Christmas traditions

[Candleflower12]

What Christmas traditions do you do with your family?

Zilch none. Christmas is one day and so is new years. Refuse to pay for plastic tac , overpriced food etc.

And back to add, Christmas dinner.

Best meal of the year. Dc’s have always had their little jobs! One rolls the sausage meat balls, one makes the sprouts in bacon and chestnuts, another homemade cranberry sauce.

A lovely day of working together, drinks, music on and a late meal. When DC’s were younger they asked that we eat later so that we could have lit candles on the table.

When my DC were younger we ate Christmas Dinner after dark and before Dr Who back in the day when David Tennant was the Dr.
DD helped set the table with all the Christmas crockery .
We had candles on the table, floating candles in a big glass bowl for safety . Now LED for extra safety with the cats .

We have the same routine every year.

Tree is usually up either extremely late November or very early December. Depending on who's working when and when the Sunday falls.
With a massive Sunday roast
Then we dont have a roast until Christmas day haha.

The advent calendars appear on their beds last day of November. These have evolved through the years and now they have beauty ones.

We go and see the Christmas lights somewhere mid December

When we all break up from work, Uni and school and we go for a meal at our local. Lovely open fireplaces and very festive.

Christmas eve we go for a special meal with my parents and we come back and the elves have left new pj's and a lush bath bomb. Mine are young adults late teens now but still love this.
Then evening carol service.

Home and new pj's on. We watch home alone or elf with champagne.

Christmas day is stockings in mum and dads bed. Still makes me smile to see them coming in at their age with their stockings all excited.
Downstairs and presents with bacon sandwiches for breakfast.
Get ready for Christmas dinner. My sister and i alternate as my parents already did their fair share.
It is me this year and I have 19 😮
We then do father Christmas round 2 as he forgot some ( for my younger nieces and nephews and years ago when mine were small)

Boxing day is hosted by whoever didn't do Christmas dinner.

There's a lake near us where a flock of white doves nest. We always take bags of bird seed and feed them on ChristmasEve.

I love this.

Amongst all the craziness and excitement of Christmas approaching, a sense of calm ❤️

My DH knows I love hearing my presents being wrapped, so and every year, he indulges me by doing it while I'm in the room, but there is a catch: I'm blindfolded and can't see a thing! I have a little pout whenever he says things like "I think you'll love this one so much, what a pity you can't see it". But I'm actually ecstatically happy, and almost as excited as I am when opening them on the day.

I remember one time as a child when a couple of weeks before Christmas, my brother and I had been out for the day (looked after by someone else). When we got home, and it was dark outside, we were blindfolded by our parents, taken into the living room, and told to count to a hundred. When our eyes were uncovered, we saw the room was dark, apart from the lights of the Christmas tree, which had been put up in our absence, which we were not expecting. This felt really magical; but it only happened once. Thereafter, we were involved in putting up the tree.

We've had quite a few traditions come and go as DD has grown up (christmas light switch on, Santas grotto etc) but there's 2 that are still going strong-

New PJs on Christmas eve

Watching the Father Ted Christmas special on Christmas eve night. It isn't Christmas until I've seen a group of priests get lost in Ireland's largest lingerie department 😂🎅

We always go on a steam train to see Father Christmas.

My grandad used to take us as children, he passed away when I was 12. So, I pass on his memory to my children, via steam trains.

My Nan made amazing preserves. Again, she passed before we had the children, so I always make Christmas jam, to have for breakfast on Christmas day.