Christmas traditions - what are yours?

Patronus

Christmas Eve as a child, my Mum would always take me and my brother around town to window shop, we'd always get some Pick n Mix from Woolworths and some new pyjamas and then we'd go for dinner at Pizza Hut, home, bath, tv and bed.

Christmas morning we'd have a stocking left on our beds and my presents would always be left on the sofa, my brother's on an armchair. My Mum always encouraged us to read the labels on the gifts before we opened them - they always said love from Mum and Dad, some from brother/sister. I think it was my brother who told me Santa wasn't real though! (The joys of having an older brother - still not over him pulling the head of my Little Mermaid doll once!)

At nearly 23, Christmas day is spent all day in PJ's, watching tv and eating a load of junk before and after Christmas dinner. Me and my OH hope to carry on the Christmas Eve tradition of my childhood when we have children. :j

polkadot90

I love so many of these ideas. Thanks for sharing them. My favourite has to be the candle and the visit to the graves of loved ones. I got an elf on the shelf, how and when do you introduce your elf to your kiddies?

freyasmum

Every year, I take my daughter to choose a new silver decoration for the tree - it's Newbridge Silver and it's really, really pretty. She then gets to choose where she wants to put it.

We have advent hampers where all our christmas goodies come out - her calendar, dvds to watch, some sweets, storybooks to read before bed, activity books to colour in and keep her occupied.

Our stockings are placed by the fire on Christmas Eve.

We eat chocolate for breakfast on Christmas Day

We always drive around with our Christmas Cards, delivering them to our friends and family in our village - those further away are sent by post!

That's all I can think of right now - I love it though, it all just makes it more special :j

tracey12_2

chessiex wrote: »

I love so many of these ideas. Thanks for sharing them. My favourite has to be the candle and the visit to the graves of loved ones. I got an elf on the shelf, how and when do you introduce your elf to your kiddies?

The first year we have our elf my daughters were 2 and 5 and I wrote a letter to them from their elf introducing himself and that he would stay with our family from 1 December until 24 December. It said that he would report back to father Christmas so they had to try and be good, help their mum etc.

They were so excited waiting for him to arrive and this will be our third year and this year we have a girl elf coming as well to visit. So we have Binky Tinseltoes and our new elf his sister Snowflake Tinseltoes

Tracey

Rummer

:j I love Christmas and the run up to it :j

The tree goes up as early as hubby will allow and decorations both bought and homemade are put up.

The elf arrives a couple of weeks into December with a letter from Santa and every day he either gets up to mischief or leaves a small gift

During December we watch lots of Christmas movies and make lots of crafty things.

The elf disappears on Christmas Eve leaving behind a hamper filled with new PJs, a movie, sweeties, santas plate, seasonal mugs,hot chocolate, nice drinks, puzzle/colouring books and other nice things. Come evening time we all have baths or showers and settle down in our new PJs to watch The Nightmare Before Christmas before hanging our stocking and having a reasonably early night.

On the day itself I am always the first awake and have to wait until 8am before waking the rest of the family. I pop the fire on and light the Christmas tree and then we all open our presents together.
Family are seen throughout the day.

Boxing day is just for us though, we spend the day in our PJs watching TV and playing with our toys. A fry up for breakfast and steak pie for tea

candlelight_2013

Please may I join you. I have just finished reading this thread and it has brought back so many memories for me.

I am probably a lot older than most of you (born 1945), but we always had a lovely Christmas bearing in mind Mum & Dad didn't have much money.

We were 3 girls, and although we didn't have a stocking, we had a pillowcase at the bottom of the bed. In this we always had an orange, nuts and sweets as well as the presents. Always had a new pencil case and fountain pen, stationery set and hopefully the 1 present we had asked for. Dad always bought us a book, usually a classic, and wrote inside the year we received it. Charles Dickens was always my favourite and I had most of them.

We always had to go to my Nan and Grandad's on Christmas Day because Dad was an only child. He didn't drive so we had to have a taxi, and were allowed to take one present with us. The taxi came at 11 o'clock and we returned at 7, then the fire was lit. When the Queen's speech came on the radio we all had to sit still and be quiet.

Nan always gave us a selection box, they seemed much bigger in those days. She had already given Mum money for us to buy clothes, so that was a little extra.

I tried to make Christmas magical for our 2 daughters, and now our grandchildren, but perhaps I will tell you about that another time.

Thank you for letting me join in.

Candlelight x

cat_79

Loved reading this thread especially the older Christmas threads. Every year we buy a tree decoration for the kids so when they grow up they will have their very own mismatched set we watch Christmas movies all through November and December. On Christmas eve we watch scrooge go to mass and track Santa. Christmas morning the kids barge in at a ridiculous hour we all go downstairs together put Christmas songs on and open the presents

zolablue25

We have a few but they are all quite minor.
I take leave from work for DDs first day off for her Xmas holidays and we have a Daddy-daughter day where we go by train to the shops and get Mummy's present. This gives Mummy chance to do the last minute wrapping! This is probably my favorite tradition of all!
All visits to other people's houses stops at Noon 24th December, from then on it's family time. Christmas Eve afternoon we go to the children's service at our local church which is always a lovely way to start the festivities. When we get back to our house I break open the advocaat and make snowballs, fire up the PC and go to Norad santa tracker.

Christmas morning DD comes into our bedroom and we all open our stocking presents (someone usually pops downstairs to make tea before we start).

Christmas breakfast is Bacon butties with Bucks Fizz. Other than that we usually just play it by ear.

RustyPots

We don't have too many as there is just the two of us and of mixed religious beliefs.

Christmas tree is a real one and goes up around the 1st of December. We have some wine and christmas songs on and we have a good laugh. I have a "Santa Key" that is the final item to be added to the tree. I had this when I was 6 as we had no Chimney for Santa. We also put the house decorations up.

I celebrate Yule so around the 20th of December I make a yule log, make wreaths etc and have a feast, boar, ham etc on the evening of the 21st, we stay awake all night and celebrate the rising sun. The run up to the 20th/21st husband and I take walks around the country gathering things for the wreathes etc. It's nice to have a bit of time together to appreciate nature rather than too much of the commercial aspect!

We also exchange a "Yule gift" on the 24th, this is usually a hand made tree decoration that we add to the tree. We also have a sit down with a Christmas film and some home made sweets etc then off we go to bed.

Christmas morning is bucks fizz and smoked salmon on bagels for breakfast. We then have a mad frenzy of opening presents and eating chocolate :rotfl:
Always have a moment to light a candle for my ancestors passed so they can join in with us.

Then we go off to my mum and dads to open more presents and eat more food for a more traditional Christian Christmas full of hymns and the little baby Jesus. The evening is filled with drink and food :beer: and we tend to stay over the night at my parents. On boxing day we go and spend time with husbands family


When we have children we will definitely be mixing the Yule and Christmas celebrations for them and I really love the Elf on a Shelf thing, I can't wait to do that. Turning the milk blue, marshmallow fights, painting dads toe nails :rotfl:

Also Christmas eve film and cuddles will be carried on as I really love that now


Its lovely reading all your different traditions, for me Christmas is so very personal and is all about family, that for me is the real meaning of it all, it's such a special time of year

candlelight_2013

A lovely post RustyPots thank you, you and your DH combine your different religious beliefs very well and clearly enjoy yourselves.

Candlelight x