What are your (childfree) Christmas traditions?

nicegirl

My husband and I have been together for a while but only got married and finally bought our own home earlier this year. We have a few Christmas traditions but I'd like to start some more and I'm after inspiration!

There's lots of information out there about fun Christmas traditions to start with children, but we are childfree so I'm looking to hear specifically about traditions between you and your partner please.

What are your Christmas traditions between couples? :j

missbiggles1

I don't think you can intentionally start a tradition - they just happen.

pixo

I love the idea of this thread. We don't have children *yet*... maybe in a few years.. but there is a few that we would love to establish and then carry on when we have children. This year we are planning on having Christmas eve hampers - Christmas PJ's, Christmas movie etc.

mai_taylor

We also got married this year and have now got our own home. We are going to start doing Christmas stockings for each other which we've never done before, then open them in bed on Christmas morning while one of us does breakfast in bed. I also want to start a Christmas eve tradition but I'm not sure what it will be yet! Possibly going out for a meal or cooking something nice and staying in and watching films.

firebird082

Do you not have traditions inherited from your families? Admittedly my OH doesn't really, but in my family we have more than enough for both of us! I'm horrified by lots of people's traditions of lazing around, so I won't add anything here

mai_taylor

We don't have any family traditions other than the usual eating lots and being as lazy as possible. I don't really know what other families do?

04624181

Before we had kids our tradition was always new pjs on christmas eve ( which we still do now ) Always write a love letter to each other as part of our gift as words mean so much, (again we still do this now) And also we bought each other one of the huge christmas cards each. Every year instead of throwing away/recycling the card we put the card away in the christmas box to be used again the next year. We write a small message that is special for that year on/in the card. That way every year we get to read previous years message and we can reminisce together. the cards tend to last about 8 years and then we save them. We have got messages in re London Olympics, the birth of our kids etc. Very special memories x

moromir

We always try and buy a new bauble for the tree somewhere on our travels that year.

mj132

When I was younger, we'd go to a nearby town where an entire street went all-out on Christmas lights and it was all very magical and energy-consuming :-)

pavlovs_dog

Xmas day is a family day, whereas we spend boxing day just the two of us. We have a buffet style tea as a carpet picnic in the living room. If we fancy we go for a walk, if not we laze around in PJs all day watching films and playing games. It is lovely to have some down time after all the rushing around.

aggypanthus

We started out 25 years ago with him giving me a wooly santa type stocking, with little items in. I still have delicate china mug with daffodil pattern on, from the first year. The stocking has been filled every yr since then .
We would open our pile of presents in bed, taking it in turns , one at a time.
then we would go to family dinners in the afternoon.
Now, bigger presents are tricky to find each other, and we dont get any family invites as dynamics have changed, and split into smaller units with the neices and nephews having their own kids and new family units.
We go away to a rental place , just ourselves. We love it, but its also partly to avoid being the saddo childfree couple, who nobody wants at Xmas.
We still open our pressies in bed. . just later after a lie in lol