Starting traditions

comping_cat

Our xmas traditions -

xmas eve - make cakes or biscuits for father Christmas,
go and see the xmas pantomime
watch an xmas film before bed
milk, biscuit and carrot left out for Faher Christmas and Rudolph
stockings at the end of the bed.
xmas day - Father Christmas leaves a trail of chocolate money wherever he has been (used to be glitter, but that is a pain to hoover up!!!)
everyone gets into bed with me to open stockings, and have a picture whilst opening anything
i go down first to see that Father Christmas has been, whilst DS and DD collect the chocolate and check he drank the milk (crumbs left and end of carrot)
presents from Father Christmas (that he brings on behalf of me) opened in the morning, anything from anyone else is opened after lunch, one at a time (the morning is a free for all, wrapping paper everywhere!!!)
xmas dinner with all the trimmings, but this is the one day they are allowed to eat what they want, so if they have stuffed themselves with chocolate all morning, and dont want to eat, they dont have to - they do have to sit at the table as a family tho until we have all finished.

I LOVE christmas, with this new christmas thread Martins set up, has got me all christmassy and excited already!!!!

I also prepare all the veg on xmas eve, so i dont have as much to do on xmas morning!!!!

Queenie

Edinburghlass wrote:

Thank heaven for that Queenie, everyone seems so organised spreading food for reindeers etc

Er ... I've done the reindeer food too :rotfl: (Made up packets of them for the school fair when the boys were still in Infants School and included a pack in each of the Christmas Cards) but, no matter how organised I aspire to be, there is always something, *something* that I've forgotten/overlooked.

This year, I'm going away for Christmas ( :j ) so I really do need to be extra, extra organised. (I can dream!)

Sadly, Christmas Day is the one day of the year when our zoo's are all closed - I think that's a lovely idea! :T

One of my fondest memories was of a Christmas spent in Scotland when I was 12yo and going to the kirk for Midnight Mass. My only disappointment was ... no snow. How dare it not snow in Scotland at Christmas! Thought the family I was staying with must be very rich because we had our Christmas dinner at a Hotel

Something which has become a new tradition in our house is decorating a small wall mounted fake tree with ornaments which have been exchanged in past years from around the world in ornament exchanges. All handmade.

Rachie_B

Edinburghlass wrote:

Is is just me who traditionally is sitting on Christmas Eve/morning at 2.00 am still wrapping

for the past 3 yrs we have been wrapping til gone midnight definitely !

not this year tho

she says ......... :rotfl:

Edinburghlass_2

Rachie_B wrote:

for the past 3 yrs we have been wrapping til gone midnight definitely !

not this year tho

she says ......... :rotfl:

I'll see you here about 1.00 am Rachie

Dijor

I think I may be slightly mad, according to my husband, but after the usual Christmas Eve traditions like family games and cuddling up to a lovely christmassy film etc, as soon as the kids (aged 6 & 8) are in bed, I make up huge buckets of Magic Snow (purchased through IWOOT) and scatter it in the back garden, make a couple of tracks through it with a stick to look like Santa's sleigh has landed with a bump and shaken off all the snow, then use a boot-shape stencil to sprinkle more magic snow through the house to make Santa and reindeer footprints up to the bedrooms upstairs. I even used spray snow to make reindeer footprints onto the kids TV remote control and video machine last year and the kids thought Santa and Rudolph must had a rest and watched a film! I spin the story so wildly the next morning when they wake up I almost believe it myself........ I just wish I was brave enough to get onto the roof in the dark to put the the magic snow there instead!

Magic Snow is absolutely amazing fantastic fake snow which when opened, looks icing sugar. You add water and it expands to make the most incredibly realistic fake snow. If you put your hand into the bucket it actually feels like snow! Also, it doesn't disappear for weeks (although after loads of rain outside it goes a bit gloopy!). Very highly recommended if you're as mad as me and love snow. Why does it never snow in Cornwall!

My youngest also lost her first tooth last week. Once she had fallen asleep, I took a photograph of her in her bed (without the flash but with her reading light on so the picture looked like it was night-time), then, using Paint Shop Pro, "cloned" a fairy into the same photograph so it was standing on my daughter's pillow looking down at her, I also added a shadow so it looked v.realistic. I then mounted the picture onto a framed card and put a poem inside. I then used glue, glitter and a tiny footprint stencil to make tiny fairy footprints along the bedhead and sprinkled glitter on the bed. Bonkers I know but her little face when she opened the card was a picture.

Not quite sure what they'll both think of me in the next year or two or three when they realise Santa and the Tooth Fairy are not real. Shame.:rolleyes:

Rubyru_3

We always bake on christmas eve.

Veg is always prepared.

New pj's.

They have to shout up the chimney.

DH goes upstairs and rings a bell I hype the little onews up telling them that its FC on his sleigh.

We always go out into the garden kids in new pjs and wellies to sprinkle some reindeer food.

Miricale on 34th street.

On christmas morning we ususally have to wake the kids up .One of us goes down to see if FC has been , lights the fire ,put tree lights on etc and makes a pot of tea. Then the fun starts.

Katyag

Aww reading all these traditions are bringing a tear to my eye!!! My DS will be 5 this christmas and i want to start traditions too, hard for me tho as DS's dad works every xmas eve usually so its only ever me.

Im getting excited about xmas now tho! lol

freyaluck

Our longest tradition is something my nan did for my brother and me (and our mum and aunties) and I now do for my three.
Before each babies first xmas they would have a stocking made for them. my nan did ours (we still have them) and I made my kids. Each year we get a little trinket to sow or pin onto the kids stockings, my brother and I loved trying to figure out which was the new item on our stocking. I now usually buy the charity pins as I feel the money is going to a good cause.
The kids always open there stockings on our bed with us, trying to figure out what is whos afterwards is another matter:rotfl: there is always a cracker, party popper and clementine in the stockings.
I always make some sort of wreath or garland from holly and evergreens that we go and collect from the local woods.
Frey

tinkerbelluk

Ours are:

The week before Christmas we head out in the car and drive around for hours trying to find the best and most outrageously decorated house!!! We've done this for a few years but we felt last year that as we where getting enjoyment others should to, so we took a bottle of wine with us and knocked the door of the best house we had seen and gave it to them to thank them for making our tradition work

When we put up the tree there must be Xmas music playing and you must sing very loudly in your most untuned voice!

And finally - the most embarrassing :rolleyes: - On Christmas eve we open a parcel from under the tree that says To: xxxx With love from Santa! that contains a new pair of jim jams! I wouldn't mind both there are just the 2 of us and we're in our 30's!!!!!

earwig

i take it then that im the only one who has xmas dinner on christmas eve then lol