Season of mist and mellow fruitfulness...and ramping up those Christmas preparations! Countdown to Christmas 2024 (thread 3) (title edited by MNHQ @request of OP)

[NoWordForFluffy]

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(Saves us checking the old thread tomorrow!)

Here goes, folks. New thread to see us through autumn!

Someone is bound to have mentioned this - I’m afraid I haven’t read the full thread.

If you are snowed in today, remember to check if your library has an online service. Ours has Libby, and you can download loads of Christmas magazines, all free.

I have a box of Christmas magazines from years gone by, and bring these out every year, but refuse to buy any more because they are so ridiculously expensive.

Snowing in central London, but not settling!
I too have a hoard of old Christmas magazines and I usually add a few supermarket freebies.
PS apologies for typo in the galette des rois!

Snow day for DS

I’ve got a terrible temperature, spent all day in bed yesterday on and off. Feel worse today - shivering, then baking hot, then shivering again. Tried to get up to help DH and I thought I was going to faint. Feel quite panicked. DH wants to take me to the doctors; but both kids have had illness the last few weeks, so I presume I’ve got that. I had to lie on the lounge floor as I felt faint, don’t think I can manage the doctors right now.

Hope everyone else feels better.

Greetings Festive Friends!
I've been away for a few days doing nothing remotely festive so it's nice to get back into the swing of things.

MonkeyDog was sick in the night (on the rug of course) and up 3 times so I'm feeling pooped. It's pouring with rain here which sounds so lovely on the patio doors.

Holy moly, it's getting close now! I've hardly bought a thing re pressies. DD's list should be incoming very soon but DS2's is like snow in the south east...non-existent.

@Magnoliasunrise
Thanks for the panettone recipe, sounds delectable.

So we've had the Panettone Debate, what about the When Do You Put Your Decs Up Debate? ( sorry if that's old news!)

We usually go for the closest weekend to the 1st December, a Sunday this year but we might get a Real Tree this year so I'm not sure if the pines would last.

@Hopingforno2in2024
That's a beautiful photo.

Snow is rare here in East Kent and I love it!

Jealous of your snow day hoping. There’s not a single flake here although it is absolutely freezing.

Hope you feel better soon Fireflys DS & jennifer

We had awful rain yesterday so had a quiet day at home. Today the plan is toddler group, home for lunch and a play, wrap up warm, walk to the park, play, walk to FILs and meet DH there for tea. Home in the car passing the house that has the mad decorations in the garden as they will be lit up by then.

Gosh it feels christmassy! 🎄

We will decorate the weekend of 30 Nov/1st Dec

We're decorating this weekend (DS' request!).

It does feel Christmassy, doesn't it?

Love all the snow photos. So beautiful ❄️

Well the weather had me fooled. Not a flake in the sky when I posted but it started snowing a few minutes later and is still going.
LO was fascinated so it took a while to get him to put on coat/shoes etc.

Christmas feeling has hit me in a big wave though. The snow, LO saw a tree and said (their version) of Father Christmas, we have Heart Xmas on in the car and the toddler group was playing Christmas music
Have popped some minions Christmas thing on while I tidy kitchen and research toddler friendly Christmas crafts we can try without wrecking the house.

Hope all of those feeling ill recover quickly!

I have had a Christmas shopping day today. A mixture of in person and online but I was starting to feel a bit stressed and under-prepared so I've now ticked a few presents off the list, including sorting out the gift for my brother who lives overseas so that should arrive in plenty of time.

I also bought an advent candle so am looking forward to that. Decorations wise we always aim for the weekend closest to 1st December. So it will either be 30 November or 1st December this year.

Now I'm REALLY jealous of the snow seeing those lovely photos. We did get a bit of sleet but it just made everything look a bit dirty.

Same as you @GameOfJones normally aim for first weekend in December but as Dec 1st is a Sunday I may start this weekend 😂.

I've got a sleigh and two reindeer that go in the hall and it's covered in fairy lights but I've had it years so the lights have started to dull. So I'm getting DH and DS to replace the lights on it this weekend and once it's out of the attic it may as well stay down.

So we've had the Panettone Debate, what about the When Do You Put Your Decs Up Debate? ( sorry if that's old news!)

Other Debates :

Pyjamas for Christmas Day - relaxed or scuzzy
Christmas Pyjamas yay or nay
Dec 1st Boxes/Christmas Eve Boxes - nice extras or Landfill Tat
Elf On The Shelf - A Christmas Tradition or A Creepy Wee Fecker
A Christmas Carol - which version
Presents- before breakfast or after ? Before dinner or after?
Christmas Cards- lovely or a waste of paper
Quality Street - Christmas essential or a Work of Satan with it's nasty little paper wrappers

Obviously no Debate
Die Hard - it's a Christmas Film ( I have accepted this fact)
Christmas isn't Christmas without The Snowman Loo Roll . And the film .
Yorkshire Puddings belong on a Christmas Dinner (bonus points for home made )
Brussel Sprouts are a delicious and under rated vegetable

I forgot to weigh in on the decs date debate. For me it would be the first weekend in December (this was my parents approach when I was little too however my mum has an undecorated tree up already and both her and Dsis are putting full decs up this weekend).
For DH it would be around 15th. We have a disagreement every year about it (it's a tradition at this point) and the usual outcome is that I arrive home one day in the first week of December to the decs out of the attic and DH muttering about us having too much/it's too early - then he's all compliments about how nice and cosy it is when they're up 😳
I think having LO may help me win this year regardless

As for the other debates:

🎄Pyjamas for Christmas Day - relaxed if that's what you fancy.
🎄Christmas Pyjamas - yay
🎄Dec 1st Boxes/Christmas Eve Boxes - nice extras or Landfill Tat. Could be either depending on how you do it.
🎄Elf On The Shelf - A Creepy Wee Fecker
🎄A Christmas Carol - muppets version for film and the audiobook version read by Hugh Grant on audible.
🎄Presents- before breakfast/dinner or after? All options - as kids we would open some, have breakfast, open others and then open more after dinner from the people who had come to visit/we were visiting.
🎄Christmas Cards- lovely
🎄Quality Street - Christmas essential or a Work of Satan with its nasty little paper wrappers. Both!

I know my opinion makes Fluffy want to throw me off the thread but Die Hard isn't a Christmas film in this house <ducks for cover>

I introduced LO to the snowman today as it was snowing - I would used mesmerised to describe the effect. Amazing considering there aren't any words in it.

Agree about yorkshires, not about sprouts though 🤢

Debates in our families are:
Can you actually have too much cheese?
Stay home or go on holiday?
White or coloured lights?
Colour coordinated decs or mish mash collections?
Is Elf great or awful?

Love all of these questions @70isaLimitNotaTarget and coincidentally was just looking at matching christmas family pyjamas which i will get but mainly for the horror on DH face when he has to wear them (briefly on Christmas Eve).

No 1st dec box or xmas eve box but i will get the new aforementioned pyjamas out.

Christmas Day pyjamas are a firm no from me as I like to get dressed up.

Presents definitely before breakfast. Its cruel to make kids (and me) wait.

Christmas cards - love the idea, buy loads then can never be arsed to write them and they end up pissing me off.

Quality street - its chocolate!!! how can this be a no.

And of course yes to the No Debate (although I'm waivering on the sprouts)

Debates in our families are:

Can you actually have too much cheese? Yes . Even though my gall bladder and I parted company a few years ago , it's legacy lingers , if I eat too much cheddar , it gives me gip.

Stay home or go on holiday? Home 100% but we're going away before Christmas (Christmas Market )
White or coloured lights? Warm white
Colour coordinated decs or mish mash collections? Co-ordinated . I like white+silver+glass in one area , bronze+gold in another. , red+green elsewhere . The tree used to have all glass baubles but since Les Chats no tree.
Is Elf great or awful? Sooo bad . And not even in a good way .

Meeces - no such thing as too much cheese

Stay home 100%

Warm white lights

My tree is like an explosion in a christmas bauble factory ever since I heard Kirstie Allsopp (queen of Christmas) say her tree is always mismatched colours and dec's

Yep Elf is rubbish. Is it Will Ferrell as an overgrown man elf?

Pyjamas on Christmas Day? It’s a nay here, we all dress up.

Christmas PJs? Another nay....it would be depressing to wear them after Christmas.

December 1st/Christmas Eve boxes......didn’t know 1st December boxes were a thing!
I used to give the DCs a pressie on Christmas Eve from the Elves...they’re 16 and 18 this year so I might just get us all a box of chocs instead.

Elf on the Shelf....definitely a creepy wee fecker.

A Christmas Carol...OOhh, now there’s a question!
For me it’s the Albert Finney musical version (Thank you very much!!) and the Ross Kemp version mentioned unthread.
For DH it’s the Patrick Stewart version. He gets very emotional about this being the definitive version. I don’t know why.

Presents....we spread them out over the whole day.

Christmas cards....lovely but so bloody expensive to send in the post!

Quality Street....just no.

Die Hard......I’m trying to accept that it’s a Christmas film as a result of following this thread but.....it’s hard, very hard....

Snowman kitchen roll, Yorkshires and sprouts.....hell, yes!

Can you actually have too much cheese? No.

Stay home or go on holiday? I've never had Christmas away from home but I might be tempted when DC get older.

White or coloured lights? Warm white and coloured. Just all the lights! Many years ago when DH and I first got together we bought some lights for the house, a pink set and a blue set. I've had to retire the blue set because I kept thinking there was a fire engine outside and getting excited about the prospect of firemen.

Colour coordinated decs or mish mash collections? Absolutely a mish mash!

Is Elf great or awful? Can I sit on the fence and say mediocre and not worth the hype?

Skipping back to the earlier questions - what sort of sadist waits until after dinner to open presents?!? Pretty sure that qualifies as cruel and unusual punishment!!

The kids wear their Christmas pjs all year. Nobody else sees them, I'm going to get my money's worth 🤷

For what it's worth, my answers to my own debates are:

Can you actually have too much cheese? Yes, as sad as that makes me to say (similar gall bladder lingering issues to you 70)
Stay home or go on holiday? Alternate (DH would go every year, all our families think we're bonkers).
I always said I'd hate to go away but now we've done it a few times I recommend it to anyone feeling Christmas overwhelm (although we always did it as a child free couple so it was easier). Going somewhere cold and snowy and where you can do something random, on the day can be amazing.
White or coloured lights? I want a set that can do both but switched to coloured lights about 5 years ago. DH doesn't care, my dad loves them, my mum hates them and dsis has pink lights so I ignore her 😂
Colour coordinated decs or mish mash collections? Mish mash here. DH agrees, everyone else in both families have coordinated tree's although my dad lived here last Christmas and is doing his own tree for the first time ever this year- I'm pretty sure he's going retro with real tree, coloured lights, mish mash decorations and lots of tinsel (which my dm banned when I was small).
Is Elf great or awful? Somewhere in the middle.

I'm struggling to sleep so am browsing online 🙄

Pyjamas for Christmas Day - we have been known to stay in pyjamas if we've no visitors, but not if people come round!
Christmas Pyjamas - yay for the kids.
Dec 1st Boxes/Christmas Eve Boxes - the CE box has the Santa plate, the sacks, the stockings and and pyjamas. Nothing else. So yes!
Elf On The Shelf - Creepy Wee Fecker
A Christmas Carol - probably Muppets too!
Presents- before breakfast!
Christmas Cards- handful of cross stitch ones only here.
Quality Street - Christmas essential (green triangles please!)!
Die Hard - it's a Christmas film, of course!
Christmas isn't Christmas without The Snowman Loo Roll . And the film (Snowdog is also ace!).
Yorkshire Puddings belong on a Christmas - if you can be arsed. I am making some in advance this year!
Brussel Sprouts are a delicious and under rated vegetable. Love sprouts!
Can you actually have too much cheese? God, nooooo. All the cheese here!
Stay home or go on holiday? Stay home for now - ASD family. Maybe holiday later.
White or coloured lights? Warm white on tree, coloured elsewhere.
Colour coordinated decs or mish mash collections? Coordinated on my tree. Christmas vomited on kids' tree!
Is Elf great or awful? It's alright as background!

35! I made a nice dent in my Christmas shopping yesterday, as DC (finally) gave me some ideas for themselves and partners! Still waiting for some suggestions from DH, but tbf I haven't given him any ideas for me yet (he's in the 'I'll think about Christmas in mid- December camp, so hasn't asked yet!).
I will complete the survey later!

Pyjamas on Christmas Day I always get dressed but don't object if anyone else wants to stay in their PJs
Christmas Pyjamas It's a family tradition to have new PJs on Christmas Eve. Sometimes they happen to be Christmas themed, sometimes not.
Christmas Eve Boxes/1st December Box Not a popular thing when my eldest was little so I think I skipped that.
Elf on the Shelf Creepy wee fecker.
A Christmas Carol A big fan of the Muppet one but also enjoy the versions with Alastair Sim and Kenneth More (this one is called Scrooge)
Cards I like them. I post about 10 each year and hand out about the same.
Quality Street They we're a Christmas essential until they became full of palm oil. Very partial to a green triangle.
Die Hard It isn't Christmas without Bruce in a vest.
Presents As the DC are all adults we tend to take our time now so they are after breakfast. Definitely before when they were little.
Snowman loo roll Never bought any but love seeing it at other people's homes.
Yorkshire Puddings Some years we do, some years we don't. I like to keep 'em on their toes.
Brussel Sprouts Definitely.
Elf It's a family tradition to watch it. The sugar stuff sets my teeth on edge but I can generally get away with pottering about so I watch the beginning and end bits that I enjoy and skip the middle 😂
Cheese I'm allergic so any cheese is too much.
Home or Away We've done both but overwhelmingly stayed at home.
Lights Warm white
Decorations 3 trees - each has their own colour scheme but I do add in the DC's special baubles.

I'm very sad for everyone who has to avoid (too much) cheese!

Forgot to show you this yesterday, but I was in Dobbies and they have enormous strawberry and cola laces! Might have to get some! (Size 8.5 trainer for scale!)