Christmas Traditions

[Treezan82]

What are your Christmas traditions? I have a 3 and 5 year old. We visit santa and between Christmas and New Year we go ice skating and go to a pantomime. The first thing we do is let the kids choose a new bauble from a specific shop. Last year was such a washout, want loads of fun and build-up this year. What are yours?

We see a Christmas show and then have afternoon tea at a local hotel with the extended family - aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins - one of the weekends before Christmas. We all get a bit dressed up for it.

Our DD chooses a new Christmas decoration each year.

We go to one of the light trails - we've done Kew Gardens, Blenheim, Westonbirt and Longleat in the past.

Between Christmas and new year we usually go to stay in hotel by the seaside for a few days.

Following - my DD will have just turned 2 and it's my first year as a single parent so I'd love some ideas of traditions we can create of our own!

I've just thought of another one that we have started in the last couple of years - we go for a run as a family on Christmas morning.

In our house, we:
have an advent candle
always make gingerbread men and mince pies
always take a bag of things to a charity shop about a week before Christmas (to make room!)
watch the nativity at the local church
read The Night Before Christmas on Christmas Eve
watch The Snowman
write and sign Christmas cards as a family
choose the Christmas tree from the ‘Christmas tree farm’
choose a new board game to play after Christmas dinner

I always try to work my way through the Starbucks and Costa Christmas menu. Looking forward to introducing my dc to this tradition in a few years time!

Not for everyone but Christingle is lovely, always a short family friendly church service, kids get to hold fire usually with sweets attached, something simple against the chaos.

I am overly invested in Elf on the shelf! As the years have passed we have 'props'. DC ask, I wonder if Elf will do this again X year...? The elf door is active all year. If DC get a good school report (or similar), a little treat from Elf appears at the door. Ashamed to say, once or twice some Bbq coal has been found. Santa is always watching!

One evening we do a "Christmas light safari." We take flasks of hot chocolate and drive around our town spotting all the decorated houses. We have Christmas music on the radio and it's one of my favourite parts of the run up to Christmas.....and it's free!

Oh and when I make the sausage, sage and onion balls for Christmas (which I do one weekend in December and freeze as prep for Christmas) I double the recipe and use the excess in sausage rolls (which I also freeze.)

We go on a Santa Train every year. Same one DH went on as a child.

Sadly we think this year may be the last (they will be 10.5 and nearly 9 this winter). But... we plan to replace it with one of the post Christmas Mince Pie trains instead. Still decorated for Christmas, but no visit from Santa and a toy. Then the little kids can go on the Santa ones (tickets sell out every year)

I have a day with friends doing wreath making somewhere, and a nice meal and a few drinks.

We like a Christmas market trip but that didn't happen last year obviously and I don't know about this year, unfortunately.

Between Christmas and NY, normally closer to Christmas, we go to the coast for a walk on the beach and a play in the arcades. The arcades were closed last year but I'm a bit more hopeful for this year.

We often go to the cinema to see Home Alone or Die Hard, usually somewhere is showing one or both.

Variation of the Christmas light safari here. The first Saturday night in December we do buffet tea (with pigs in blankets - the first point they appear in the festive season - and other bits and pieces, all on Christmassy paper plates). Then after bathtime we put PJs and dressing gowns and Santa hats on and go driving round looking at the Christmas lights in the local-ish area. There's a couple of roads that are renowned for putting the Griswolds to shame so we tend to go over there. Magic Radio on in the car (which is Christmas songs all day every day). Come home for hot chocolate and mini mince pies, Christmas shaped cookies and other bits of dessert before a slightly later than usual bedtime. Been doing it since DD was 18 months old and it is really the way that we herald Christmas season is starting - even DH loves it now although initially he was a bit dubious. DC were actually talking about it yesterday funnily enough!

They do tend to evolve naturally over the years - mine are young adults now but still like quite a lot of the tradition. Just pick ones you like - I’m not going to lie, I definitely would have gone for elf on the shelf had it been known then but man, it looks like a lot of hard work for my sister every year so Id think about that one.
One I saw a couple of years ago that I thought was lovely was a photo taken every year doing the same Xmas thing (their one was stirring the Christmas pudding) but it could be anything festive. Then over the years you see it changing. Would be a fab memory when they are grown.

We do elf on the shelf. We have a cuddly elf no rules about not touching him. He brings a North Pole breakfast on 1st December.
We put the tree up as close to 1st Dec as possible (main one is fake so I do all the branches on my own as it takes ages) and always have mulled wine and treats while we do it.
I try and complete the shopping in November so in December I just have to wrap and weekends are free for fun.
We usually go to Christmas Market in our city centre and view the Christmas displays and lights (this was crap last year we had to buy a McDonald's and eat it in the car and there were hardly any lights anyway) and go on the rides! One year the kids had an inset day so we went for the day and it was fab.
Usually book to see Santa somewhere, the best one was Kielder Winter Wonderland.
On Christmas Eve I spend some time prepping food, we always go for a walk and when we come back elf has gone back to help Santa but left pjs and a bath bomb. So kids go to bed in new pjs and we get a photo of them in front of the tree.
Last year we really enjoyed walking round local streets looking at Advent windows people had done. And we always check out a couple of streets where they go mad with the flashing lights!
One more we have a game where we shout CHRISTMAS LIGHTS when we spot lights and we're in the car. You can also shout HALLOWEEN or ITS COMING HOME when you spot decor throughout the year!

Keep it simple. Kids can get overloaded with too many activities.

We do:
Advent calendar
One visit to FC
Caga tio on Xmas Eve (we're in Spain, its a Catalan tradition)
Xmas dinner on Xmas Eve, so Xmas day is calmer
Xmas day: open stockings on our bed, pancakes for breakfast (ds has a small frying pan in the shape of a gingerbread man!), walk dog, tree gifts, homemade soup and stuff for lunch, go for a walk (to a little town along the coast, they always have a massive sand sculpture of the Nativity, different style every year, always fantastic), we can play with any new outdoor toys (bike, scooter,vremote control cars etc), home for dinner usually saltimbocca and a Xmas film.

Between xmas and new year: not a lot! See friends, see family, lots of hot chocolate and panettone.

We might make biscuits. One year we went ice skating (cheap through PTA). We used to go to a big indoor kidstraveganza when ds was younger (toys, bouncy castles, painting, cooking, scalextric, cycling, robots, circus equipment...) but he's outgrown it.

One year we came back to the uK and did panto, Cristingle, ds was knackered by 25th!

What I remember from my own childhood is:
Stockings
Same decorations every year
Helping stir the cake and pudding, adding the sixpence
Making oranges stuffed with cloves
Advent calendar with pictures
Using the special bowl and plates and stuff for Xmas lunch and to hold the nuts and mint choc matchsticks etc - I still remember them.
Putting out pillowcase and carrot etc for FC and Rudolph.

What I have totally avoided is anything I have to buy especially: Xmas Eve box with DC name on, special plate for FC mince pie with DC name on, matching pyjamas, MF Elf on the MF shelf - we don't have time for that and we don't like the idea of FC constantly watching and judging etc, spying, not nice.

Don't forget DC need days at home to play with their gifts and, I imagine, days to see family. Chilling out is the best thing about Xmas! DS is off 22 December -8 Jan that's a lot of chilling!

@CarolinaWeeper

One evening we do a "Christmas light safari." We take flasks of hot chocolate and drive around our town spotting all the decorated houses. We have Christmas music on the radio and it's one of my favourite parts of the run up to Christmas.....and it's free!

Oh my goodness I need to do this!!!

@Ricekrispie22

In our house, we: have an advent candle always make gingerbread men and mince pies always take a bag of things to a charity shop about a week before Christmas (to make room!) watch the nativity at the local church read The Night Before Christmas on Christmas Eve watch The Snowman write and sign Christmas cards as a family choose the Christmas tree from the ‘Christmas tree farm’ choose a new board game to play after Christmas dinner

I always try to work my way through the Starbucks and Costa Christmas menu. Looking forward to introducing my dc to this tradition in a few years time!

We have the same Christmas eve book! Lovely ideas, thanks

We have loads and loads:

Different highlighter each and a trawl through the Radio Times (only time we buy it and we rarely watch television).

Christmas train ride.

Make fudge and biscuits and deliver to neighbours and friends in the village.

Wrap up warm and walk to look at the lights.

Local Christmas Market (cancelled this year for the 2nd year in a row ) and buy a new decoration for each child. They'll take them with them when they move out.

Make and decorate the cake together. They decorate with whatever they want. We've had fondant icing ninja turtles playing next to ornamental pigs in the past.

Make sausage rolls and mince pies and eat them warm from the oven while watching a Christmas film.

Looong before the elf became a thing, our Sylvanian turtles came alive every night of advent and got up to mischief. They still do it to this day.

Go out to choose a tree from the saw mill and then struggle to fit it in the car.

Make paperchains, string popcorn, dry fir cones, dry oranges etc and make decorations.

Ride round the village on a tractor pulled trailer, festooned with twinkly lights and sing carols whilst collecting for charity.

Jump in the sea on boxing day.

We have loads more. They all just evolve over time.

Forgot about the nativity! My son might be old enough this year, my daughter loved it in 2019.

@ShowOfHands

We have loads and loads:

Different highlighter each and a trawl through the Radio Times (only time we buy it and we rarely watch television).

Christmas train ride.

Make fudge and biscuits and deliver to neighbours and friends in the village.

Wrap up warm and walk to look at the lights.

Local Christmas Market (cancelled this year for the 2nd year in a row ) and buy a new decoration for each child. They'll take them with them when they move out.

Make and decorate the cake together. They decorate with whatever they want. We've had fondant icing ninja turtles playing next to ornamental pigs in the past.

Make sausage rolls and mince pies and eat them warm from the oven while watching a Christmas film.

Looong before the elf became a thing, our Sylvanian turtles came alive every night of advent and got up to mischief. They still do it to this day.

Go out to choose a tree from the saw mill and then struggle to fit it in the car.

Make paperchains, string popcorn, dry fir cones, dry oranges etc and make decorations.

Ride round the village on a tractor pulled trailer, festooned with twinkly lights and sing carols whilst collecting for charity.

Jump in the sea on boxing day.

We have loads more. They all just evolve over time.

Radio Times!!! Forgot about that one!! That's the only thing I have taken from my owm childhood Christmases.

I get so excited about the Radio Times. I wasn't allowed to touch it as a child. My mum would highlight it and it was her choices only (endless soaps usually) so now I make sure we all get to choose a few things. I even make sure I plan a drive to the nearest city the weekend it comes out as our local shops don't stock it until a week later. It's the most ridiculous thing but it is part of my build up to Christmas.

(I find throwing it in the recycling unbearable once January rolls round)

I have a ds aged 4,We have an afternoon of doing Christmas crafts and/or baking

We make salt dough ornaments each year for the Christmas tree and paper snowflakes,
We go for a few forest walls where we collect leaves, holly etc to do crafts with.
We take a flask of hot chocolate and go and see the Christmas lights.
We see Father Christmas at the garden centre and have a carvery afterwards.
We make popcorn and have hot dogs whilst we watch Christmas films in our pjs with duvets on the sofa.
We try and go to a local Christmas market (if it’s on)
We have a disco/party night early in December where we put on a nice ish outfit, have a little buffet and have a dance party to Christmas songs with disco lights etc

Not so much a tradition as a mindset. We deliberately don’t have things that’s we aim to do every single year. We also spread the nice stuff out through the whole of December and minimise anything that needs to be prebooked. Basically, it’s a stress management operation.
My childhood memories of Christmas are not good - mostly because my mum was so tangled up in maintaining traditions that she got hugely over-stressed, which didn’t result in a good time for any of us.

Advent calendars that come out every year
Assemble and decorate a gingerbread house
Panto (sat at the front when DC were little, now we book the cheap seats in the back row so we can do the party dances unseen!)
Choose a decoration each, and pick a colour /theme for the tree.
Mass on Christmas Eve followed by Chinese crispy duck.
Christmas Day swim (in a heated outdoor pool, not in the wild!)
Homemade crackers
Homemade trifle
Ham egg and chips at some point over the holidays
Football/rugby match depending how the fixtures fall.

Building them up, as the kids get older.

Last year I made my first Xmas cake, and it was delicious so will be doing that again this year. Lovely to make it with the kids.

Xmas Eve, I am not so keen on the Xmas Eve boxes (more stuff to buy etc) but now I give the kids an Xmas themed book. We have a nice collection that we gather up and read on the lead up to Christmas Day. Give hot choc and marshmallows to have whilst reading them. Then sprinkle reindeer food- which is just oats in a nice bag!

Make mince pies together on Xmas Eve (if there is time, if not 23rd).

Xmas day I do the main meal at 5pm. It's a buffet for lunch. Help yourself. Means I am not cooking and missing all the excitement of present opening because I am stuck in the kitchen! Then when everyone is done, and watching a film I head off, wine in hand to cook.

When mine were primary school age, we did elf challenges. Every day of advent, the elves left a different challenge - word search, spot the difference or something like “tell mum 3 things you are grateful for” or “say something kind to 3 people today”. One of their favourites was when the elves left £5 and they’d to buy things for the food bank - we still do that even though they are teens now. You can print out Hama bead patterns for Christmas trees, stars etc. and the elves would leave the beads and a pattern. Took a bit of work but they really looked forward to it.