What are you doing differently this year?

[Iamnotacerealkiller]

So we normally we have a big 14/15 person family Christmas but since we have has two children (1 and 3) we have been thinking about going and doing our own thing for a couple of years. This year seems the the perfect time so it will just be the 4 of us at home. It occurred to me yesterday that we can now make our own traditions as we actually don't like some of the old ones ( some of which have been in the family for generations) what will you be doing differently or what would you do if you could.

Mine
No traditional Victorian breakfast (including pork pie) it's way too much on Christmas day and my family get up late it's then only a few hours until Christmas lunch and we are still full!

No Brussels. I like them but wasted with boiling.

I plan to make at least double the pigs in blankets, there can never be enough.

No Christmas cake or pudding or mince pies. Don't like any of them. Will make a nice tort or tart.

We will do a lovely seperate present opening session with grandma before she goes off to spend Christmas with my sister so more one on one.

We (dh and i) will not make ourselves ill with exhaustion shutteling back and forth and supervising children in a house full of precious antiques.

We will not dress up for Christmas dinner.
We may stay in pjs some days.

We've decided to make things safer for my mum (and hopefully we'll still be in T2) and to allow my brother to come too we're having an outdoor Christmas day for 6. Gazebos if it rains, BBQ turkey, bonfire, patio heater on, nice fluffy blankets, hot tub, guitar and carols round the fire, mulled wine/hot chocolate etc. Really rather looking forward to it. Feels nice to do something completely different this year. It will be shorter too inevitably which means time to ourselves in the morning and evening which we never normally get to relax.

We always spend Christmas just us on the day now; DDs very first Christmas when she was 3 months old was spent with extended family and I literally barely saw her.

But there will be changes as the kids are getting a little older now (5 and 3 plus baby) and it's time to really start creating our own traditions as you said :)

I'm being a lot more organised this year, have got most of the presents already which I've never done before, and I'm more actively planning the day. I've planned so far a Christmas eve picnic by the Christmas tree for dinner, a Christmas Morning Tea party after stockings, and a very carefully planned Christmas Dinner so that I'm not in the kitchen for 7 hours of the day!

I do love doing Christmas at home. I love cooking a Christmas Dinner but I'm very slow at it and I am usually no exaggeration in the kitchen from about 10am to 4pm (about 2 hours later serving it up than scheduled) so miss a lot of the day. But aside from that I love doing my glam hair and makeup and putting on new jammies, cooking whatever I want to serve at dinner (yes to cauliflower cheese and Yorkshire puddings!). I love putting what we want on the tv and not having to worry supervising the children in someone else's space.

I’m intrigued by the Victorian breakfast @Iamnotacerealkiller - what goes on it? Is it an old family recipe?

We started having Christmas Day at home just us after we had DC and I love it. We usually see family on Boxing Day/27th and it's brilliant but hectic, ferrying the kids around and trying to make sure they don't run riot. Christmas for just us is chilled out, the DC can play with their new toys in their own space, we can watch what we want on TV, eat at 12pm which would be too early for extended family but works for the children.

So the actual Christmas Day I don't think will be any different but no family parties or seeing extended family in between Christmas and New Year will feel very strange I imagine. I'm not actually sure what we're going to do so following for ideas.

@VestaTilley

Victorian breakfast. A great great (great?) grandmother was a house keeper for a rich family and she emulated what her employers ate for Xmas morning. Pork pie, boiled, sliced cow tounge, bread, pickles, mustard etc. It has continued down the generations. It's rather....heavy, especially as we have Christmas lunch at about 3pm and that is rather lavish too.