooners on, fire blazing...
Couldn't get half the stuff I needed at the shops and took ages.
Took me hours to make mini sausage rolls, curry, desserts etc...
Dh seemed incapable of following any instruction " Can you sort drinks please?" Viewers, he bought a bottle of squash!!
Had the chocolate fountain for the kids and took me ages to clean the fecker.
Never again. NEVER AGAIN.
I will now just read these threads and smile sagely...
Back to a walk in local NT property, hot choc in cafe and come home and lock the front door for 3 days!

Well, last year a nasty stomach bug hit me on the way home from church on Christmas Eve so midnight mass was out (choirmaster didn't speak to me for weeks until she found out why I was absent). The year before someone puked on the way to the Christingle so we had to turn around and go home.

And there will definitely be a slightly pointless argument, leading to fisticuffs and Quiet Time In Own Rooms (DC, not us).

But none of that is in the plan, and none of that is what we remember when we think about Christmas Eve.

speakout I feel like you, the underlying feeling of surviving winter, surviving anything... We have had some awful awful times at Xmas.. Death etc and I'm sick to death of funerals and misery. I adore Christmas... I think people who only see the consumers side must have very narrow point of view. It can be upsetting a bun fight started last year and so many Xmas lovers said like me they have experienced really horrid things and. Xmas for many reasons is antidote to the miserable things that get thrust on us.
For the very same reasons I totally understand why it can be just too painful for some people... Which is why we have a special hidden Christmas topic... So those of us who love it can indulge 😀

Christmas Eve is usually hectic here with preparation for the next day. It's (hopefully) a relaxing day with family. We don't go to church, we're not religious. We adults end the day with reading/watching (if the BBC has something on, it's been a bit lacking the last few years) traditional Christmas Eve ghost stories.

Does anyone celebrate winter solstice? We just have a nice meal, candles, and a few, very simple, home made gifts or tokens. The idea is also to walk and see the sunrise, but we don't always do that. We're not pagans, though, just to add.

In my family Christmas Eve was always more fun than Christmas Day,
I still spend Christmas Eve with my family and now my daughter as my husband always works in order to have Boxing Day off.

For most of the morning me and my sisters get ready together, bathing the children and getting them ready.

At about 10 we all get the presents out of our cars and put them under our mums Christmas tree.

at around 11 we start preparing a huge buffet. (We don't let our mum do anything on Christmas Eve) the buffet is huge, gammon and turkey, lots of m&s buffet stuff and the like. My husband runs a patisserie so he brings some stuff home the day before too.

After we play a trivia quiz and then a 'search the house for clue after clue to find a big present' quiz (this all sounds rather childish but even now my sisters and my brother enjoy a good fight at the end to get the present!) the children have their own small quiz too.

At about 6/7 we put on 'a Christmas carol' and we peel the veg ready for our mum to cook tomorrow, we also get the meat ready. Throughout the day we cook the turkey so it's easier on Christmas Day.

Then we all go home and go back to our mum and dads the next day with partners.
Christmas Day is another story

I always prefer Christmas Eve, Bellaboo.

Ehdehors, I am a Christian, but used to be a pagan (which sounds a bit early middle ages) and we still do some solstice stuff. We put up the tree and decorate it ready for the longest night, and leave an LED candle lit in the window all night. In the morning, a little baby sun figure appears under the tree, and we take it out at dawn (which is just before we need to head out to school) and sing a song that goes "Morning has come/ Night is away/ Rise with the sun/And welcome the day".

A1

Annoying family members are not invited

And my children are in their teens so id better not have any tearful children

Have i had bad Christmas eves....no

Had a few bad Christmas days, there was one a few years ago when dd had a complete meltdown...lasted hours

Although the evening before Christmas eve when ds1 was about to turn three i kissed him goodnight and said lovingly

'Are you excited for Christmas baby? Do you think santa will be good to you'

And the adorable child lispingly said

' i have been good mummy...but all i want for Christmas is a micro pet'

WHAT THE FUCK IS A MICRO PET!!!! IVE NEVER HEARD OF THE SODDING THING UNTIL NOW....HOW THE FUCK AM I SUPPOSED TO GET ONE OF THOSE ON SODDING CHRISTMAS EVE!!!!!

And breathe

Hilarious rufus

Wow, crumbs definitely wins the award for having everyone's fantasy Christmas Eve.

Rufus one of mine did that too, years ago. He is a teenager now. Hadn't really expressed an interest in anything until Christmas Eve. When all he wanted was "Octopus a play doh" as he called it. Basically a octopus that you can squish play doh through.
DH looked at me in horror, but I had actually bought it as I always wanted Play Doh as a child and was never allowed any!

A1

That was lucky

sun we found one...had to go to town the next day and i sent dh off on a mission

A1 you are over complicating things.

The secret is to have christmas pretty much wrapped up by the time christmas eve arrives, and do as little cooking as possible.

We have a few friends over between 4- 6pm, candles and Kings Carols, I serve something fizzy, mulled wine and mincemeat pies. Friends know that it is a 2 hour event whci still leaves up the whole evening to watch movies/hot chocolate and stockings.

endehors- yes I celebrate the solstice, just been having Mabon celebrations yesterday too.

Oh, do you live in Patcham, Crumbs1? The walking nativity last year was so lovely! (Though think perhaps you're remembering some of the finer details through the rose tinted fog of festive sherry! It started outside the Co-op .)

Christmas Eve in our home has evolved every year - hubby and I had our own traditions, but now we have DS1 who will be almost 3 this year (and DS2 will be a couple of weeks old) things will evolve again!

DH usually works most of the day (gets a break mid afternoon, but is there until about 9pm) but this year he will have the full day off! Luckily i don't need to do any Christmas Day food prep on Christmas Eve as hubby is a chef so dresses the turkey at work when it gets delivered, and does the veg in super quick cheffy time on Christmas Day!

The last couple of years have started with something like Christmas tree shaped crumpets in front of a Christmas movie, then we walk to the shop to pick up any last minute food we need (usually it's only milk or bread, or a roll of ready made pastry!) , and then home to make mince pies (with said ready rolled pastry, mincemeat from a jar!). We have Christmas music on during, and usually watch a movie in the afternoon.

I used to always attend the festival of 9 lessons and carols, but since having DS, I haven't been.

We have cheese, pate & a ham for dinner (last year DS joined in with this).

We now have a Christmas Eve box with PJs, night before Christmas book, santas plate etc in.
Santa gets a mince pie, slice of Christmas cake and usually sloe whiskey.
Once all those bits are done, its bath, Christmas stories and bed for DS and then time for me (and DH when he's home) to relax with something to drink, more cheese, put gifts out etc.

DH and I always open a pressie from each other on Christmas Eve - this stems from when we got engaged on Christmas Eve.

Which parts are unbelievable then crowdie

Well there's a poster on this thread who uploads pictures of hotel rooms from the Internet then pretends they are rooms in her house, so I'd guess her version of Christmas Eve as something straight out of a Richard Curtis film is equally fictitious.

Hell, in her imaginary world it probably starts to snow right on cue too