Share your favourite Christmas family moments and traditions with Lidl: chance to win £100 NOW CLOSED

[AnnMumsnet]

Christmas is coming (FAST!) - and the team at Lidl would love to hear all about your family Christmas moments - perhaps from your own childhood or memories you are creating with and for your own children?

Are you a super-organised shopper, a festive fashionista in your Christmas jumper, or more of a last-minute panicker? Do you do ‘stir-up Sunday’ to create your perfect Christmas pudding or cake? Is there a tradition of choosing your tree that the whole family look forward to? What about when you were a child - are there older family traditions you recreate or look back on fondly which help get you in the community spirit?

Whatever your Christmas traditions are, Lidl would love to hear them!

Please post them on this thread and you will be entered into a prize draw where one winner will get £100 worth of Lidl vouchers (note the winner will be sent 4 x £25 vouchers, one voucher can be redeemed per transaction).

Thanks and good luck
MNHQ

Standard Insight Terms and Conditions apply

Making mince pies with my children is the new tradition I have instigated. It's good fun to see them help and (over)fill the pies

We have used tealights and jam jars to make a runway for Santa ever since the DDs were tiny as we didn't have a chimney. We also have a magic key so he can get through the door. We track Santa on Norad and the girls know that when he gets to North Africa they need to get to bed.

My mum used to set out a display on the hearth of our fireplace on xmas eve of all the xmas chocolate and nibbles she had bought for the xmas period. She would let us have a little treat on xmas eve but we had to wait until after xmas day dinner for free reign to get stuck in to all the goodies. My sister and I would sit in front of it planning what we were going to have first. When I got with my partner he nicknamed it 'the christmas shrine'. It has now become our family tradition every xmas eve for the kids to set out the 'shrine'. Think they enjoy that more than decorating the tree!

I have a couple. The first is that we have 2 Christmas trees. One is for kids and me and we put everything on it that the kids have ever made and decorations that we have bought from every holiday we've been on. It looks random but is totally special. The other tree is for my DH who decorates it very tastefully with silver and lights. The kids tease him about his boring tree and he teased them about the elves chucking everything on ours!
Our second tradition is opening stockings from Father Christmas on our bed first thing on Christmas morning before we do anything else. They are always so excited with the little things thy get.

Making sticky cinnamon buns on Christmas Eve (and eating them for breakfast every morning for the next few days) is our favourite. Classic fm on in the background for Christmas carols while we do it is a
Must.

Choosing the tree from our local garden centre. Just walking in to find it filled with trees draws gasps of amazement and after that, lunch or cake at their cafe depending on the time of day and a mosey around their amazing decorations display.
The kids love it.
But for me, it's when we get home and the tree in standing in its stand waiting to be decorated. Then it feels like Christmas.

Now my kids are 2 and 3 we really enjoy Christmas crafting in the run up to Christmas. Lots of painting and mess making decorations etc. We love putting together a gingerbread house and decorating that too

We have home cooked ham and fresh sliced pineapple for breakfast with snowballs to drink. I play the Saxaphone in the garden. (Quite badly-sorry of you are a neighbour)

I love that my mum still has tree ornaments that I made at primary school out of egg cartons and pipe cleaners. She puts them on the tree every year. I made them in 1979!! They’re faded and the bits of tinsel are threadbare but she won’t part with them. I’m now doing the same with things my son made at school to continue the tradition.

family.its all about being together.whether its dh turn or our side we spend it with the family and its just the best time.big meal.big eats.big walks.big tree.big bellies.big naps.big movie marathons.yum

Every Christmas Eve my family and I go a forestry walk, then come home, get the coal fire burning, hot chocolate and gingerbread men for the kids, mulled wine for the adults and we watch "It's A Wonderful life" and "Miracle on 34th Street"

Single mum of two young children.

Christmas Eve box, christmas eve film, stockings opened in my bed and then relaxed happy day.

Nothing forced, no “making memories” nonsense. Just three if us enjoying being together and indulging

A few years ago we got back from a Christmas Eve party quite late with the DD’s then aged 7 and 8. For some reason (probably one too many eggnogs on h and I’s part), we decided to take the duvet out and all lie on the trampoline and look at the stars. It was actually lovely. We talked about the best things that had happened that year and wished on the stars for the things we wanted to happen in the next one.
Sadly Our marriage has since broken down, but we still all spend Christmas and Boxing Day together and we still do this every year (4 years on). fortunately the weather has been kind so far as it wouldn’t be so nice were it to be chucking it down.
Christmas is more difficult now for the adults involved than it was for lots of reasons, but the girls are still the middle of it and when we do this it sets the tone for the next few days.Any bad feelings are put aside and we go in to Christmas Day with some inner serenity and as a family that still cares about one another (although of course a very different family to the one we once were).

A newer tradition that I think is worth hanging on to, especially for our children who have seen so much change in the last few years.

Decorating the Christmas tree all together with Christmas music in the back ground and a glass of fizz for Mummy. Oh what an idyllic scene until the first argument breaks out about who is putting which bauble where!

Hot chocolate in my grandad's metal teapot with the tea cosy my dm knitted on it for Christmas Day breakfast.

It's just DH and I, no little ones. In laws live in New Zealand.
Decorations always go up first weekend in December and I always have a "wrapping" day when I will watch Christmas movies all day (muppet christmas carol, arthur christmas, love actually, the holiday and Elf are ALWAYS on the list)
Christmas eve we cook the meat and prepare everything else. Christmas morning we always get up early, no later than 6am, make a cuppa and skype the family in New Zealand. We then have a glass of bucks fizz while we open the presents.
We then get ourselves ready, boil up the potatoes, carrots and parsnips ready for roasting later and pop to the pub for a hour or so. Then come home, finish cooking dinner with more fizz, eat our dinner then have an hour of so nap cuddled up on the sofa watching a film.
Evenings can be varied, sometimes it's into our PJs to watch all the specials on tv, sometimes it's round to a family members house.

Dec 1, tree up and decorated. The kids get to do it and it always looks like a tinsel explosion, but I wouldn't have it any other way.

Building a gingerbread house with the DC in December. Each year is a different one; train, house, village, sleigh. We do this before decorating the tree and then we all eat the gingerbread house in front of the fire, drinking hot choc in our pjs. And snooze in front of a film. Lovely.

Swimming in the sea on boxing day! Brrrrr!

Cooking the turkey overnight( following my mum’s tradition), scrambled eggs on muffins for Christmas breakfast. Stockings with little presents opened before breakfast, main pressies afterwards.

We always watch Muppets Christmas Carol whilst putting up the tree.
We go to a Christmas show every year, see Santa on Christmas Eve and once the kids are in bed me and husband watch It's a Wonderful Life with a couple of drinks.
Love Christmas 😊

I love that our family Christmas always has the odd ad hoc guest and all enjoy the extra company. We've done big family get together Christmasses my whole life. I think it came about because my aunty found herself as a single mum with three lively boys under five so my dads siblings got together and we all piled into each others homes (driving from the South Coast to Glasgow to all get together). As we grew up friends with no place to be, often a foreign student who couldn't get home, more distant relatives at loose ends.

Numbers are around 18 this year, but will no doubt go up a bit as the time approaches.

My favourite bit of Lidl Christmas range is the mulled wine. We tend to drink sparking at Christmas but mulled wine has somehow become a back garden bonfire night tradition. This will be our fourth mulled wine and sparklers barbeque bonfire night.

We decorate the tree 12 days before christmas, he kids leave mince pie and milk for Father Christmas and carrot for his reindeer, we build gingerbread houses and hand the kids handmade decorations on the tree.

We go to the theatre every Christmas Eve afternoon - something aimed at kids. Then get hot chocolate at a cafe and look at the lights before coming home.It's lovely.

Am super organised and been preparing since after last Christmas 🤣🤣🤣
Also we always put our Christmas tree up on the 1st of December to really get into the mood.DD2 will always put the star on top of the tree with hubby reaching her up the sky 🤣
When i was a child,my 3 brothers and i believed in Father Christmas very fondly.My late mum would always made us polish our black shoes very well and put under our Christmas tree for Santa.
We love having families over on Christmas eve for a big Lidl feast,drinks,talk,sing in Karaoke,have fun with the kids,take a lot of family pictures to cherishso we can looked back at,give blessings to each other and especially sharing our gifts in joy.
On the 25th the men will cook the leftovers and tidy up all the mess of previous night, while the women would relax,take the day off the kitchen drinking Lidl Prosecco,eating Lidl snacks and played Bingo while the kids played with their new
toys and chat between cousins 😁😁😁