We need your Christmas customs and family traditions

[CatherineMumsnet]

We're after all your customs and traditions - stockings, leaving stuff out for santa, dressing the tree, when you open presents, what you eat, carol singing and anything else that makes Christmas in your home.
Thanks everyone

The tree goes up on Christmas eve, stockings out (for everyone) and coconut pyramids it has always been that way! left with a drink for FC.

DCs to bed and midnight mass for the grownups (my dad stays home).
In the morning, open the stockings before breakfast (FC only brings the stockings in our house).

Main presents after breakfast.

Morning service for whoever wants to go, then the rest of the family arrives.
One present each before lunch.
Big lunch, cooked by my lovely mum, veg prepared by my dad - always his job on Christmas morning!

Any remaining presents are spread out for as long as they last, one present each day.

Christmas used to always be at my mum and dad's and involved everyone dressing smartly, drinks as soon as we walked through the door , present opening, lunch, sleeping then tea and a tree-present followed by copious amounts of alcohol while we played cards til the early hours but sadly my mum is no longer here and my dad has other interests , so it now goes something along the lines of, somewhere around the 11th Dec, (mum's birthday) we go out and buy the tree, bring it home and I get ratty when dc's want to help me decorate it. There is usually a Christmas cd and a glass of wine around . Sometime between then and Christmas Day, my brothers and my dad maybe come round and we'll have a nice tea and present swapping. Same again but on a different day for DH's family then on Christmas Eve we leave the goodies out for Santa and the reindeers and leave a stocking and a pillow-case at the end of the beds. Dh generally is working so it's me who's rushing around doing all the last-minute panicking. Christmas morning I'm normally awake first and wait an age for all the others to wake up and then it's sqeals because Santa has been as we head downstairs to a roaring fire and presents next to the tree. Dc's are frantically ripping paper while I try my best to keep a note of who has bought which present! The rest of the day involves the dc's eating too much chocolate and me and dh drinking too much alcohol with a lovely lunch with turkey and the trimmings and then all sitting down playing with the toys/watching tv together before we have tea/tree pressie and bed! Dh then goes back to work on Boxing Day.

First year at home with just us this year and already getting the "not looking forward to Christmas, no point without the grandchildren" etc etc comments from both sides of the family. This despite the fact that both sides have 7 grandchildren and both sides have been invited to visit at any time throughout the day (barring actual lunch time) and only live 5 minutes from our house! We decided on this as poor kids never got to play with their presents as we used to have to do 'both' sets of parents (yes, even two Christmas dinners!) in order to keep them all happy. Glad we did now though as am expecting DD1 on January 3 and really couldn't face all the to-ing and fro-ing this year.

We always do the following though:

Every night from December 1 we read the Night Before Christmas as a bedtime story. (The boys love this and know the poem by heart.) We also have an advent book containing a mini book with either a song, story or poem for every day of advent which is read before going up to bed and the boys take in turns to put up along the top of the mirror in the living room so that by Christmas day there is a whole mini banner of Christmas pictures.

Get out all the Christmas and toy catalogues and help the boys write a Christmas list each. Then write a letter to Father Christmas which is decorated with as much glitter etc as they can possibly fit on.

Early in December we always sit down as a family and make some new decorations for the tree. (The Boys have a mini tree in their room and like to make some new decorations every year.)

Christmas Eve extended family 'Do' at PILs. We get boys into new fleecy PJs (the cute ones with feet) before leaving ready for the short drive home. Then bundle them into car seats with blankets and drive home.

Once home, we put out mince pie and milk for Father Christmas and carrot for Rudolph, do the advent book and the Night Before Christmas, then DH put's the boys to bed while I prance around outside in the garden like an idiot ringing little bells while he says "Listen sleigh bells, quick close your eyes and go to sleep, I think Father Chrismas is coming!".

We always make sure there are Father Christmas's footprints leading from the fireplace to the presents and each child has a little jingly bag hidden among the tree decorations with a mini surprise gift inside.

Christmas morning, DH and I wake up stupidly early and wait and wait and wait for the boys to wake up! Eventually we give up and start coughing loudly etc and as soon as we hear a noise we poke our heads around their door and watch them discover their stockings by the end of their beds. Then they bring their stockings into our bed and get settled while Daddy fetches, milk for them, coffee for us and warm croissants for us all to stuff while they open their stocking gifts. They always have a small packet of sweets in their stockings which they are allowed to eat.

The boys always go downstairs first and go to the fireplace to follow the footsteps to the presents. Then, while they are awed at their present piles the footsteps 'miraculously' disappear! Then they search for their 'jingly bag' presents and open them first.

We then all sit on the floor together and they open their presents, DS1 at super speed, DS2 stopping to play with every toy along the way.

That's as far as we get with traditions for this year, as from that point on we usually have to get dressed and go out. We will have to create some new ones for the rest of the day and will be reading this thread with interest to pick up a few tips.

lol @ flightattendent

I avoid acute depression by avoiding all members of mine and DP's family. Anything's bearable at Christmas, I find, as long as it doesn't involve extended family.

Oh yes, forgot! The boys always give the dogs a present each to unwrap.

They also scrunch up and chuck all the wrapping paper over the dog gate (where our crazy collie x is waiting expectantly on her hind legs) into the kitchen so that said collie x can 'kill it'! I then spend ages trying to clear up tiny bits of soggy ripped up wrapping paper from every nook and cranny of the kitchen and out of the dogs fur.

that so many of you can wait til after breakfast/lunch/dinner/mass to open pressies!

We are up and downstairs to open pressies in santa's sack. I had started tradition to open presents under tree after lunch but it was too much for ds (3) last year and I didn't have the heart to stop him opening more!

My tree and decs go up the first Sunday in Dec so will be the 6th this year. We go to Harrods to see Father Christmas and buy the Harrods Christmas bear (DS has had one every year since he was born) we then have a lovely dinner in town and take a double decker bus from knightsbridge to oxford street to see all the lights. On Christmas eve I pile all of DS's presents in the living room eat half the carrot and mince pie christmas day DS gets us up we all go down stairs and watch him open his presents then get dresses and watch christmas movies and eat chocolate until my mum and dad arrive then make the dinner whilest they watch tv and play games we have turkey ham and pork for dinner with all the trimmings (I buy crackers that I can put a special gift in for eveyone) we then all sit and veg play christmas music and play boardgames until I take my Mum and Dad to the airport where they fly out to see my sister and do it all again

My DH has taken to giving everyone a big sack (bin bag will do) and weighing everyone with the sack on Christmas morning. Write down all the weights.

Then after Christmas dinner you put all your presents in the sack and weigh yourself again.

Weight one minus weight two equals Christmas credit .... and whoever has the most wins.

I have to admit this is very tongue in cheek and to date we've only done it with all the adults because I think the kids would cry and miss the irony.

Trees is put up and decorated by everyone 24th December, and the presents put underneath it.

The starter is ricepudding with one whole almond hidden in it. The one that finds the whole almond wins a marcipan pig (don't ask why, honestly don't know, that is just the way).

I make duck stuffed with apples and prunes (that I continously forget to soak beforehand).

After the meal with dance around the tree singing x-mas songs. Then we sit down, and whilst eating homemade sweeties and cookies, one child at a time goes to the tree gets a present (can't be for yourself) and we all watch the lucky winner open their present, and then it will be the next child's turn to collect a present and so forth.

They get to stay up as late as they like. Next day we go to dh's parents for x-mas lunch where everything is pretty much chaos from the minute you step fut inside. Everybody throwing presents at eachother, no hellos, no offerings of drinks, no small talk, no getting to take your coat off, just lots of presents that they expect you to open here and now.
Nana will be stressing in the kitchen, not wanting help, grandad will be drunk already, and the kids will be shouting look at this, look at this.
We eat (quickly), and then go sit in the livingroom where there is more drink and the children play with their presents.

Last year I only started to relax and enjoy after indulging in combustible recreational aids.

Bloody hell, I'm in no fit state to dance anywhere after Xmas Dinner. I can barely get to the sofa.

Our main tradition is my mum scrutinising me as I open each present and saying over and over and over again, 'Do you like it', 'You don't like it', 'I've got the receipt'.

Then st various intervals throughout the next couple of days she attempts to give me said receipts and says things like, 'I don't mind if you don't like it, just take it back'.

I BLOODY LIKE IT! SOD OFF!!

V. stressful.

lol at Mandelbrot's - sounds vaaaiiry familiar.Still trying to work out combustible recreational aids, spidermama. Is it...fireworks? Or - like me - are you sniffing Tippex in the kitchen, whilst preparing the organic sage and red onion stuffing?

I bloody love Mandelbrot's.

More, are you Scandanavian?

Spidermama - I'd like some of that in my christmas stocking...

I think we're scrapping one of ours this year - ds2's birthday is on December 7th and we always put the tree up and decorate the house the night before his birthday. We used to do it secretly, after the kids had gone to bed, so that he would get up on his birthday morning and the house would be all magical and Christmassy but now the kids want to interfere help with the decorating of the tree etc so we do it when dh gets home from work.

Only last year he was late home, it was a school night, we all had colds and were tired and grumpy - but, nonetheless, we had to put the tree up and decorate. It's traditional, innit? We have an artificial tree (that's another bone of contention but I won't get side-tracked). We put the tree up (grumpily), the kids decorated it (all one one side and only as far up as they could reach so it listed drunkenly to one side).

Dh says (grumpily) "I can't see the TV with it there."
I say (grumpily) "it's in the same place it was last year."
Dh (grumpily)"Yes, and I couldn't see the TV last year"
Me (grumpily) "You never said."
Dh (very grumpily) "And it seems worse this year - the branches are half obscuring the screen."
Me (wittily) "Maybe it's grown."

We carry on in a similar vein for some time and then decide that perhaps if we move the furniture around it will improve matters. It doesn't.

"Right," says dh, "we will go and get another bloody tree at B&Q and we will get rid of this one which I always said was too big."

I ponder suggesting we get a real one but look at dh's face and decide this isn't the year.

Off we go to B&Q in the cold and dark and rain, dragging our two miserable kids behind us and bickering all the way. Then we argue some more in B&Q (dh wants a 2' plastic shrub, ds2 wants a pink one, ds1 wants this hideous fibre optic creation and I want a Real One). We buy the most unrealistic looking fake tree ever - but it's tall and skinny so he can see the bloody TV, go home and put the damn thing up and throw a few decorations on it.

And we have upheld our family tradition but the kids are tired, dh and I aren't speaking, and the tree looks crap.

So this year I think we'll put it up at a weekend - when we are less tired and in a better mood!

Up until last year our main Christmas traditions were all to do with getting DS to and from every single service and rehearsal as he was a cathedral chorister, and surprisingly enough they are working very hard right up to and including Christmas morning. All other Christmas preparations had to be fitted in round that.

As of last year, the new tradition is going to Midnight Mass and then having a very long-lie on Christmas morning enjoying the fact that we don't have to get up again in time for the Christmas morning service. I think we will be repeating that this year.

Yes indeed we do dance around the tree whilst singing x-mas songs. It is fun, everybody gets a good laugh (at how badly I sing, or whenever somebody keeps tripping over the wire/carpet).

Also yes to the fact that I am Scandinavian. However I live in Scotland with a Scottish husband with our Scotnavian children.

..........why does this mean that my traditions don't count?

SorenLorensen, that made me laff

Tree goes up between 1 and 2 weeks before - always have a real one (although this year is more likely to be a twig from the garden, they're free!) and DH puts the lights on then goes and gets tea while I try and manage a toddler and a 9 year old who put all decs in one square inch! Have an argument about tinsel - I hate it, they love it! Wait til they are in bed and re-decorate tree in anal sensible fashion.

Kids have new jammies on xmas eve which they put on at about 5pm as they think this will make santa get here sooner!

We MUST ALWAYS watch the Muppett Christmas Carol DVD on Christmas Eve (snuggled up in said new jammies)otherwise it's just not Christmas.

Also - we try and watch as many cheesy Christmas movies as we can, usually on Sunday afternoons in December

I do love Christmas but the only tradition worth passing on is the Goodnight Present - always a new book, to each child, to bribe them to go to bed on Christmas Day. Some of the fondest memories of Christmas I have are settling down in bed with a brand new story and a bit of peace.

Chrsitmas eve - children have new pjs and to bed early

Christmas day - Kids wake up we go downstairs as a family and make a cuppa then open all the pressies. Usually we go to my parents or mil but this year we are home alone . Dinner usually around 3.

Boxing day - Visit family

Oooh must leave a carrot for rudolph and a mince pie for santa, and santa must leave the crumbs.

the tree is finished when the christmas octopus are flung at it (there are 5 they have googly eyes and pipe cleaner legs and roll through the branches and stick where they will)

we do not mention Christmas till December 1st