What made your 2025 adults only Christmas special?

[OMGitsnotgood]

Every year there are threads coming up to Christmas asking how to make an adults-only Christmas special. I thought it might be worth capturing things now while it’s fresh.

Our day:
We had a lazy start to the day, with coffee and bacon butties.

Put the turkey in and went for a walk an hour or so. Back to mulled wine and mince pies.

Opened the presents with more mulled wine or Prosecco with cranberry juice.

Cooking the dinner was fitted in around the above.

Had a long leisurely Christmas Dinner.

Had a long break between main and pudding during which time we did a ‘bad Santa’ game, for which everyone had contributed a few gifts

Ate Christmas pudding watching a film (we always ate at a table when the kids were little, funny how even now they find eating in the lounge a treat!)

Played cards and a board game.

Cheese and crackers in front of some old Christmas specials.

Lots of conversations and laughs, especially ‘remember the Christmas when…. ‘ memories.

And that was it. Nothing spectacular, just simple stuff but enjoyed with adult DC we don’t see enough of, and it was relaxed and chilled.

It was lovely so don’t need to ‘fix’ anything but always open to new ideas. Thought I’d ask while it’s fresh in everyone’s mind then I am going to put Christmas away til the end of the year. Well, later in the year anyway!!!

No presents. We're all adults who can buy our own stuff so why bother exchanging gifts?

We are adults only. There’s me, DM, DH, MIL&FIL, BIL&SIL and younger (adult) SIL.

DM comes to ours on Christmas Eve and we open presents because she always goes mad buying and it’s too much of a rush on Christmas Day. We watch Carols from King’s with a glass of something, and eat pork pie, cheese, salad etc. Watch a Christmas film.

In the morning we do a dog walk, then DH makes bacon butties and DH&DM drink Buck’s Fizz. Get ready then I drive us over to PIL who kindly invite DM too.

Younger SIL will keep everyone topped up on fizz while FIL and BIL cook the dinner. BIL&SIL’s dog is there too and he’s quite high maintenance! We have a lovely feast followed by various desserts: Christmas pudding for the ‘grown ups’ and pavlova or MIL’s famous chocolate crispy cakes for everyone else. We also have a birthday cake and sing happy birthday for the multiple December/January birthdays in the family! We’ll usually tell jokes or do a few charades too.

We clear up then move into the living room for presents. Much more reasonable at their house! After that we play easy games like Herd Mentality (new to us this year and it was fun) and chat. We might watch a Christmas special if there’s a good one.

Later I drop DM home and DH and I come home to flop on the sofa. On Boxing Day we cook our own, smaller meal (mostly for the leftovers) and another dog walk, this year with friends which was really nice.

Obviously having kids around at Christmas is lovely but honestly, this way is so relaxed and nobody’s screaming from over excitement, over tiredness or too much sugar! I don’t know how PIL will react if younger SIL does decide to have DC; I’m sure they’ll be thrilled but it will change their life a lot.

Spending it abroad.

sorry OP, I can’t get over you the fact you put the turkey in the switched on oven and left the house! I fear I’ve done 1 too many fire marshall training courses :D

sounds like a lovely day though! we did an adults only christmas and it was marvellous xxx

edit: grammar

Interestingly, I wouldn’t leave the house with the tumble drier running after advised against it by a fireman attending a fire caused by one Yet hadn’t crossed my mind not to leave the oven on! Won’t be doing that next year, but a turkey can rest a good while so could go out for a walk then.
Can you see past it now and share your suggestions for entertaining things to do (that don’t involve fire extinguishers 😂)

haha, honestly I think these courses make you too paranoid, but then I saw a stat that said 90% of oven fires are caused by people leaving ovens unattended (this could be a load of crap, but it was enough for me! :D)

on Christmas Day, we had a pretty relaxed morning - it was just me and DP. We got up early and my partner left out food for santa in the living room, LOL.

we made a traditional family recipe that we only have on Christmas - I made enough for us and our guests later in the day to try
schedule was as follows:
6:30/7am - wake up, living room for presents, we each did a stocking for each other and then made the brekkie - we got slightly impatient and ended up opening our big presents for eachother as soon as we were done eating😆
8:45am - got ready for the day and finished off lunch prep listening to christmas music
10am - picked up our friends who were nearby, popped into the corner shop to pick up mixers that I'd managed to forget to buy! We live in a coastal area so went for a drive around the seafront as the weather was lovely
back at 10:45am(ish) - started whacking on the food and opened up a few bottles of wine and bubbles, played a game called 'don't be a dik dik' which was a laugh, caught up with their fun life updates and had some lovely party food. we had christmas movie classics on in the background to for 'ambience' haha
12:30pm (timings are getting ropey now and just an estimation!) - it was pretty relaxed just drinking, sampling some of the fancy wines they brought with them and having a laugh - cue DP and I frantically trying to organise all the timings of the food as we both normally see family on the day
3pm - had a lovely dinner with ALL OF THE TRIMMINGS (it was pretty nuts the amount of food we managed to put away😆)
5pm - went into the living room and played games - we have monopoly based on our local area, so played this which caused a few heated rounds !! made a few cocktails and we had some cheese and wine!
9/10pm - our guests left after lots of laughs and happy convos, along with very full bellies!
we just chilled out after this, watched a movie and went to bed as we were seeing family the next day!

to be honest, it's not that far off what you got up to!

I think next year our plan is to do a bit more in the day - we planned to go to a local pub this year but timings didn't allow for it, I feel like this would be much better if doing adults only Christmas as you can have a drink and a laugh at the pub and be surrounded by other people celebrating the day too. I also think morning walk is the way to go - I just cannot move after dinner 😆We will probably do a much less complicated dinner next Christmas so we can actually enjoy the day a bit more - luckily we have a kitchen/diner so it wasn't too isolating, but it would've been a bit less stressful sorting out the food if we didn't have such a ridiculous amount of components!!!
We definitely needed more activities to do, maybe more games! To be honest though, I think the best part was that we could actually just chill out - we knew roughly what time we were going to eat but it was much calmer than usual, and we were able to just sit and have a laugh and enjoy eachother's company!
One idea I've seen for parties (so could work for Christmas) is doing a cocktail theme and everyone makes a specific round of cocktails and tries to impress, you could all grade them and crown a winner with a novelty present
I also think we could've done a Secret Santa too, but this probably works better if you have guests

Other idea we have is to just sack it all off this year and hop on a plane to the Carribean to an all inclusive - not sure my bank account would like it though! haha

Sorry it's not more exciting!!! 😆xxxxx

I will be keeping an eye on this thread for more tips!

@workdilemma123abc that sounds like a lovey day. Can also see the attraction of the Caribbean !!

All of your Christmas’s sound absolutely lovely

I have 3 DC, eldest is now 16 and the “magic” has certainly dwindled for her. I still have a few more years of child led Christmas’s but actually look forward to a more grown up one in some ways.

To quote Denise Royle “Christmas isn’t really a day for kids, is it?” 😂

I'm going to join you all , my DC (still at home ) are 23 and 26 so we're very low key .

DS , the little Bah Humbug , doesn't really do Christmas except to accept : a load of sweets/selection box , money in his bank ( he's not one for presents ) and a roast dinner with chicken, roast potatoes , home-made Yorkshire Puddings and gravy .

I do a Dec 1st Box for each which has pyjamas , underwear, toiletries , make up and nail polish (for DD) . This gives them all December to use them.
For the past couple of years DD,DH and I have gone away for a couple of days in December , then Christmas itself is more relaxed .
I work up to the 23rd and in Twixmas Week (yeah I hate that phrase too )

I start looking in Sept for the Dec 1st Box things. DD would stamp her feet if this wasn't part of Christmas .
I do the meal planning , I am happy to cook, everyone says what they want to eat . We get online Sainsbury delivery .
And what we don't need . Like Christmas Cake
Some Christmas films we watch every year , and add a new one .
Theatre in London.
A trip out for all of us , (Ghost Walk or something -very festive !)

Love it , the whole thing . And I have my Christmas Notebook to plan in.