What is your dream Christmas?

[Bikergran]

Following on from a post saying the OP was dreading hosting Christmas because of incredibly picky adult offspring. How many of you are really looking forward to Christmas, and how many would really rather do something else?

We will be travelling to BIL and SIL for Christmas. Last time we went SIL was in some kind of strop with BIL, so told him to do the lunch himself. He went to START cooking and preparing everything from scratch about 11 am. Lunch was therfore about 4, by which time we were all fed up and not hungry due to snacking on booze/crisps/peanuts since breakfast. DH loves his brother dearly and loves being there.

I fantasise about being home alone with my own Christmas dinner (roast duck, orange sauce, lots of veggies, followed by baked alaska), watching silly movies without people talking all through them.

What would you rather be doing?

We have the perfect Xmas. Dh and I go away to a coastal cottage for a week, eat non Xmas food, lots of walks and red wine. No TV. Read lots and listen to music.
Come back relaxed and refreshed.
See adult dd the week before .

My dream Christmas would be going for a lovely walk in the morning, then to someone else’s house (who is a great cook) for a lovely Christmas dinner, then back home early evening for Christmas cake and watch a film. Will never happen as I’ve got nobody close enough to invite me (might get to go to my DD’s next year though)

I'm looking forward to Christmas. We are going to a boutique hotel in the Yorkshire dales for three days of (hopefully) amazing food and wine and lots of relaxation. Cant wait!

Honestly....as quiet and calm a Christmas as possible. At home..with my Mum and our cats. No entertaining. Christmas gifts for everyone will consist of vouchers / wine / M&S biscuits / chocolates. Have Christmas dinner in a box delivered so all we need to do is pop into the oven. No prep required. Several chilled days in pajamas and get some proper rest and downtime. Some time for quiet reading / crocheting.

Pre DC we had a few dream Christmases as we went away to cold snowy places. Where we went would depend on how chaotic and stressful the year had been (nice calm year = NYC, very very stressful year = cabin in the middle of nowhere).
We wouldn’t see anyone, would do something nice but different Christmas Day and eat whatever was local and make sure to walk around wherever we were.

Now we have dc and I’m getting the closest I can to what I want this year.
LO is 5 and will fully be in the ‘it’s all magic’ stage which I love.
We’ll be home alone until lunch and when dm will come. DH will cook and his dinners are the best.

We do need to leave the house to see ILs in the evening. They’re lovely and it’ll be nice, we’ll probably go for a walk.

For us, I'd say I'm content with being at home with any relatives that choose to come. I love having the log fire on and laying up the table etc. I'd just like it to be a bit colder, with a bit more snow.

Im bored to tears of Christmas at home, I would like to be in Austria (preferably Innsbruck), with all 3 adult ds, ny Dil and my baby granddaughter.

We are APPALLING hosts. We haven't got a single wine glass and we only have enough plates for our family + 1 guest and no matching glasses 😂 AND no guest room. So my dream Christmas would be to wake-up and magically have all the gear, an extra bedroom, a bigger oven, and be able to have all the family over.

We have wonderful Christmas's at my BILs but one day it would be nice to stay home.

I'd like a Christmas with no travelling and no hosting. I am happy to cook as we love to eat and be merry, on the day for just us, just me, DH and DD1 and DD2 and DSis who lives down the road so no putting her up for the night etc. No pressure to do everything by a certain time. Be able to go for a long walk and maybe a cheeky nap after the main meal. We're being more sensible with presents and we don't drink much alcohol (maybe just a glass, if that, with dinner) anymore but it will be relaxing which we all need.

My dream Christmas would be to be woken up at the crack of dawn by the children (13, 4 and 1) open stockings in our bed. DH goes downstairs to check FC isn’t still here (make me a coffee and put some Christmas music on) everyone piles downstairs and the present carnage begins. When all presents are open and kids happy playing make breakfast - pastries, fruit, bacon sandwiches. Have Christmas lunch at 1 just the 5 of us. Play with kids all afternoon/snooze to catch up on 5am start. Have festive snacks for supper around 7pm. See everyone else on Boxing Day because I refuse to spend another Christmas Day in the car.

And that’s exactly what we’ll be doing this year! I can’t wait.

Get up, walk dog, back in pj's to do presents.
Bacon butties with Christmas tv
Pizza for dinner.
More tv with Baileys.
Walk dog after getting dressed.
Back in pj's.
Salad, snacky crap and Christmas cake for tea.
Early night.
This is how our last god knows how many Christmas have gone. We see visitors boxing day as I usually only get Christmas day off work.
Perfick!😁

I love the idea of hosting my whole family for lunch at some point, but they live far away and the logistics of it would be difficult because we’d don’t have anywhere they could stay (and not any decent hotels nearby). My DH also gets really grumpy when he’s around my family for too long as they can be quite full on, and tbh I feel the same about his so I can’t really blame him. So the big family get together for Christmas shall remain a pipe dream for now.
Luckily we still have lovely Christmases with just us and our daughter, it’s just smaller, that’s all.

I want to go somewhere snowy with the wooden triangle roof house…

if anyone knows where or what I’m talking about please shout because I’d love to actually be able to show my DH this 😂

Wake up late, croissants and coffee while everyone opens their Christmas presents. Spend the day drinking and building Lego while dinner cooks.
I splurged this year and got my Christmas dinner from cook.... first time so fingers crossed!!
After dinner a lovely snooze then watch a good film while eating chocolates 🤣🤣
That would be the perfect Christmas for me

Someone other than me cooking the Christmas dinner!

Christmas Day is hectic with us visiting family and family coming to us but I wouldn’t have it any other way.

My DM is quite stressy and stressful to have around at christmas but we manage that and otherwise it’s good fun. I figure I’ll have lots of time alone when my children fly the nest.

My best Christmases were when the 3 DC were small. Such special times, I enjoyed every second

This is pretty much everything we did on Christmas Day with our DC's from about the age of 5.

We were so exhausted travelling to family and being pulled here, there and everywhere and having to alternate going between my parents/PIL and it was so stressful.

One Christmas morning the kids were playing with their new toys but we had to tell them to stop, go get dressed, because we had an hour long journey to go visit family. Their little disappointed faces was awful. It was then that my DH and I said to each other 'what the hell are we doing this for?' We did that one last Christmas dragging the kids all over and the next year we decided enough was enough and from now on we would be having Christmas Day on our own.

The years following were perfect. Kids and presents, breakfast, making lunch, playing games, watching movies, Christmas picky bits for tea and we all loved it. We then did the visiting family on Boxing Day and we would stay over so we got more time with them. By the time Boxing Day came around the kids were happy to go and see everyone and do it all over again somewhere else.

So Christmas was perfect for many years.

All change now as my parents are both gone and my kids are now grown and both live away from home.

If I could, I would go back and have ONE more Christmas just as it used to be, and one more Boxing Day with my Mum and Dad.

Do you mean a chalet, @Florally?

https://www.scottdunn.com/switzerland/hotels/chalet-max

I was imagining @Florally meant an A-frame cabin.

If you look on websites like canopy and stars you'll find some.

Wake up, kids open presents and play with them while Christmas TV plays in the background.

Go out for Christmas lunch - this is dream Christmas! - to a classic country hotel or pub with a fire, with all the wider family (plus any friends who need company) where we have a really amazing three-course meal with plenty of good wine and the kids all having a great time at the far end of the table. Stick around for more coffee/wine and then go back to someone's house to play silly games and watch the King's speech and maybe a Christmas film. Kids stay over with cousins, or cousins stay over here, and we watch a Christmas film, then have a mulled wine nightcap and some nice sex with my husband before falling asleep.

Basically lots of food, alcohol, family, friends, TV and sex without cooking or washing up. That's a truly spiritual experience for me.

I wouldn't like to go away at Xmas - too stressful. I love my quiet Christmas, at home, just us, and a really relaxed day. No one here cares much about xmas dinner, so we do easy food and eat later, when it is dark and twinkling. We open stockings in my bed, with coffee, then downstairs to open presents. Maybe a walk at some point if it's nice - but maybe we don't even get dressed until lunchtime.

I love to go away for New Year though, so the perfect xmas has us all excitedly looking forward to that too.

I fantasise about the year when everyone including DC have other plans and me and DH can spend a week in Barbados. And I dont want to do anything except eat shellfish and drink rose and sunbathe.

I hate it. The colds, the food shop, getting decorations out then putting them away again, the tree buying, all of it.

Yep. I've cooked every year for the past 19 Christmases.

Im not sure how I'd pass the hours otherwise. I'm couldn't just sit down all day!

Well my dream Christmas would be celebrating it with my late DH and my parents but that’s not going to happen.
We try and spend every other year with my siblings that live abroad, it would be nice not to have to fly thousands of miles to do this! This year we are here and for a change are going to my son’s house by the sea as he doesn’t get more than the day itself and Boxing Day and it will cut out the travel for him. It’s me and my two adult kids and it will be great - kitchen very tight, my son on the sofa but we’ll manage! Scrabble, a walk on the beach Boxing Day… I’m happy to be doing exactly what we’ll be doing!