Christmas Traditions

Replies

• Deli3

  Nov 13, 2009 2:57PM

  I LOVE xmas.
  
  We buy new pj's too..love it.
  
  We put out a letter to santa, mince pie, glass of milk and some carrots and then we read the night before Xmas...love that book! Kids off to bed and then OH and I wrap all their pressies with a festive drink or 2 and watch something festive. My fav is while you were sleeping or love actually.
  We leave crumbs and drink the milk and we also leave a bit of carrot with bite marks on. We sprinkle icing sugar outside mixed with glitter. We have this stick thing that leave a hoof mark (bought it years ago at a craft fair). Also, we leave nesquick cereal (those brown ones ) and say it is reindeer poo!! The kids love it!!!
  
  We set the table the night before for brekkie and the kids make name place cards. We have pots of tea and coffed, criossants, bacon sarnies, bucks fizz etc.. We usually go out for dinner as I dont want to spend the morning sorting a dinner.
  
  The best tradition that I have brought from my childhood is to remember it is a day for the kids. Their happiness and enjoyment comes before ours. Thats why I NEVER go out xmas eve or xmas night and OH never goes for a Xmas drink!!! Boxing day is a day that we have a drink, have people round etc..but Xmas day is for the kids
  
  Happy Xmas all
  dxxxx

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• TheOriginalLea77

  Nov 13, 2009 4:13PM

  Aw what a lovely post!
  
  My Christmas is always hectic as we go to my dad on Christmas Eve, one of our parents on Christmas Day and the the other parents on Boxing Day. On the plus side I have never made a Christmas Dinner yet and rarely have to cook over the festive period!
  
  I love it being a special day for the kids. The girls were a bit young to understand last year, but this time I really want to start some traditions...like hanging stockings and leaving out a drink and note for Santa. But I will have to do them on my own with the girls as hubby will be working Christmas Eve night and getting home about 9am Christmas morning
  
  Any more tradition ideas? I'm pretty much starting from scratch as we didn't have any traditions when I lived at home.
  
  xxx

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• LadyTottington Regular

  Nov 13, 2009 5:28PM

  As my children get older (my oldest is 7 now) I have introduced our 'own' family traditions - when I was little we had lovely Christmases, but the only traditions were stockings and Christmas dinner, so I'm really loving hearing these!
  
  Going to do the new pj's on Christmas eve this year - like that one! Sometimes I like Christmas eve more than christmas day lol! The children are soooo excited!
  
  Dee dee, I agree that it's all for the children....we had a real tree for the very first time last year because ds1 wanted it. Then he had the old fake (v small) tree in his bedroom which he loved! So then we had to get another fake tree for ds to put in his room lol (??1.50 from asda!)
  
  We now have Christmas white twinkly lights on the outside of our house each year too - never would've dreamt of that before having kids!
  
  Can't wait now!
  
  Mx
  
  

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• Deli3

  Nov 14, 2009 3:11AM

  A lovely tradition that i wished i had thought of when my first was born (she is now 18 so too late to start) is a friend of mine bought a load of the wood cheap frames from Ikea. Then she painted them red and sprinkled glitter on. Each year she takes a pic of her 2 boys on Xmas Eve next to the tree and writes in gold marker the year on the top of the frame. They are about 9 and 7 now and she puts them out each year. It is so lovely to see them and how they have grown each year. Another arty mate of mine has each year from their first xmas made a hand print of their little one. She cuts it out and laminates it, punches a hole in it and puts it on the tree.... it looks lovely.
  
  Mims...its soooo true. i used to think lights, trees etc outside houses looked tacky but now I love it. We live in the Middle East and wind those lights in plastic tubing around the palm trees. This year tho we are coming home to UK so won't bother as we leave on the 14th Dec.
  
  I LOVE xmas
  
  oohhh..one more...advent calenedars. EVERYONE gets on in our house and an advent candle is lit too.. Each week of advent we light a new one and then burn them all Xmas Day... and we always have a nativity scence. I have one in a wooden shed that (dolls house size) that we let them play with and I teach them what it is all about. I am christian but dont go to church much but I do try to teach them the true meaning of xmas. Another one I have remembered is that when i lived in UK i always put a toy in the boots toy appeal. I let lauren and chris pick it. wrap it and put a note in. It made them realise not all are as lucky as them. I always try to take them to santa, carol singers, and start playing Xmas dvds, cd's and read xmas books from 1st Dec. I put them away each year so they dont get bored of them. God, I am on a roll. Another friend (actually the same arty one who make the handprints) has a measure chart that she painted and she measures the kids in Dec and hangs it up for the whole of Dec to see how much they have grown.
  
  Just thought would give you ideas
  
  d xxx

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• Deli3

  Nov 14, 2009 3:16AM

  Me again............... I also get a bauble with the year of each childs first Xmas.
  
  When we were little mum made the xmas cake about mid Nov. We used to all come to the table and have a mix and make a wish..... not sure why. Also, the placing the fairy on the top of the tree was always an honour (no idea why) and we always had to pull straws to decide who did it. We had her as long as I cud remember. She fell one year and her face smashed... we were gutted! Dad bought a even more beautiful one and the old one was soon forgotton....lol
  
  d xxx

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• FlirtyFilly

  Nov 17, 2009 6:43AM

  OOOh waiting to open presents that's just CRUEL!!!
  
  We have kind of established our own xmas traditions as not many we had as kids ourselves, or the ones we did have we didn't want to continue (that stupid after lunch walk!!).
  
  We used to have a tradition of going to the pub for one festive drink with neighbours before lunch, but think that may have to stop now we have a small person who wants to play with his new toys!
  
  We decided last year that we would buy a new xmas dec (a special one) each year for logan (so far we've bought 3 this year - couldn't decide! hehe)
  
  We might start the new PJs one you all seem to do too!

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• claire-abelle

  Nov 17, 2009 7:38AM

  our traditions are usually: -
  
  hubby starts preparing food xmas eve morn (HE DOES ALL COOKING YEAH!!)
  head to local with family for xmas drink after lunch (shea comes with us too)
  home around late afternoon for a big bowl of homemade pumpkin soup and crusty bread.
  then we xmas film (we used to go to pics and will start again when lo is old enough)
  put lo to bed after leaving milk, carrot, mince pie and whisky for santa
  then the presents come out and stockings go, hubby finishes off prep for xmas dinner
  have a glass of wine and off to bed after hubby has dusted his shoes with flour and made foot prints outside to show that santa has been!!
  
  I'm the skintest i've ever been this year and will not recieve one pressie but I don't care just to see my little boys face!!
  can't wait!! xxx

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• Deli3

  Nov 17, 2009 8:03AM

  Everyone round Claire a belles for Xmas Eve then....???????? sounds fab!!!!!!!!
  
  d xxx

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• claire-abelle

  Nov 17, 2009 8:21AM

  you're in dubai aren't you dee dee?? whats it like being there for xmas? My husband used to live in Qatar and he hated xmas over there, said it just wasn't like xmas!!
  
  Do you come home much?
  
  

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• JemmaPuddleduck

  Nov 17, 2009 8:59AM

  We're going to start some traditions as my husband will always get Christmas off work in his new job so we *can* make some traditions now lol
  
  I like the idea of having new jammies for everyone on Christmas Eve - hubby doesn't wear them but I've told him he has to I'd also like to have the presents under the tree from when it goes up so Oscar knows that Santa doesn't bring everything. We'll put out stockings for Santa to fill and continue my family tradition of bringing them into the parents bedroom to open the stocking presents before opening the 'main' presents downstairs. I'd like to have breakfast before opening them as my family never has breakfast on Christmas day and I love preparing special breakfasts - croissants, fruit, pancakes etc
  
  My husband's family always save a couple of presents to open on Boxing day and I'm not sure whether to keep that one up, although it's a good way to cope with the post Christmas blues I suppose.
  
  I love the idea of the pictures and the decorations but I'm not sure if OH will go for it as he's not overly sentimental

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• babybarbarella

  Nov 17, 2009 9:14AM

  Sorry to g/c from pregnancy
  
  We have loads of Christmas traditions as we spend it in Ireland with my familiy. Next year we will have our son to enjoy it with so there will be loads more!!!! I LOVE the idea of the annual photo by the tree and will definitely be doin that.
  
  What I've been doing for years is buying a Christmas decoration, or something I can make into a Christmas tree decoration, whenever I'm away on holiday. We now have loads of decs on our tree which have a particular story, e.g. from our wedding in Edinburgh, our honeymoon in Rome, various holidays and then some that my hubby brought back from various locations when he was working on the Grand Prix circuit.

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• hedgie

  Nov 17, 2009 9:33AM

  We have quite a few similar traditions with stockings, and presents, christmas lunch, and family breakfast (we have eggs bennies, and fruit salad though) but for our advent calandar I make it myself. I have sewn little velvet sacks tied with gold ribbon (they are meant to look like santa sacks. I fill them with out favorite chocolates, we are kind of spoiled and are quite choosy so we have thortons and lindors, ect). All the little santa sacks go in a wicker basket on the mantle and each night in dec we take turns opening one and sharing out the chocolates inside. We also burn our yule log each year. We have always had real trees, and so when it is done for the year, dh trims off the branches and we keep the main trunk for the next year. Every year we burn the last year's tree but it's lit by a small piece saved from the yule log from the year before. So that it forms sort of a chain through the years. We sit around the fire and have drinks and toast the new year.
  Also along with new pjs, I buy new toothbrushes and some nice bubble bath. The children then have a bath with their new bath stuff, brush their teeth with new brushes, and have new pjs to go to bed.
  
  xx

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• hayls-49296

  Nov 17, 2009 9:50AM

  You all have such lovely traditions, I can see I'm going to pinch a lot of ideas, just Reading this post has made me so excited. Last year we put our tree up in November bcoz we were so excited. This year I can see dd2 pulling it down, so I think we'll wait a bit! ???????

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• claire-abelle

  Nov 17, 2009 10:46AM

  hedgie - mmmmmm eggs benedict!!! My fav and we always have it christmas morning too!!
  
  

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• LottieNH

  Nov 17, 2009 4:56PM

  We do the christmas PJ's thing as well! I bought Neve hers last week - they are red with little snowmen on them and I can't for christmas eve to put them on her.
  
  I always wrap my christmas presents watching breakfast at tiffany's with a glass of wine (will have to be lemonade this year though). I can always rely on my lovely husband to give me a new Jo Malone bath oil every year to use on Christmas Eve so I smell lovely on the big day!
  
  Now that Neve is nearly two I would like to start leaving a carrot and mince pie by the chimney before bed.
  
  xxx

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• HelenMFM admin

  Dec 19, 2016 2:52PM

  Oooh, we've just found this lovely thread, lurking in our archive.

  And it's so nice, we thought we'd give it a 'bump' and resurface it – to see if anyone else has got some great family Christmas traditions to share...

  Please come and tell us here!

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• Mrsg14 Regular

  Dec 19, 2016 3:08PM

  Oh i love reading about everyone's different traditions! Ours started 4 years ago when we started taking our girls to 'meet' santa - we'd go and visit Santa and have a photo of my husband and our two girls sat with him - we then get those pics made into Christmas baubles and hang them on our tree - so we have 4 of these special baubles now - it's so lovely seeing them every year, how much the kids have grown (and sadly how much me and the husband are ageing!!!) 

  So that's our tradition! 

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• Evespudding

  Dec 19, 2016 3:26PM

  We go to a carols by candlelight service every christmas. We don't really go to church normally but this service is so magical – and everyone has mince pies afterwards.

  Also, my other half always organises a mass footie session in the park with all our son's friends on Christmas Eve. It's always very muddy and cold but the kids love it – and it tires them out nicely, so they don't stay up all night waiting for Santa!

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• BobbieRae Regular

  Dec 21, 2016 10:02AM

  This may sounds ridiculous, but we love doing joke gifts, and every year, my brother and my dad pass on to each other some comedy bright green pants (think like the Borat style ones). Nobody really remembers who had them last so it's always funny when the pants come out and are unwrapped! 

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