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

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We go carol singing around the houses by candlelight on Christmas Eve. It’s the most special part of my year.

Watching elf with hot chocolate.

Having trifle for supper, because we'd eaten so much for lunch that we had had no room for any pudding. The trifle is so huge that we don't have any main course and let the children have as much pudding as they want at one sitting. Once-a-year bonkersness

Christmas Eve, wrapping presents with a glass of mulled wine to hand, the children watching a cheesy festiv film with DH - a warm glow comes over the whole household.

I grew up in care I hated Xmas as a child as I missed my mum and never got any presents as they said they don't get paid enough for the special present I wanted whilst I sat there watching her own children open all there very expensive presents. But now I have my little boy we bake cookies Xmas eve then I get him new PJs and time to forgot all the bad things that happening that year n look forward to new year. Put the tree up and my partner goes outside in the garden and hides and rattles bells and me and my son go out and he's face is a picture when he thinks he can hear Santa on his sleigh. Then we cuddle up on sofa with Grinch that stole Xmas with popcorn and treats and I tell him how much he is loved and how my life is worth everything now I've had him and how special he is. Means more to me than anything

@loneranger14 I am sad for you

Decorating the tree was always my favourite. My Dad and I did it together, it was our thing. Now I'm grown up we send each other photos of our completed trees for the other to critique/approve

Me and my sister have done the same thing on christmas eve since we were small children.
We are now in our mid 20's and we still do the same things.

Up first thing and buy "Pound shop pressies" we go to pound land and buy one gift for everyone to open at the table after christmas dinner. Head home and wrap them.
After wrapping help mum finish cleaning the house and prep some sprouts for the next day.
Afternoon head to the cinema we usually watch something magical and family friendly, Stardust, The Hobbit, Harry Potter etc.
After the cinema we go to my Grandmothers for pork and stuffing batches and Carols from Kings.
We head home and construct a gingerbread house together as teens we nearly killed each other doing this on several occasions
New Pjs, hot chocolate and balies and some photos for DM in front of the tree.
Then we get into my sisters bed and watch Beatrix Potter's "The Tailor of Gloucester" and fall asleep.

Christmas Eve is the best day of the year.

I have continued on the tradition my mum passed on to me as a child. Christmas morning my brothers and I would have to go into our parents room singing christmas carols to wake them up. No christmas carols then they wouldn't get up! Nobody was allowed down the stairs until everyone was up and then we would continue down in a line from oldest to youngest into the living room to open our stockings. As a child I always thought everyone did this, only by seeing the bemused look on peoples faces when i told people as i got older i realised it wasn't the case.

Loneranger I hope you have a brilliant Christmas this year, and every year x

We have our family Xmas the first week of November. Our youngest son and his wife are actors and are always in panto for several weeks in December and into January so before they start rehearsals in earnest the whole family go to one of the Center Parcs for a break. We are off this Monday to Woburn where Winter Wonderland will be in full swing. We bring decorations and our Christmas dinner and Xmas stockings filled with hilarious junk bought all season from bootfairs. This year there are 17 gifts in each of 9 stockings. OMG so much wrapping (but i buy the paper in the January sales). The children despair about the amount of stuff they have to take home again, but we don't mind if it's sold, re-gifted or given to charity shops. And we are together for 5 days enjoying everything the park has to offer and playing board games. So when Christmas Day does come, there's no present buying or panic as it is all behind us and we can have a relaxing break and remember what the true spirit of Christmas is.

Buying my daughter one tree decoration a year so when she's grown up she'll have enough for her own tree.

Including a clue in each little present towards figuring out what the main present is. It's hilarious to watch them try.

Panto on Christmas Eve, the best bit is driving home for Christmas!

Favourite tradition is making the Danish Christmas pudding to have on Christmas Eve (which is when we have our "main" Christmas dinner): a sweet risotto with whipped cream and chopped almonds folded through it. There is one whole almond and whoever gets it gets the "almond prize" (For the last few years, that's been a Christmas mug in our household).

My favourite tradition with my daughters is that we make a gingerbread house, we absolutely love doing it and it tastes yummy to eat it at Christmas (although it looks pretty rubbish and tends to resemble a shack more than a house)

This is my favourite thread ever on mumsnet.

I used to get hammered with my friends on Christmas Eve and although it was a brilliant tradition, it has slowly evolved into the same group of friends meeting for lunch with all of our kids in tow. The kids all play together while we have a couple of proseccos and a gossip.

Then we head home and do some baking for Santa. After that we go to the local church service and then head home to watch elf, drink hot choc etc.

I think I'm going to steal a few of the ideas I've read on here though. I love the idea of a jam jar runway for Father Christmas!

Forgot my current tradition of buying a Father Christmas tree decoration every year. Going to give them to ds when he leaves home - but for the moment, they fit my theme of red decorations on the tree.

I love getting out the Christmas decorations every year - each ornament has its own history and brings back memories.

The day we do the big Christmas food shop we have a Chinese to make sure we don't start scoffing the food. It's become a bit of a family get together now and it means we can all start relaxing into celebration mode.

We always play board games after Christmas lunch and on Boxing Day start a huge puzzle which everyone joins in making.

My favourite tradition is putting up the tree. We’ve collected lots of decorations from holidays and trips, some homemade decorations, and they all bring back memories!

I love taking mine to Christmas eve mass, then we come home and relax and get ready for a full on hectic Christmas day :)

Over the years we’ve done loads of things with our 3 to feel as Christmassy as possible....posh hotels....trains....ice skating....

But we have now discovered the local garden centre’s charity Christmas weekend where the big guy is there, loads of log burners, Sally Army band, mulled wine

Apologies. Posted too soon!

And it’s just right. Lovely few hours spent on a Sunday in December just feeling festive then home for a practice dinner.

We’ve started lots of new christmas traditions but my favourite one from my childhood is making the kids calendars filled with unusual bits I’ve bought over the months leading up to xmas. I love making them and remember the joy i had as a child opening mine each day. He new one we’ve made which we all love is bashing through a wrapping paper ‘door’ to get to the lounge where the christmas tree and presents are!! So much fun to film in slow mo!!

Christmas is spent with those we love most so I try not to get too stressed that everything is perfect as they will all still love us. We like sure we remember why we are celebrating amongst all the presents and food.