Christmas Eve

[angeltattoo]

What do you do on Christmas Eve? We never plan anything and it always then just feels like we're 'waiting' all day.

The kids are a bit older now (8 & 6) and I don't have to spend the entire evening wrapping and also for the first time in 8 years I am not cooking Christmas dinner, so no mountains of veg to peel.

So it would be good to do something nice but I can't think what, what do you do?

Thanks

Lazy morning, bacon butties.
Afternoon walk in local NT garden.
Sing carols on street with neighbours about 6.
Go to friends house for drinks after.
Pizza express for tea.
Home to put out drinks and letter for Santa. But as DC are both in their twenties, that one is probably on its way out.

@RAFHercules thank you - gotta love a Christmas jape!

@oohlalabonbons @salcombebabe

I am the sister of Kevin McAllister

Mince pies

We have our Xmas dinner on Xmas Eve at around 5pm.
The kids call in with the grandkids in the evening so we can all open our gifts.
Once they've gone we put some music on and just chat the rest of the night away until bedtime.

We go to see Santa at around 4, it's a woodland setting with lights so lovely in the dark. Then home for hot chocolate, new PJ'S and a Christmas story before bedtime. (DC are 6 and 2).

We are also having Christmas Dinner on Christmas eve after it was successful last year so it's quite a busy day.

Have loved reading all these

I go to the panto in the afternoon with my Mum and nephew and then we get fast food while we sing carols in the car. Once home I used to either watch a film alone in my room or downstairs with my Mum if my step-dad went to bed early.

This year is my first year living alone so I'm trying to think of something special to do in the evening to start a new tradition but I'll probably just watch a Christmas movie and eat too much chocolate

Always panto!!

This is such a lovely thread to read. It's really got me excited about Christmas.

We always have our next door neighbour and their kids who are same age as ours come round from about 2pm and as the kids have gotten older, they stay later on into the evening. We have a buffet of lovely nibbles, cocktails and prosecco. Our two DHs go to the pub for the first few hours so we can have a natter (gossip) without them and then come back around 5/6ish. It's always a fab day and we look forward to it with so much anticipation. If they leave early we put The Grinch and then Home Alone on with the kids and if they stay late the kids just go to bed (always reading The Night Before Christmas as the bedtime story) once they've gone and we keep our fingers crossed we'll get a bit of a lie in on Christmas Day - truly the best present ever - and we might then watch Die Hard before our bed time. I just have to be careful not to drink too much as we also host all of my family on Christmas Day and I couldn't face that with a hangover!

All very low key as there's just the two of us and the cat. A bit of last minute housework during the day, get everything warm and cosy (lots of throws and nice candles), make mulled wine, settle down to watch the likes of The Snowman then an early night - to sleep, as we'll both be so knackered from getting all our work done before going on leave

46DaphneDeloresMoorhead my husband does the same plus tesco, a couple of years ago he bought stuffing in both and we already had plenty at home.

DC all grown up and don't live near so we have our best friends who live a few doors down come over around 3pm for sherry & mince pies and presents exchange. Presents limited to

What a lovely thread! Feeling all festive now

Last cleaning etc, watch a film at lunchtime, then put out the kids Santa signs etc in the garden, open our Christmas Eve sleigh. Go to the crib service at church then have family over for pizza watch the snowman and Father Christmas.

We'll go to the park then hopefully to a Christingle service. We'll then come home and have our main dinner (husband will cook when we are out)

It's my birthday.

What I like to do is give all my children a Christmas Eve box packed with crafts and things that will occupy them for most of the day. I like to make a big slow cooker full of hot chocolate made with real milk chocolate and cream, with marshmallows, squirty cream and flavouring syrups there for people to add. I bake gingerbread. In the evening, we watch A Christmas Carol- the Disney one with Jim Carey. We put out the mince pie and brandy for Father Christmas. We hang stockings. I get my older two kids to "secretly" wrap a gift for each other, their younger sibling and us parents and sneak them under the tree when nobody is looking. It really seems to heighten the excitement for them. After their little brother has gone to bed, I let them have a glass of Buck's Fizz (which is more OJ than anything) and some cheese and biscuits. They feel very grown up indeed.

What they like to do is give me breakfast in bed, help with prepping the dinner, go wild over their Xmas Eve boxes, make gingerbread houses, eat Xmas tree chocolates, play games, etc.

Build a gingerbread house while listening to a Christmas playlist and sipping on mulled wine!

Then into our matching Christmas pjs, and snuggle up watching a christmas movie before an early bedtime.

We always go out for a long walk with the dogs mid afternoon, when we get home the annoying elf has gone, and left behind the Christmas Eve box with pyjamas, hot chocolate, etc and we all watch muppets Christmas Carol then do the reindeer food, santas mince pie etc and read The Night Before Christmas.

We have ice skating booked in Edinburgh. Will book somewhere for a pub lunch either before or after.

Even though I am now old, the magic of Father Christmas delivering presents when I was a child has never left me. For some reason, I expect because we had relatives staying, I always had a camp bed in my parents' room over Christmas. I so remember trying to stay awake but obviously falling asleep before the presents were delivered.

Christmas Eve has definitely changed since having children,
I try to have housework finished the night before ie, clothes washed and put away etc. and to have all the wrapping done.
In the morning,o some crafts or colouring,gingerbread house while listening to Christmas music.
depending on the weather we will go to the playground in the afternoon and have a Christmas picnic, and go for a drive around to look at lights.
Buffet tea while watching Christmas movies. Into new PJ's and Christmas books.

Its my birthday 🥳 So I get breakfast in bed and presents….and then I get up and switch to Christmas.

If there is enough snow we will go skiing in the morning and come home to soup and paninis

In the afternoon we light the fire and there is usually a DC doing last minute wrapping, prepping etc. DD will want to ice and decorate the Christmas cake. We will probably try and watch a muppet Christmas and give up after about 10 mins when we remember again how much we dislike it. Then I will get a potato peeling group together and we will do the last minute Christmas food prep listening to carols. There will probably be a puzzle on the go and maybe a dungeons and dragons game. Then dinner will be DH cooking one of his specialties and a cake with a candle for me with a nice bottle of wine. Then DC and DH will probably watch a movie and I will have a bubble bath and then DH and I will have a night cap in front of the fire and fill the stockings.

In the past I've usually been at work and it has been traditional to get a Chinese takeaway in the evening Now I have it off and as the dc are so little we have decided this year to do a 'nice' Christmas eve buffet (easy as alot pre prepped ordered food)that we can have as a family. I think as dc get older and aren't as fussy the tradition of Chinese takeaway may very well come back!

It feels nice though knowing we all will be in and cosy and nobody having to go out to collect the takeaway!
Through the day we will just chill, maybe pop to see christmas lights, go for a walk or what ever we fancy (no rules and christmas day already taken care of). We will watch a film with some nibbles from the buffet in the evening and hot chocolates with cream marshmallow toppings!

We always get out of the house on Christmas Eve. It used to be soft play when the dc were younger, generally we go swimming now, or we might to crazy golf. Back home to a christmas eve hamper (I'm aware everyone hates these but it works for us) with a crafty activity for the dc while dp and I clean and prep veg, then we decorate gingerbread houses and watch a film.

Pub in the afternoon, then Turkish bbq place for tea then home to put stockings out etc
Then typically have a late night, mid last minute wrapping , drunken row with dh about him doing sod all for Christmas vs me run ragged !

Has no-one mentioned Norad Tracks Santa? Santa flies around the world on his sleigh, and you can zoom in and view videos and photos of the places he flies past. It starts late afternoon on Christmas Eve and continues for 24 hours or so, flying all round the world. Apparently in 1955 a local paper printed the phone number of the North American Aerospace Defense Command instead of its phone-Santa hotline, and when the kiddies started calling in, they played along. I check in at intervals throughout Christmas Eve, with my (now adult) children patting me on the head and saying "yes, dear" as I excitedly report that Santa is over Gabon, or the Marshall Islands, or (suspiciously often) the former Soviet rocket launching sites in Kazakhstan. It wouldn't be Christmas without it. www.noradsanta.org/