When you were kids, did you do ' Christmas activities'?

[Bigearringsbigsmile]

It just was NOT a thing in my childhood.
We made cards in school and did a play and had a party.
But outside school? There were no light trails, movie nights, biscuit baking, hot chocolate making etc
Nobody used to decorate the outside of their houses.

🤔🤔
I remember going to see the department store windows which were fabulous and going to the grotto inside.
My dad's work used to have a kids Christmas party for their employees children.

Once Christmas came it was absolutely lovely but December was not a month full of activities...🤔

No- we had a children's Christmas party at the local football club my dad was part of, and we went to the panto with school.

I don't do any of it with my daughter (7) either. I can't afford it for one thing.
We do orange pomanders together, we make tree decorations out of salt dough, and on the last day of school we go to the Christmas market and go on the Ferris wheel and the rides and have doughnuts or whatever.

Which sounds very boring but it's actually nice and she enjoys herself. Her birthday is in December so I don't do anything Christmassy until that's over because I don't want it to get swallowed up.

I remember being absolutely beside myself with excitement when we were finally allowed to put the Christmas tree up. Mum usually made us wait until we broke up from school.
Photos from then show a tiny, threadbare tree but God it was magical.

I'm over 60, so I don't recall any activities being available. The switching on of Christmas lights wasn't a thing outside London. My Dad's work had a Christmas party.

DC is 20, I can't recall any Christmas activities we've done that were organised externally of school apart from going to see Santa at the shopping centre or garden centre. Baking at home, yes and seasonal shopping at the very over decorated garden centre. Neighbours Carol singing evening and a couple of parties but no purchased activities. The lights at local NT and Botanical Gardens became a thing after he was in secondary. They are also very expensive and start advertising during school summer hols, weirdly. Our local community has a Christmas Fair for which the road closes. It's a community and commercial event and people come here for miles to do it. That's definitely something we do, it's not a booked event though.

I think my childhood Christmases and my kids are quite similar

I did - panto, school Christmas fair, my dad's workplace did a family Christmas party

My kids - same, except for the work Christmas party, instead we do a Christmas eve event at our church

We made Christmas cards with Mum. Something simple like potato printing, but those were the cards she sent out. Dad was the baker in our family, so we’d make mince pies, Christmas pudding, and cake with him (the two latter before December). We also went to a carol service, and carol singing to the elderly people down our street (not for money) with Mum. This was in the 70s. We also always went to the panto at The Dukes Theatre in Lancaster.

It wasn’t frantic, and it didn’t cost anything, but I have lovely memories of Decembers past.

I grew up in rural Ireland in the 80’s. Despite my parents not so great marriage (and I know now she had a really hard life)my mam always made Christmas reallly special and I have lovely memories. We didn’t do any of the things kids do these days. Yes she baked Christmas cake and a pudding but that was done at Halloween. I remember seeing Santa at a shopping centre a couple of times but that’s about it. I mostly remember the excitement for Santa coming. Our small tree and decorations (I still have some of them)
I have a particular memory of being in my granny’s and she gave me a Christmas snow globe. Just simple things really.

Oh lord yes, the hot chocolate!

’We set up a hot chocolate station’ = put some stuff on a tray

I don't understand the OP and the first reply and some subsequent replies say “we didn’t do Christmas activities when I was a kid” and then the same posters:
“I remember going to the department store to see the lights and visit the grotto inside”
“We did a play and had a party”
”we put the tree up”
”we went to the local Panto”
”we don’t do anything with my daughter either….. (same poster) we go to the Christmas market and go on the ferris wheel and have doughnuts”!!!!!

Those are all Christmas activities??

i remember it being exactly the same in the 70s/early 80s. Department store Santa, school play or carol service, some houses decorated outside in a small way. I remember driving to swimming lessons and counting the Christmas trees. It all seemed so magical.

Yes but they're not December 1st boxes, Xmas eve boxes, light trails, hot chocolate events etc etc. That's what we mean!

The Christmas market we do is one evening on the last day of term. It's not a whole month of Xmas themed tat.

We used to go to harrods or selfridges to visit the Santa's grotto. No booking in those days you just turned up. The present was a badge and that was it, and it was the most magical thing in the world. We would then wait till it was dark to see all the shop windows with the amazing christmas displays, usually telling a story or something.

We had parties at school and normally a big family one sometime around Christmas.

Edited to add this was late 70s and 80s.

I'm a bit confused also, all of those are xmas activities? We had a school party, christingle service, candlelight carols, father christmas, late night shopping (my fave!), school Xmas fair and then crafts and baking at home. No theatre nearby (rural) but pantomime isn't new.

I'm mid 40s, and that's pretty much what we do with our kids as well.

Confused about this take to be honest. The OP and people on the thread seem to be disparaging others doing big expensive Christmas activities- maybe such as going to the Panto, Christmas markets, expensive Santa grottos etc. So surely the antithesis to this is to do smaller cheaper activities at home- such as having a hot chocolate station. You say you prefer a “low key” Christmas- what’s more low key than just having hot chocolate at home? Making it a “hot chocolate station” rather than just bunging the kids a mug of options powder a hot water just makes it that little bit more special and different to the every-day without breaking the bank. I would’ve thought people who disparage the big expensive outings would like the “having hot chocolate at home” type tradition.

50s born, and we went to 3 workplace parties, my mum’s, my dad’s and my nan’s. That one was best because she worked in a fancy London shop, so we would get to see all the West End lights as well. My aunt would take us to a pantomime. And we did cards and a perfectly delightful nativity play at school. At least one carol singing activity.

1980ish born kids: trip to London to see the lights and shop windows, go to Hamley’s Father Christmas Grotto, then to a show or pantomime. They made cards at school and they appeared in fairly dire nativity plays. At least one carol singing activity.

My grandkids, born 2010 on: making cards and adorable nativity plays; a pantomime with an aunt; one or two Christmas festival things in nearby towns, including Father Christmas’s grotto; at least one carol singing activity (although these days we stand on the village green, rather than knocking on doors); and a kick-ass light trail which I pay for because I wish they’d had them in mine and my son’s childhood.

I'm in my sixties and when I was little Christmas started with stir up Sunday. Then normal November until the advent calendar (glittery, just little pictures and no chocolate) went up. After that various activities like making stained glass windows at school (black sugar paper and coloured tissue paper), the nativity play rehearsals, singing carols in the local hospital and a gang show with the Guides.

Close to Christmas it was all church, carols and Father Christmas at the church fete i.e. someones grampy in an outfit behind an old curtain on the stage of the church hall.

The 'carol bus' would go by run by the local RNLI. We would go out to see Father Christmas and put a penny in the bucket.

Our Christmas tree went up in the last couple of days before Christmas and, if we were very lucky, we were allowed to choose a foil wrapped chocolate decoration from it before the big day.

A month really of build up but all very cheap, homespun and twinkly.

So your answer is “we don’t do everything with our daughter but we do choose a few meaningful experiences that are a tradition for our family, as other people do with their family”.

Child of the 60s & 70s.

No Elf on the Shelf, Christmas Eve boxes, breakfast with Santa, manic school Xmas fayre or light trails.

We'd have school Xmas lunch with a threepenny coin or a sixpence in the pudding if you were lucky. If you were really lucky you wouldn't choke on it or break a tooth (you'd get into trouble if you did either).

Christmas morning, you'd have a "big" present, some other stuff and an annual from your favourite comic. And - gasp! - not all the presents would be wrapped. I know there are some on here who view an unwrapped Xmas gift as a form of child abuse but I've inflicted the same on my DD and she's turned out just fine.

Christmas was magical because it just was. Not because Mum and Dad worked themselves into exhaustion doing all the stuff in my first paragraph.

The Darling Buds of May (The David Jason version) Christmas special takes me right back to what Christmas looked like when I was a child. I really recommend it to anyone who likes a bit of twinkly nostalgia.

Yes!!! I recently found an old photo of our Christmas tree as a child. I would be so excited. My mum would wait as late as possible to put it up. It would have been incredibly wild and louche to put it up early December. I remember decorating it taking an afternoon and finding the (coloured) lights switch on totally magical.

In the photo it’s a spindly thing and must be about 3 foot tall, maybe 4 with the bucket and ling empty bit at the top, with very few decorations on it.

Although I did always bug my Mum about wanting a bigger tree. As soon as we got a house (in the noughties) I made sure we have two huge trees. I have definitely been part of Christmas inflation.

Helping my gran make a Christmas cake and Christmas pudding. Helping her ice and decorate the cake.

Putting the tree up.

My mum was a teacher and used to bring home loads of crafty stuff, so we made cards and paper chains.

We lived in inner London and you could drive and park everywhere in the 1980s when I was a kid, so she would drive us around the West End to see the lights.

We did loads at school - carol concert, loads of crafty stuff, Father Christmas visited, baking etc.

It was all so exciting! I feel sorry for kids today. The ‘magic’ seems to be all around present piles and expensive days out.

Definitely not. I was a kid in the 70s and 80s and we made all our own entertainment. We'd go into the city to see Christmas shop windows and you could visit Santa in some department stores which was the highlight I think. We put up a tree and decorations at home. But there was nothing else to do, no light displays, people didn't decorate the outside of their houses either. There were no grottos or Santa express trains and even if there was, normal folks had no money to spend on things like that anyway!

The pressure on families now to do it all and have it all. It's absolutely insane.

We did some bits, I’m 36 now so this is in the 90s. Visiting Santa, church Christmas fairs, Carol singing in the village, walking round the neighbourhood to look at the trees/lights in peoples houses, craft afternoons at home (remember paper chains?!) with lots of glitter etc.

I’d say we did the same amount of activities that people do nowadays, but now they are so amplified and bigger and better and inatgramable. Todays £15pp mega light trail was my 90s child walk round the neighbourhood looking in windows 🤣

I was born in the late 70s and spent most of my childhood in Germany as my father was in the military. We had multiple Christmas parties (squadron/school/Brownies), Christmas markets to go to, a pantomime, a navitity (in which I was the virgin Mary for 5 years straight) and a candlelight Carol Service.

We used to paint pictures on brown paper for wrapping paper, make cards, biscuits, a gingerbread house and a yule log. Decorating the Christmas cake was always a big affair as well. One year we made a giant snowman out of cotton wool balls. We had Christmas books that only came out at Christmas, including my favourite "The Christmas Story" by Enid Blyton.

Then we'd travel back to my Grandmother's on Christmas Eve where my cousins and I ate a picnic by candlelight by the Christmas tree. Boxing day was always a family party with a competition of some sort. One year it was masks and another short plays.

I loved Christmas as a child.

Oh lord yes, the hot chocolate!

Don't forget the snuggling!

One thing that is definitely an improvement (for me) is that I remember Christmas being dull as dishwater as teenagers.

Our teens really love it because we eat out, spend time playing stupid games, do more activities (ha ha) eg a virtual reality sport thing, go the cinema or theatre, let them have a drink or two once they’re old enough. There seems to be less of a generational gap as we love doing all those things. We leave the house and let the grandparents have a snooze while we go for a walk and brief stop at the pub, rather than sit at home and watch them sleep.