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?

@PPCD we've done the Kew light trail and thought it was incredible. Mum did Blenheim and was very underwhelmed. May I ask which you rated out of the four you've done?

@DaisyDozyDee

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.

This seems sensible, I have a habit of going overboard with planning but I try to plan all of the secret/grown up stuff and chill a bit with the children's stuff.

That being said, I do like the idea of them taking part in some of the more essential stuff - decorating the tree, helping make the pudding, some decorations etc, and then having a few fun things is the perfect balance.

We put up our decorations as soon as it is December so that coupled with the advent calendars is a good enough start to me, and I'm not personally a fan of 1st December boxes, Christmas eve boxes etc (though I think there's nothing wrong with them at all!), so then will just switch the theme of their normal day to day fun stuff like crafts to be a bit Christmassy.

My DC are very young though so perhaps when they are older we will do more deliberate/booked things like Christmas markets etc. I'll never set foot in a pantomime though

Following for ideas

Oh yes i forgot we have Christmas bedding!

Usually try to put that on when we put the tree up.

[quote TwinsandTrifle]@PPCD we've done the Kew light trail and thought it was incredible. Mum did Blenheim and was very underwhelmed. May I ask which you rated out of the four you've done?[/quote]
I think the best one we have done have done is Kew Wakehurst. Longleat was nice but very busy. We liked Blenheim too and they had fairground rides at the start plus marshmallows to toast.

I keep thinking of booking one for this winter but the idea of the crowds is putting me off.

We each have a little bottle with a cork in it on the Christmas tree each year, where we write down our wishes for the year to come.

We also take a Polaroid of all of us every Christmas morning that gets added to the tree each year, which is lovely / embarrassing depending on who you are!

A mid week break to Centre Parcs winter wonderland
Christmas party day at Dobbies garden centre
Pick a new decoration each
Go to the cinema to see a Christmas movie on 1st December
Shopping trip to a Christmas market
Make gingerbread house (out of a set I’m not making homemade)
Pantomime
We have a big party with games for the children on Boxing Day
Christmas Eve meet family at the pub let the children play the arcade games and track Father Christmas.
Christmas Eve night time drive past Christmasy houses ‘looking’ for Father Christmas

Our traditions are:

From 1st Dec, I pick DD up from school with a travel cup of hot chocolate and we sing Christmas songs on our way home

Christmas lights trail and Market at the local NT House (Already booked!)

We always go for a walk on Christmas morning, we go to the same place every year, its a lovely quick walk, but it's good to get outside.

DD helps with baking Christmas goodies,

Presents are usually wrapped by mid November and distributed from 1st weekend in Dec.

I love a tradition but especially at Christmas.

Our advent calendar is a fabric one with pockets and the elves fill a pocket a night, we still do this even though oldest ds is 20! We always have smoked salmon for breakfast. We watch the polar express on Christmas Eve. We always have a glass of something when we turn the tree lights on and a new decoration is bought each year which is personal to one of us. We also have one bauble that was the only decoration that my DH owned when I met him that gets hidden in the tree somewhere. I do make cake and Christmas biscuits but gave up on the gingerbread house years ago as it was always a disaster. I love Christmas!

We do:
1st December box
Camp under the christmas tree
Polar express party
Grinch movie night
Hot chocolate station
Watch a Christmas movie together every night in December
Make cookies for Santa
Christmas eve box

@Mustbethewine

We do: 1st December box Camp under the christmas tree Polar express party Grinch movie night Hot chocolate station Watch a Christmas movie together every night in December Make cookies for Santa Christmas eve box

Camp under the christmas tree?? So like in your living room in a sleeping bag type idea? My kids would love this

Christmas starts with the advent calendars being filled and nativity sets being out out. We've done cake and puddings by September/October. Decorating starts the weekend before Christmas day, after our son's birthday has passed.

Choosing and putting tree up and then going through the boxes with all the baubles which have memories attached. Just lovely. Cutting greenery, making wreaths. Its a lovely weekend with the children home and friends coming for wreath making. Usually the men disappear off to collect more wine.

At some point help with flowers for the village church. Also Christmas shopping in London, the lights and carols in Trafalgar square - now without children and includes a Christmas themed supper at my husband's club.

Christmas Eve is last minute shopping and preparation. We used to play the table present game in town - everyone gets £5 and has to find the tackiest present for a named person that is wrapped for the Christmas table. Afternoon is setting house for the meal later on.

Promenade Crib service in village starting at the pub and in the square, then village 'open supper' every host offering same meal before returning to square for last carol and ringing in Christmas.
Some go on to midnight mass, but we go on Christmas morning.

Christmas morning is stockings before Church. The children used to choose a present to take to church to be given by the prisoner to their children visiting in their local prison. Drinks with friends, home for a walk and Christmas lunch. Carols and board games.

Boxing day we do drinks for around a hundred, so the day is mainly getting ready making canapes etc. Children used to help as best they could - now they are genuinely helpful. Then 27th we usually go away for a few days.

We go to ballet at some point - usually nutcracker. We generally have several drinks parties and an evening of games and a film with two families whose children have grown up with ours. Most of children come home for it.

When our boys were children, I started a tradition for Christmas Eve, where we read T'was the Night before Christmas, and the Nativity story, by candle light, then sang a carol before they went to bed.

We used to have a party on Christmas Eve too - nothing formal, just friends and their children, some party food and some games - but it wore the kids out so that, after the quiet wind-down of reading/carols etc, they went to sleep fairly quickly, and we could fill the stockings and go to bed at a fairly reasonable time - ready for them to wake up at the crack of dawn.

@WhittersE

We have a few but one very special one to me is a book I've read every Christmas since I was 4.

It's about a bear celebrating his first Christmas. My Mum got it out of the library when I was 4 and I loved it so much she bought it for me the next Christmas. Every 1st and 24th December ever since my Mum has read this story to me (and probably a few times in between when I was little). I know it by heart now and recite it along with her!

Now I have my own children she reads it to me and my children. (Last year it was over Zoom on Xmas Eve, because of Covid restrictions)

It's out of print now but a few years ago we found a second-hand copy online so at least we have one in each household!

Oh that made me cry! See, that’s what Christmas is all about, the little things that parents do to make it special for their children, not piles of presents. I bet you’ve no idea what else you got that Christmas!

Our traditions have changed now as DS (12) is older and no longer believes but he’s excited to reenact some this year for our puppy (poor thing is an only child so has no siblings to play along for!), he’s even planning to make him a Portable North Pole video 🥰. The puppy won’t care of course but it’s lovely for DS to get some of the magic back, even if he’s making the magic!

We also moved last year to a very community spirited (and welcoming!) tiny village and we’re going to make the most of things like carols around the village Christmas tree.

Some of the old traditions haven't survived divorce and DD getting into her teens, but we've adapted.

We still try to do a Christmas activity of some sort in the run up. Christmas Eve we go out for breakfast/brunch and collect our order from the butchers and cheese shop. I do buffet dinner (the MN picky tea) Christmas Eve night with lots of leftovers to pick at over the next few days.

Christmas Day is quieter and at home which I wish we could have done when DD was younger but family politics didn't allow.

One tradition I’m very glad to have broken, was the frantic present-wrapping and stocking-stuffing at midnight and later on Christmas Eve.

One I still do with dh, is a late night walk on Christmas Eve, to a road where there’s always a lot of holly. I go armed with secateurs, to make sure I have a nice piece to stick in the Christmas pudding.

Any extra goes in the arrangement I always make around 1st Dec, lots of garden greenery stuck into Oasis in a copper bowl on the hall table.
An associated tradition is that dh never notices that I’ve done it!

What’s the title of that book, please, WhittersE?

Christmas kicks off here at the end of Dinovember. The dinosaurs disappear on 30th November and leave a new Christmas book for each of the children.

During December we always do a Christmas Train, a lights trail, go to a farm to cut our tree and visit a garden centre to choose decorations. We bake fudge, Christmas tiffin and ginger bread. We also meet relatives to go to a panto.

On Christmas Eve, we go to the village nativity service, and when we leave church, it's always dark. A quick drink at the village pub and we head home to finish our chocolate truffles. We then have a 'party food' tea, and put out the treats for Santa.