Hi All,

Just wondering what everyone does on Christmas Eve/Christmas Day?
This will be our first Christmas at home, where our families are coming to celebrate with us and I am at a bit of a loss for ideas. I want to start something sort of like a tradtion for us and our future family.

Please share your ideas, thoughts, traditions...

I love love love Christmas!

We're having Christmas at my parents house this year. Last year it was at hubby's mum's place, so we're alternating between them each year. Though next year we hope to have everyone in our newly built house for Christmas!

I'm dreading christmas this year. Although the actual day we will be at home with just us, the days either side we are expected to travel 3hours south to spend with OH's family, then 2 hours north to spend it with my family.

The plan is to go south on the 22 or 23, home on the 24th. late arvo on the 25th, travel north and come home on the 26/27th.

I hope Ash travels well! So far he sleeps in the car - but the furthest we've been is an hour and a half round trip to take Jordan to his Dad's.

Fingers crossed!

WELL.

Christmas Eve we are expected to be at my parent's house.

Christmas Day we're expected to basically spend the whole day with my in-laws. Once we refused to be there at 9am to open our presents and my SIL rang DH and told him he was ruining Christmas .

This Christmas morning we will again be refusing to be there And after getting guilted for not staying "long enough" with them, my parents expect to see us again.

Oh how I love Christmas I'd love to go away for it!

Well DH and I are flying I think almost 3000kms to my family, where my mum then expects us to visit "everyone" in the 3 days were are there because alas "everyone" is unable to come to my parents house to see us.

Oh well, this will at least be the last year for some time.

This year we will be heading up to Newcastle to spend Christmas Eve/Christmas Morning with my Mum & Step-Dad. After opening presents there and a nice breakfast we will then drive back home to the Blue Mountains to Nathans Parents place (we will be living with them by then) where we will open more presents and have a late lunch/early dinner. Then on Boxing day we fly to Perth to spend some time with my Dad & Step-Mum and we come home New Years Eve.

Pretty much every year because my Mum is in Newcastle we take turns each year and will do Morning here with the In-Laws and Arvo with Mum one year and the opposite the next. This is they first year we will be seeing my Dad around Christmas time.

For the first time in 10 years I am spending it at home on the Gold Coast and I am over the moon! I have gone in to full blown Christmasy mode and bought a new tree which is huge and all new decorations. I even bought stockings for "my Boys' (cat & dog)

My Mum and brother are coming up to spend the holidays with us and we are going out for Christmas dinner as well as having friends over brunch Christmas morning.

Christmas Eve and Christmas day are always at mum and dads (where i grew up) i refuse to move till boxing day when we had a gathering at our house with family and friends.

IL's please themselves (FIL likes to invite himself to mum and dads)

I love CHRISTMAS!!!

I Christmas.

On Christmas Eve we always have a hot roast turkey dinner with hubby's Mum, sister, and her new hubby. This year it will be at our new place which is exciting!! We have bought a lovely big tree and new decorations...can't wait til Sunday when we set it all up! (one day early...but 1/12 is a Monday this year!).

Christmas morning we go to my parents' place (where I grew up) with all my sisters and their partners, and my niece and nephew, give and receive our gifts from under the tree, then have a yummy big breakfast of waffles with fruit salad, maple syrup and icecream. Mmmmmmmm.

Then hubby is off to have lunch and watch a movie with his Mum, while I go to my Aunty's house with my fam and have a big extended family lunch with my cousins, aunts and uncles, grandparents etc. Then hubby comes to join me at my aunt's in the arvo, then it's home that night.

Boxing Day is spent at home trying to keep cool!

With regards to the OP, there are many tradtions you can start for your little fam It's endless really! The traditions we have at Christmas all include giving gifts, eating lots of food, and laughing with family --- can't get much better than that

We usually have a dutch breakfast with my family, then go to church (but I think our church is having a christmas eve service instead this year). We come home and have coffee and pull out all the nibbles and lollies we have made and chat for a while before we open presents. This takes a *long* time, because our rule is that we only do one at a time, and we all watch each other open each present and show it off before moving onto the next one.

Then after we've cleaned up the paper, we have our christmas lunch, usually salads and cold meats, though last year we had a thai banquet, and then sit around and play with our presents for the afternoon

Pete and I usually go around to the in-laws at around 5-ish, where we do presents and have christmas dinner there. Everyone from his family does the "other" family in the morning and their family at night. Although this year, Pete's brother and his fiance decided (without discussion with anyone) that they are hosting christmas this year: A brunch in Brisbane. Nearly 2 hours from here. We are not going. I'll be 37 weeks pregnant and don't want to be driving to Bris and back on Christmas day and miss out on christmas with my family!

I think most of the in-laws will be coming back in the late afternoon so we can do dinner as usual... we'll see!

Don't really mind either way, though hubby says he would rather hang out with my family the whole day anyway


ETA: Oh.. and on boxing day we usually travel the 3 hours to my grandparent's and have christmas all over again with the extended family- and stay out there for a week or so. This year though we'll be travelling the 3 hours back home to Toowoomba for our last few weeks alone getting ready for bubby!

Christmas Eve we will be spending it at home as a family. We traditionally open one present each on Christmas Eve after dinner.

On Christmas Day we get up and open our presents(this year it will be after we feed Oliver). Then we are going to the inlaws for Christmas lunch and more present opening. We used to go to Church in the morning but being our first Christmas with Oliver we want to spend that time at home as a family.

That's what my family tradition was for aaaaages! The five of us, before us kids left home, would do it this way, and we'd go around the "circle" taking it in turns. Mum was always the one who had heaps left over at the end, she always had the most I like doing it that way but these days my family just rips in to them, even before they're all handed out! Usually I hand them out to everyone.

This year was meant to be in NYC! but that fell through... and probably lucky considering the dollar.

So this year is with my parents, both my sisters are away! So it'll just be the 4 of us.

We alternate every year now.

My favourite part about Christmas when I was younger, was on Christmas eve, we would put our stocking on a piece of furniture and that is where Santa would leave our gifts!
I also love getting a stocking full of small things!!

It'll be quiet this year, but nice still. My parents live by the beach, so here's hoping for good weather! I want to get FH something fun that we can spend all chrissy doing if the weather is poo. But I have no idea what to get him.

One tradition we do is read "Twas the night before Christmas!"
We also don't open pressies til everyone is up and ready to go!

I miss the magic of Christmas that is around when you are younger though...although I can see that as soon as you have kids, you become like excited kids all over again - well my sister & BIL did! haha.. I am sad we won't be having it with them!

OMG I am going to have a baby this xmas. A really little one. Farrrrrrrrrrrrk.

This xmas - my mums side of the family, with her husband I am cooking a full blown xmas feast..we have all been putting in (four families) $10 a months since Jan, so we have a nice little kitty and we are going to spend it on food and drinks! I cannot remember the last time I had a hot cooked xmas.
I am really really excited about it...
I am boycotting my dads house because he hasn't left his place in 11 years, and I think he should travel for once..

If Klay is home we may go down to his familes place for xmas eve - we are still unsure when he is flying out, meant to be xmas day, but I doubt it will be, itll probably be xmas eve. If he isn't home I am staying at home with Kaele and we are going to sing xmas carols.

I normally look forward to Christmas but this year is going to be a nightmare. We're meant to be driving over an hour to spend Christmas lunch at the IL's as it could be Andrew's nan's last Christmas but we've been having "issues" with PIL and I personally don't really want to see them. Then once we're done with the tension at their house we then get to drive over an hour back to have Christmas dinner at my mum's house. So basically the kids get to spend their Christmas in the car, not that I'm bitter about it or anything

I forgot to mention the rest of our routine on Christmas Day

This year it will go like this: hubby and I will wake up Christmas morning at mum and dad's, and the usual "Merry Christmas!" greetings will be exchanged and then we'll help out preparing lunch which mum would have already started around 7am as the pudding needs a few hours on the stove before it's ready. Vegies will be chopped up, bread sauce will be made, and a Christmas CD will be playing in the background. Mum will groan as Little Drmmer Boy comes on and I sing along - I love that carol but she hates it!

My brother and my SIL will arrive around 12 or 1 and beers and champers will be cracked open, and we'll tuck in to nibblies that they will most likely bring. Lots of chatter and catching up (we all live so far apart) will ensue, while the vegies roast. Then we all gather around the table which mum and I decorate the day before, and we have a yummy Christmas lunch of roast chicken, pumpkin, potato, beans, bread sauce and gravy. After we've all had our fill, we'll have the pudding, which will have brandy poured on it and set alight! Icecream and thick custard usually accompanies this.

Then we have the Christmas crackers, and we all wear the paper hats, comment on the charms inside the crackers, and tell the corny jokes we find inside. Then it's on to pressies!!!

After pressies we will sit around and chat and then have a post lunch nap. Then we'll wake up still feeling full and all go for a walk together. We'll come back to see the Christmas news bulletin while those hungry pick at leftovers.

Boxing Day is usually spent watching the cricket, or the Sydney to Hobart.

Christmas Eve will be spent cooking all the food for Christmas Day

We will have breakfast with my Mum and her husband, and we'll take some savoury muffins.

From there we go up the coast to MIL's for lunch with DH's siblings (A few months ago, she told me only to bring ourselves... now I've been asked to bring, dessert, potato salad, my own gluten free meal & drinks )

We'll drop in and see my family on the way home for afternoon tea

Boxing Day my FIL & SMIL are dropping in for brunch at our place.