JUST US - first time ever!

[Sweetheart]

So it is looking likely that for the first time ever it will be just me, dh and the kids on boxing day this year. We have never spent any part of Christmas just us and whilst I'm looking forward to a chilled out day at home I also want to make it as special as possible. I don't really want the kids dissapearing off into their rooms for the entire day.

Ds is getting a new games console for xmas so I'm sure he will want to spend some time playing on that - and I suspect Dd will want to go out and see gf at some point.

Can anyone share some ideas with me of what I can do to make the day a bit more special?

Playing board games and cards usually ends in a family argument.......the only other thing I could think of was a Christmas film in front of the fire.

We usually always spend Christmas just us,for us it's because my DH's family are over 3 hours away and my parents would never have been able to host us all because despite the fact that they only had 3DC between us we gave them 18 DGC

I love Christmas but I really enjoy Boxing day as well because it's alot more relaxed than Christmas day.Boxing day is the day that our 5DC all get to really use they're presents.

This is how our boxing day usually goes,
We get up at about 8(that's late for our youngest DC)we have the fire going and make a special long breakfast(the long means it's like a quiet sunday where normally we spend time lounging around and looking through the papers whilst drinking pots of real coffee and decent tea)and we sit and chat about the presents we got and about seeing friends and family,then we play games with our DC.

Then our DC go and get washed and dressed and whilst my DH cleans up from breakfast I get the dinner started(yes we are one of those strange family's that have a roast on the boxing day as well)then if it's been snowing we'll go over to the local park and go sledging(it has some great hills that are ideal)and make snowmen and have a snowball fight,then we'll come home and put a nice movie on and make the children a luxuary hot chocolate each to have whilst we finish sorting dinner out.

We sit down to dinner at about 2pm and it will be a 2-3 course meal (a main,dessert and cheese board)depending on how many courses anyone wants to eat and once we are finished whilst we tidy away our DC will set up any family games they want to play(things like pictionary ect)we'll play games together for a couple of hours maybe and then we'll sit down and watch some tv together and then around 7-7.30 my DH will lay out the boxing day tea and we'll sit down and eat together.

In between all of this we'll have had half a dozen phone calls from friends and family and numerous text messages,

We usually finish the day with our DC by watching something everyone wants to watch or playing a game/cards ect and then once our DC are in bed me and my DH will cuddle up on the sofa with the lights of and we'll have a toast to our loved one's that have passed.

I love Boxing Day, it's far better than Christmas Day when you are expected to be festive and cooped up indoors most of the day.

Friends of ours are planning a 100 mile cycle ride, with children on tag-alongs, if that appeals to you? Two families, each taking part of a Christmassy bring & share picnic lunch.

We are generally a very active family but I think the appeal of boxing day this year is getting to stay at home and chill out....we haven't had a day at home liver the last couple of years due to various family obligations.