Your Christmas Day

So, how do you spend the day every year?

For me, it's like this:

Christmas Eve: Watching films with a Chinese takeaway, usually with some boxes of sweets and mince pies out.

Morning: Gift-giving and opening, watching The Snowman if it's on on Christmas Day this year.

Afternoon: Christmas dinner at about 1:00, full roast dinner.

Evening: Having a buffet in the living room and watching Christmas TV. Usually some kind of Christmas crisis or disaster on soap operas! ;)

Ahh, I love Christmas so much! :)

Christmas Eve: Christmas movies galore, playing with our children, family games, letting the girls have some Christmas snacks and drinks (we don't usually have snacky foods in the house and they never have fizzy drinks at any other time so it's a real Christmas treat!) Christmas Eve is the only day of the year the children are eager to go to bed extra early ;) So they hang their stockings around 6pm and put mince pies, carrot and a drink out for Santa and the Reindeer, and once they are settled down I ring bells outside their window so they think Santa is coming and go straight to sleep! Then I snuggle up with hubby on the sofa and enjoy warm mulled wine, mince pies and cheese on crackers http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m...ugglecouch.gif Before we go to bed I replace the stockings on their bed with full stockings, and then head to bed myself (usually quite late, so that I don't wake up too early - the last 5 years I've woken up hours before the girls and ended up waking them up because the anticipation was too much! I'm determined to let them wake up first this year :santahat: I want to hear them call, "He's been!"). If I'm honest, I still find myself listening out for sleigh bells while I drift off to sleep :home:

Christmas morning: The girls open their stockings and presents from Father Christmas, but not the presents under the tree. We go to church for Christmas service and then the girls play with their new toys while hubby and I get Christmas lunch ready.

Afternoon: We have a full (vegetarian) roast at around 14.00. It's divine! We always have a cracker on the table, which we pull before eating so that we wear a Christmas hat for part of the meal :elf1: After lunch we share out the presents from under the tree, which are presents from me to hubby, hubby to me, and any friends and long distance relatives gifts to us and the girls.

Evening: We relax and enjoy Christmas TV.

Boxing day: We used to go around my Nan's but she's getting older and we're a bit too much for her now with all of the children, so we visit my sister. My mum and brother will be there, too. We have cold left overs from the day before, my family have cold turkey sandwiches and we have cold quorn. We have a selection of salads, crisps and pickles, cheeses etc. We share out the presents from us to our family and family to us and open them one at a time (going around in a circle) so everybody can see what everybody got and get a chance to say thank you :) (it makes it last longer, too rather than all the excitement being over in a flash - we're all about anticipation and delayed gratification :xmaswink: ). After present sharing we relax and play family games. When the children are playing / resting on the sofa with a Christmas movie we enjoy a game of articulate, which is always great fun.

I can't wait! :yahoo:

Christmas Eve: Attend the 4pm Mass to start the evening off. Usually have a big buffet dinner with lots of seafood (shrimp cocktail, bacon wrapped scallops, clams oreganata, crab cakes) and other specialities (Swedish meatballs, Chicken marsala,antipasto salad, Stuffed shells, rice, Christmas cookies and fruitcake). Generally we have my husband's family over for the buffet. Watch a movie after guests leave and clean up is done (It's a Wonderful Life).

Christmas morning: Quiche and fruit salad while we open gifts.

Afternoon: Check out the gifts and cook and eat dinner (Roast beef, baked potatoes, salad, several veggies, rolls and cheesecake!

Christmas Eve is the bigger day of activity for us. Christmas Day is the time of relaxation.

Christmas Eve

5 PM Mass

After, it's time to bring out food and snacks. Every year we say we are going to cut back, and not make as much, but every year the table is filled to capacity, and there is way too much food. Still, we manage to put a good dent in the offerings :)

Around 9 PM some presents are opened. After, some sort of board game is brought out, and played until midnight or so. Then it's off to bed.

Christmas Day

Now that my daughter is grown, we don't get up until 9 or so. We open presents. Then we feast on the previous night's leftovers, which are usually plentiful. After, it's a quiet, peaceful remainder of the day and night.

for me...its like this..

christmas eve...10am..go out and do my christmas shopping for the family..2pm..start preparing the veg for christmas dinner,5pm..we all sit down to pizza and watch miracle on 34th street..7pm..finish off in the kitchen...9pm..have a glass of wine while wrapping the kids presents...12am..midnight..me and the wife each open a christmas present before we go to bed...

christmas morning...get up at 5am and cook the turkey crown...6am..wife,kids get out of bed unless they are up before that...opening of presents...watch the snowman...
afternoon...christmas dinner with all the family...
evening...when the kids are bedded..wife and me relax and enjoy the rest of christmas by ourselves with a few glasses of bubbly...:merrychristmas: