I read a great post the other day about Christmas Traditions – I really enjoyed reading it and I meant to write ours last year but I forgot (Quelle surprise). So seeing as the house is decorated and it’s even snowing outside – here are ours!
Decorations:
All our decorations go up on the first weekend of December. I love decorating the tree, especially now we have Rian and I can add all the lovely little things he makes. The last three years we have done a Christmas workshop at his school and made decorations to take home, and they are scattered around. I plan on keeping them forever, like my Mum kept ours – for me, the tree is for tatty old Santa hats and snowmen made of cotton wool, not matching or themed decorations. That said, we have two sitting rooms now…!
Grown-up decorations in the new front room 😀
Food
None of us really like Turkey, so it’ll be a ginormous chicken from the Ginger Pig for us on the day. As well as the usual roast with all the trimmings, we have bucks fizz and eggs and bacon (salmon for Mark) in the morning to see us through until 3pm. I always do my prep Christmas Eve, with a few glasses of prosecco and some Christmas tunes playing! We also have a tea on Christmas Eve – lots of cheese, bread, and a big ham! Boxing Day is all about the leftovers. To make my life a bit easier this year I’ve also bought some trimmings and a pudding from COOK. Yum.
Mr Elf
I’ve followed Elf on the Shelf for a few years, and this is the second year we’ve done it. Yes, it’s a bit of a pain in the arse – especially if we forget and are already in bed, but Rian LOVES it. It makes him so, so happy to run downstairs and see what naughty Mr Elf is up to, so this is a tradition I can see going for years – even when he’s stopped believing he’s actually coming alive at night (and spying on him for the big man!)
Christmas Eve Box
This is another new one, we just started it last year – it kind of goes with Mr Elf because he brings the box on Christmas Eve. It’s the same as everyone else who does it, we put jammies and treats and a Christmas book in the box.
Presents
I’ve started a new tradition of my own this week – I’ve wrapped all the gifts in recyclable brown paper and paper raffia. I don’t think they look too bad do they? Usually, I keep all our Christmas cards with the decorations and cut out the pictures to make gift labels, but I couldn’t find them post-move, so I just wrote a name on each gift, I think their unique look lets people know who they are from! With regards to gifts, we are big on presents in our family (probably because it’s small!) and I buy for my uncle’s family, my grandparents, my Mum & her housemate and her parents (we have a strange extended family vibe there, love it) plus my sister and her family, Mark’s Dad & wife and his nephew and nieces. I don’t hold with the no presents for grown-ups once you have kids – how is that fair? I love buying people gifts, and I spread it out over the year and stick to a budget. I also do stockings for everyone, because I am essentially a child.
What Christmas Traditions do you have?
