New Christmas Traditions for the Newly Single Mum

When_the_going_gets_tough

Great ideas there. For me Christmas starts at 3.00pm on Christmas Eve with the service of carols from Cambridge - could always have it on in the background - then nice tea and a visit to a Christmas Eve childrens service - lots of churches have them - ours always had dressing up as the kings shepherds etc or christingle service - it gets the kids out in the dark and its time to put out the carrot, mince pie and glass of sherry for Father Christmas. Then hang up stockings ( tip my mum finally told me when I was about 40 - have duplicate stockings so the stuffed one is hidden in your bedroom and you just have to do a quick late night swap!) Home baking is great and doesn't have to be complicated - a favourite in our house is jam tarts with little pastry stars in the jam and shortbread biscuits using Christmas cutters and dipped in chocolate - the children can help you (if you can stand the mess!) Going out in the dark to a local panto, lights, Father Christmas are all great and it doesn't have to be expensive - the kids love it all even if it just a local event. Good luck and enjoy your time with them.

calicocat

Something I saw in a film I liked the idea of, but tweeked it for myself.

In the film the woman bought a tree decoration every year for her daughter (keeping them in a box) and then gave them to her when she moved out and into her own home with her own tree. I do this for myself, and each year buy a special decoration rather than loads of cheaper tat ones. It means over the years you end up with them all being different, from different places, and often unique if bought at craft /antiques fairs etc.


You could start this this year with your kiddies even though you have bought new ones anyway, (I mean where they know about it and pick their own). It could be a new ritual that you all go out one day before xmas and buy a new decoration each. Plus if you wanted to you could do as in the film and they get to take them with them in when they get their own place years from now.


I really like this idea and wish my mum had thought of it.....but I am obsessed with xmas tree baubles. If they chose a glass ball which you maybe wouldn't want to use right now you could just keep them. If money is tight, then you could use an old bauble and customise it.

Also you could each make a stocking for one another.

Depending on what you eat for xmas brekkie you could get egg cups to decorate xmas eve for each other..or mugs.


Every year (or for now while they are little) you could all make a new star for the top of the tree xmas eve.

For something that is a tradition to last over the years you could decide on a particular tea or meal that you will all have xmas eve (or a new one if you already have one).

It will be new to you this year too, so it's important to put something in there for yourself too.

Good luck, and i'm sure that whatever you decide to do will be wonderful.

Just thought of something else.....toast in xmas tree shape, you could make your own template for this easily.

The_Cre8tor

Reading this thread has choked me. You're all such lovely people.

mrstodd3172004, some of the ideas I had have already been mentioned above, but there is one thing which I know my (now grown up with children of their own) daughters remember with greatest warmth is something we used to do on Christmas Eve, every year.

In order to make them see life, and the lives of others, from another angle, I was always trying to find a way of showing them that the grass wasn't always greener on the other side, and one of the traditions I started was to volunteer us as a family to help a charitable organisation every Christmas Eve, and I found that the Salavation Army needed volunteers to take food parcels (and small gifts) to families in the town where we lived. We put our name down as volunteers every year and we'd turn up at the right place, at the right time to help package food parcels and load them into my car and then deliver them (discreetly) to the addresses we were supplied with.

I would always make sure that we never delivered to anyone who lived anywhere near me - as I didn't want to embarrass anyone.

My girls now do a similar thing with their own children, and they (my daughters) tell me that they learnt so much from the experiences they had on these yearly Christmas volunteer 'jobs'. Not least of all that they were truly blessed, and that although we couldn't give them everything they might have wanted, they certainly had more to be thankful for than they ever realised before.

Perhaps something like this could become a tradition for you and your family. If you don't have a car, you could always rope a grandad or grandma in to do the car driving bit, but you and your children could actually deliver the food parcels. (Use the biggest car you can. Some food parcels can be quite big.)

But .. whatever you do decide to do as a family, I wish you all a loving, peace filled and beautiful Christmas time. xxx

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Gr33ng1ng3r

I think we have done most of those mentioned at sometime or other! My daughters are now in their early 20s and the things we still do are
1Go out to see a special show at some point over the Christmas break. We have seen everything from church pantos to west end productions and loved them all!
2 Have a craft day with them and some friends. When they were at school it won me so many Brownie points with other parents - always handy when calling in favours! We are making tree decorations this year.
3 "Tacky Tour" - walking around the village in the dark looking at all the outside decorations. Still do it!
4 Christmas stocking - had to have something to eat, something to read, something to write on and with, a small game and a small present from Santa. The idea was to keep them in bed a bit longer! They may now be sophisticated young women of the world but it still follows pretty much the same format!
Find out what works for you. The joy is in being together and laughing our way through Christmas!

mcja

My only bit of advice would be relax. There are a lot of awesome ideas on here, but this year, your kids just need mummy and lots of laughing. Let them get up at 5am, eat chocolate at 6am, rip open presents as only kids can and eat what you want. No one has made it law that you have to have a roast on Xmas day.

You're being a brilliant person letting them see daddy Xmas day.

We do Elf, carol services, crafty time, panto or something special (we save all year and this year are going to see Santa at Westonbirt instead).
No pressures, just enjoy your babies.

Xxx

esmf73

My son has autism and ADHD, so we have a different Christmas, even though I want the ones for my kids that I had!!!! This year we are going to a local historical village - beamish on Christmas Eve with sons respite worker. Mainly to tire them out. We might drive round some decorated houses, but we live in the country, so there's not many! We always have reindeer pasta ( from ikea ) and jar of sauce for tea! Christmas Day may be spent in pjs! I'm not cooking trditional Xmas lunch - were having beef Wellington as a treat from lidl. Xmas night will be spent in front of fire watching movie with popcorn, anything to ensure a quiet night.

Am learning, slowly, that Christmas traditions are what you make them. Don't have to spend a fortune, eat yourself silly and be with people you don't like! We tweak things to help son cope. What would your kids like to do? Perhaps they would like to meet their father for a walk, limiting the amount of time they spend with him. You sound like a strong lady. Good luck, and feel free to PM at anytime x