What are you going to do different next Christmas?

[MsMiaWallace]

Hopefully we'll be able to visit family/friends & socialise more.
Apart from this what else will you change for next Christmas, if anything?

For me I won't be buying:

Mulled wine, didn't really get drunk.

Baking set for the kids to make biscuits for Santa on Christmas Eve, they really weren't interested!

A tub of quality street/heroes. They tasted rank.

Less presents for the kids. Although we say this every year!

Need to buy new Christmas lights for outside too.

Stick to turkey for dinner. Tried something different this time and I missed the turkey.
Not bother with new pjs on Christmas eve, my DS didn't wear them.

I enjoyed not seeing people! Best thing we did was a 6 mile walk Xmas morning. Glorious weather helped.

Probably won’t do much different, we spent Christmas on our own which was lovely, hopefully next year we will be able to visit family on Christmas Eve and Boxing Day but we will probably spend Christmas Day alone as it’s just less stressful.

I have always wanted to go on holiday for Christmas, maybe one year.

Hug my son!!!! He's 28 and in a bubble with his girlfriend and her flatmate...

Next Christmas I am going to...
• buy lights for outside
• make sure the house is decluttered well before Christmas so that it doesn't become a big stress trying to tidy before my family come
• buy my mum/dsis one decent present each rather than several gimmicky things.

All being well I would like to:

• Start celebrating the Christmas period on 1st December and put decorations up on 5th December or slightly before

• Wear a nice dress and have my hair and make-up sorted on Christmas day - too much happened and I stayed in leggings and a boring jumper all day this year, looking a bit crap!

• Go to church- I didn't like the idea of being around people in an enclosed space this year but I've been to church on Christmas day for all but two years of my life and I missed the tradition (I'm agnostic but it still means something to me)

• Do stockings for family (and myself!)- really missed these this year

• Put presents under the tree- we had just a few gifts on the coffee table this year

• Avoid lots of last minute online orders as I hated dealing with all the packaging each day until Christmas eve.

• On a personal note- try to worry less about getting ill or something else catastrophic happening over Christmas

If all goes to plan this year I’ll

• Order a takeaway Christmas Eve - buffets are not worth the effort!

• Buy nowhere near as much sweet stuff - we are still overflowing and it’s not helping my diet.

• Make an effort to dress up/make-up Christmas Day (leggings and bed hair are not a good look on me).

• Buy less tat and more practical things for stockings again - got it spot on this year (much smug).

• Buy more Sainsbury’s Alcohol Free Mulled Punch - it’s so good!!

• Make a smaller Christmas Cake (not prepared to abandon it completely).

• Accept that matching jumpers and pyjamas do not a Christmas make 😉

• Lower my expectations in the gentlest of ways - my kids will be 11 this year and start high school.

• Buy are pre-made Gingerbread House, enough said.

• Don’t decorate before December - delayed gratification is all it’s cracked up to be.

I am also going back to roast turkey.

DH made a big deal about having expensive beef this year cos it was just us and we could go overboard. It was nice but I missed turkey. Even roast chicken would be fine. And red cabbage. I missed that.

I am going to try not to work between Christmas and NY. Usually I offer as I don’t need to travel anywhere and other colleagues do. But this year I didn’t work and it was great.

I will get everything posted out to people early. Makes a big difference if it all goes out in first week of December and no later.

Hopefully do a lot more for MORE people. I would like to play daft games with my extended family and cook and eat and drink until we are all fat and lazy, followed by a walk and more eating and drinking and games and send the kids to bed and get sloshed and have lots of silliness.

Cut down on buying Christmas craft type things for the kids. Most of it didn't get done, they preferred making sausage rolls and buns.

Perfect my cinnamon bun making. Couldn't find the recipe I used last year the one I used didn't work and didn't have IKEA as a back up.

Get cards out on time.

Buy the easy presents first, I left several things until last minute thinking they were local and I could get them easily and they were either out of stock or I forgot about them and had to rush out when I thought I was done.

Make decorations I want to make now and have them ready to go.

Not bother with a Christmas Eve buffet. DS1 is suspicious of them, they're expensive and a faff.

• Put up even more Christmas lights, inside and out
• Put a spending limit on stockings
• Arrange to see as many friends and family in Dec as possible/do lots more social stuff if possible
• Cook chicken thighs instead of a whole chicken
• Buy less crisps/cheese twists – I only ate them because they were there!
• Buy advent calendars with plenty of time to spare... (it took me 3 hours to find 5 on Nov 30th!)
• Put less pressure on making everything seem "normal" and just go with it this time round

I am never, ever buying quality street again. They tasted gross.

Got it mostly spot on this year but would like to

*find out the logistics of outside lighting and buy some and put up in November
*order beef fillet from local butcher again(was divine) but not leave it nail bitingly close to order it(16th!!)
*not bother with parsnips, we forgot to cook them and cooked them since and they barely got eaten
*make sure dp books time off before xmas, he finished on 23rd and could do with his help in the lead up
*get xmas cards out and write and send early dec, instead of the 18th! Ssome prob didn’t get theirs till after
*not buy fresh cream or custard, 4 pots got wasted, everyone wanted squirty or ice cream

Oh

*Not buy xmas pudding, only me that eats it and I’m not even that fond
*buy a smaller xmas cake, 1/4 still sat around now and I’m supposed to be back dieting

Make sure the crackers I buy for the kids don't have CONFETTI IN THEM!!! Absolute blood bath upstairs. I had NO idea they had confetti inside.

Try and get my exh to agree that he either sees the kids on 25th or 26th all day and not half a day on both. I have to drop and collect. Right pain in the neck.
I am quite happy for him to have them on 25th. It is him wanting to see them both days. Likewise he could have them overnight and see them both days. But they refuse to sleep at his.

Anyway to me solution is one day each. None of this half day on both days business.

This Christmas 2021 I hope to celebrate with extended family in the traditional way.

Last Christmas 2020 I canceled Christmas to save lives so that elderly family relatives can rejoin this year!

However as of now I am more than fifty percent optimistic that I would be able to celebrate Christmas in England in eleven months time onwards! Would be interesting to see what happens throughout this year as currently in English lockdown 3 the super spreading asymptomatic mutating virus is overwhelming the NHS with off the scale out of control Covid landscape. However vaccination has now commenced but obviously still no compulsory accurate mass test, trace, track and isolate as there is no possibility of separating the ill from the non infected to keep the economy and hence livelihoods alive too! Going to be a tougher Covid challenge this year as last year was just a warm up for potentially peak Covid at some point this year 2021 before a gradual return to new post pandemic health and wealth. Maybe therefore Christmas 2021 is a possibility!

Not see any family. It was lovely here just DH and I

His family all got together this year without us they 'accidentally' met up together at his parents house. We weren't invited 'because it wasn't planned' they all got covid.

Fucking morons. I'm done with them

Midnight Mass...really missed it.

Being more organised would be nice. Always used to wrap gifts, etc, early then ended up leaving everything until 23rd/24th for the last 5 or 6 yrs (buying and wrapping, etc), which was so stressful.

Although I improved this year and had most things done a few days before 24th, I still had wrapping to do on the 24th and I would've liked everything finished by 20th at the latest so I could've relaxed for the last week. That's my goal this Christmas.

Got the snacks and food about right this year though.
Although I don't think I go overboard, less gifts is my next aim. I'd rather do family experiences or something similar instead of buying things almost just for buying's sake, iykwim.

I bought early so was feeling really relaxed then DS had a bad asthma flare up so was off school for the first week of December then his bubble burst the day he was due back meaning he was off school for the rest of the term. So my plans of enjoying the wrapping up comfortably in the lounge with a coffee next to me disappeared & I ended up wrapping in the garage which was somewhat chilly!

Wrap early next year.

We bought an artificial tree this year as didn't think we'd be able to go together to choose a real one & it was so much easier! Also bought 2000 cluster lights & it was such a beauty that I really didn't want to take it down.

Less food. I thought I'd be clever & do 3 'mains' & that it would be luxurious etc. It wasn't, it was too much & I was too tired to enjoy it.

Next year we'll have a fairly standard roast on Christmas Eve when everyone is excited etc & then pizzas in the lounge on Christmas Day.

Stockings were brilliant, more expensive than previous years (approx £40 each) but full of really good stuff, no tat, no one day wonders just good fun/useful stuff.

If allowed by then, I'm going to rent a little a cottage in the countryside somewhere for me, dh, ds and our new baby and have a really cosy family Christmas.

I'd get on a flight on Boxing Day I think.

Be with my OH right through. We'll be in our new house by then so it'll be our first Christmas together where my OH can have a drink, relax and not have to go home to drive his sons home.

Go for a long Christmas morning walk.

Not order the Mac Cheese from M&S it was shit, rest of order was good though.

Take more time in choosing OH pressies, they were pretty shit, though I didn't think so when choosing them, though we did have a really good laugh each time he opened one due to the p!ss taking insults he gave me, soooo funny!

Sorry, I meant Cauliflower cheese was rubbish not Mac Cheese. It was really runny.

I never thought I'd say this but buy less cheese. I've still got loads left.