Christmas day traditions/activities?

[LuckyMommaToo]

As my kids are getting a little older (3 and 6 this year), I'm trying to establish some Christmas day traditions that don't involve presents (we DO open presents that morning, but it tends to be over quickly, and last year DS had that "let-down" feeling at the end).

Here are some that DH and I discussed:
-- special breakfast (waffles and whipped cream!)
-- give the family a new movie and then watch it with popcorn in the afternoon
-- scavenger hunt walk (give each kid a list -- like pinecone, stick, etc.)

I'm looking for more! We live in a mild climate, so there's never any snow, although potentially rain. And we never are with family on Christmas day.

Any thoughts?
thanks,
-e

[mommariffic]

I'm not caffeinated enough for ideas, but I have to say I love the movie one!

What about some sort of volunteering on Christmas? Your three year old can even get involved and I know a lot of soup kitchens and things like that absolutely love volunteers on Christmas to serve food, or give out presents.

[Ldavis24]

DH and I combined a little of both traditions that we enjoyed as children.
I always watched a muppet christmas carol (I love Michael Cane) and he always had a cheese danish in the morning while unwrapping presents.

So we do that ourselves and now with DD we plan on continuing those two things. I also make fancy hot cocoa with the works and we sip that and cuddle so that is pretty much what we are thinking it will be like with DD.

[InMediasRes]

We make home made cinnamon rolls for breakfast, and we take a nature walk, eain or shine (okay, so maybe not if it's blizzarding).

My ILs always do some sort of volunteering on Christmas, and they also invite someone over for dinner who can't be with family for whatever reason.

[calebsmommy25]

We do spend time with our extended family on Christmas, but some of the same traditions would apply to you and yours. We always have a special breakfast, and later on watch Christmas movies together. I really like your idea of purchasing a new one to watch together. I know you mentioned the scavenger hunt, which is a great idea. How about adding a type of scavenger hunt or a clue game to present opening to make it last longer or possibly just for that one special gift your child has really wanted? With this hunt/game you could include activities searching around the house or even outside in addition to the clues to where the gift is. For example: answer a question to get the next clue, jump rope 20 times, sing a song, etc.

[Pumpkin_Pie]

These are great! I love the waffles with whipped cream and hot cocoa with "the works"! I wish there were a way for DS and I to just stay home, but I need to see friends and family, so we usually open gifts and then travel.

My ideal day would be to have friends and family come here, but that is not likely.

[akat]

Do you do Santa? When I was little, my grandpa would take me outside after dark on Christmas Eve and we'd walk in circles around the house 'looking for Santa', my grandpa would say, maybe he's behind the chimney, let's walk around and see if we can catch him!

And we leave cookies and milk and a note for Santa, and carrots for the reindeer. He leaves us a note back, too.

Also, on Eve, if it's not icy, we drive around the neighborhoods with my brother and look at all the lights and decorations.

You could read a special Christmas picture book together, or several.

[LynnS6]

Other things to think about:

Board games/card games. We always had a big Christmas dinner ('dinner' = midday meal!) and spent the afternoon playing games. Your kids are old enough at 3 and 6 to begin this.

Take a hike. If you're in SoCal, you could easily go somewhere and take a nice hike. My sister and her family always do this, and it's a great tradition.

Go to the beach (if you're close enough).

Do some crafts together.

Bake. Nothing brings a family together like baking together!

[2cutiekitties]

They all sound good. Can I ask what you do on Chrismtas Eve? That is usually when we do our movie, but we have no family to deal with. I am currently trying to figure out what I want our breakfast tradition to consist of. I am thinking frittata.

[OTMomma]

When I was a kid we always got a new game, puzzle or craft kit for Christmas- then in the afternoon we could play the game or work the puzzle as a family.

[elmh23]

Our Christmas traditions mostly started out because we have to families to deal with. Both of our families are local for the most part (2 of dh's 4 siblings have moved out of state, but everyone else is here.)

Our Christmas starts on December 6. That's St. Nicholas Day (we're Catholic ) The children wake up to filled stockings with a new book and Christmas pajamas.

Christmas Eve begins with the Children's Mass at 5pm. St. Nicholas visits at the end and brings a special gift (a statue of Santa Clause kneeling in prayer beside baby Jesus) to the live nativity (with an all child cast.) Then we head over to my MIL's house for dinner and gifts. It's really hectic. We also usually end up playing a board game or two, depending on who all is there (if my BIL comes to town with his 4 kids, we play board games, if not, then the oldest child is 4, will be 5 this Christmas, and we usually just let the kids play while the grown ups talk.) We're usually out of there around 11.

Christmas morning starts around 8am when my mother and aunt come over. We have a HUGE breakfast (french toast, pancakes or waffles with bacon or sausage, some sort of fruit) followed by presents (one present to each child from mom and dad, one present to each child from Nana and whatever my aunt has decided (usually 2-4 presents per kid.)) It's a nice calm morning.

Most Christmas day afternoons, we'll go see the in-laws again, esp. if dh's siblings have come to town. That's a lot less formal and anything goes pretty much, though there will usually be a soccer game or two.

[Storm Bride]

I'll add another vote for a walk of some kind...a walk in the woods in the snow (maybe make/hang a birdfeeder?) or a local walk to look at the lights on people's houses. I usually do the latter while we're up at my mom's (she has a few neighbours who really do up the decor). I may do the other this year, as we have a little patch of creekside woods practically right outside our back door.

Movies are good. We actually saw the first LOTR movie in the theater on Christmas. It was nice, because the theater was almost empty. I wouldn't do that now, though, because we have little ones. DS1 was 9 or something at the time. If you find one movie you really like, that could work. I do a Christmas movie each Friday for 3-4 weeks before Christmas, and Elf became a solid tradition in 2007, because it was one of the few things that could make me smile after we lost Aaron.

We always eat baking while opening gifts and stockings in the morning. However, right after that, I make a big breakfast. Our traditional one features both eggs and ham, because I like the protein to start off a day when we know we'll eat a lot of sweets.

You know - there are probably others, but they're not "official", so I'm not thinking of them right now...

[TiredX2]

For our winter celebration (we are at my Parents house on Christmas and then the in-laws on the 26th, so this is usually around solstice) we wake up and open stockings. Then we have a breakfast. We eat it on our china (the only time of the year we actually use it ). Generally there is a meat (DS loves meat) and the last couple years we have had croissants from Trader Joes. We *always* have "special juice" (sparking cider) in crystal. After breakfast we open the rest of our presents. In the past, there has always been a movie in the presents that we could watch later. And there is always a board game we can play then.

Last year we actually went skiing that day.

[Ditto]

I'm still working on making my own traditions and I'm sure those will change once I have children, but this is what we did when I was a kid...

-We'd all pile in mom and dad's room until everyone was awake, then walk in to the living room together
-Open the gifts from "santa", individual stockings and a family gift like a game or something
-Have our traditional breakfast: egg casserole, some kind of sweet bread, grapefruit and hot tea
-After breakfast dad would read the nativity story and we would "act it out" with the characters from the nativity set
-Then we would open the rest of the gifts, one at a time
-Afternoon activities usually involved building a puzzle all together, going for a walk, playing with the new toys, games, etc.

I love christmas!

[leighi123]

Here is what we do -

Sometime in the week before xmas -
-make tones of differnt kinds of cookie, some that we've made every year sense I was a kid, and we always try at least one new recipie (we end up making 10+ batches, whatever we dont eat we pass out to neighbors!)
-make a gingerbread house, sometimes a kit but usally a real one!
- put together christmas shoe boxes, churches usually hand these out to fill with small presents and used items for kids in need. We also donate whatever toys/stuff/clothes we can.

Christmas eve -
-decorate cutout cookies, we get as fancy as possible!
- open 1 present, its always pj's to wear to bed
- read 3 christmas stories (christmas through the knothole, granny littens mittens and the night before christmas)
- have fondue for dinner, no idea why, but we have been doing this forever.
-leave cookies for santa and carrots for reindeer.

Chirstmas morning -
- open 1 small stocking that was by the foot of the bed (usually has a game or craft kit that is supposed to keep kids entertained until everyone else gets up!)
- make big christmas breakfast, with popovers!
- open a couple presesents while everything cooks - everyone gets one then all open that one at the same time.
- eat
- go for a walk
- open more presents
- start making dinner, which takes a long time. We have a big huge chrismas dinner with an 'open invite' (i.e. whichever of our friends want to can come over, we have friends who dont celebrate christmas, whole families, people who's husband/wife might be traveling, random neighbors that just stop in, etc) We do english christmas poppers and all wear the silly paper hats through dinner.
- eat
- play with presents we opened earlier.
- open more presents until we run out.
- open stockings last.

So the presents are all dragged out with fun stuff in-between! Usually people show up to say hi throughout the day as well, which always leads to getting out more cookies!

On christmas eve o christmas day we usually go cross country or downhill skiing and/or sledding - which one we do depends on how much snow we have!

[Caneel]

Originally Posted by 2cutiekitties

They all sound good. Can I ask what you do on Chrismtas Eve? That is usually when we do our movie, but we have no family to deal with. I am currently trying to figure out what I want our breakfast tradition to consist of. I am thinking frittata.

I make a crab stratta for breakfast that I prep the night (or day) before.

One of my favorite women/mother had the tradition of putting the tree up on Christmas Eve. She had three girls and they all looked forward to that evening activity.

[Pumpkin_Pie]

I love the movie idea! I try to buy a few small presents for myself to wrap up and "open" on Christmas day. I am a single mama and there is noone to buy me gifts, so I buy them myself and I always get exactly what I want. I have been so stuck trying to figure out what to get myself this year, and a movie sounds like just the ticket! I LOVE kids movies, but none with recognizable characters for DS's sake. I will definitely be scouring the thrift stores for a "new" DVD for me/us for Christmas day.

Thanks for the idea!!

ETA: I also love the idea of making Christmas cookies and decorating them! I love sugar cookies with frosting, sprinkles, little candies, etc, but I never make them. What a fun treat activity to do with DS (2.5)!

[meemee]

specifically on xmas day - i usually get my dd in the afternoon. her dad does santa in a grand way with her so i dont do any of that. no presents. no santa thing.

however we live in a big city. and the streets are bare. so dd and i love love love taking long walks specially to the really busy area of the city and see how bare they are. we usually get a soy milk pumpkin latte. we shiver and giggle and pick up interesting leaves and sticks and somehow the hours just pass by.

we are avid movie goers/watchers so we try not to do movies on holidays.

we do looong aroma filled baths. if we are not going to anyone's house we eat our dinner in teh bathtub with candles and music and flowers.

the thing though is that for us, christmas begins at least a month before. there are tonnes of activities, fairs, plays, shows and just the mall that we go to. we also volunteer a LOT. have so since dd was 5. we decorate at least 5 christmas trees every season and do lots of crafts adn decorations. we stuff holiday stockings. she goes and sings in old people's homes, retirement communities and hospitals. so christmas day really is a day of rest. to be peaceful and quiet to play with teh toys she got.

[limabean]

The breakfast, movie, and walk sound great. I'll second the idea of also getting the family a new board game or puzzle to work on that day. Growing up, my family always drove to the coast for a hike on Christmas Day after we did the whole breakfast/presents thing -- it was a nice tradition, and added to the overall specialness of the day instead of that "let down" feeling you described when the afternoon just feels like any other day.

[rainyday]

Let's see...We do a lot of things that people have suggested!

On Christmas Eve, we usually watch a Christmas movie.

Christmas morning, we all get up and have a light breakfast (we eat toast, the kids eat real breakfast, adults drink coffee and try to wake up). Then we head to the presents.

The past couple of years we've done a treasure hunt with clues to find one of the presents for each child there. We make a series of about 10 clues for each treasure hunt, so that does keep them busy for a while!

After presents, we have a big brunch. Either I or my sister-in-law makes a big breakfast casserole the night before, and we start it baking before we open presents in the morning.

We always make sure that there is at least one new game we can play as a family. When ds was a bit younger, we'd make sure there was one kid/family game and one for the adults as well. Now we can usually all play the same game (we're thankfully past the Candyland age now).

We always go out for a walk. We live in a fairly mild climate (though it gets chilly in the winter) so one of the things we like to do is to count how many types of flowers we can see on this walk. It's amazing how many we can find even when it seems like not much is in blooming.

Then we go home and have a big fire and play games and listen to music. My nephew plays violin quite well, so he often plays for us as well, and sometimes we'll sing Christmas carols. We've talked about going caroling, but we haven't tried it yet! Has anyone done this recently?