Every family has its own Christmas traditions, often handed down through generations. We display an old family nativity set each year, have a steak meal on Christmas Eve and hang some ornaments like an old elf we have owned for years on the tree. We also had a strict rule about waiting until after lunch to open presents.
Some traditions endure alongside new ones, but the unpopular late-present opening (with my sister and I) has long been abandoned. Now we all scramble to open presents early in the morning. It was a tradition of my mums and meant you had to wait until Christmas Day lunch was finished and everything cleared away dish wise.
The decorations in the house went up early in December this year around the 6th. However, it did not feel like Christmas officially until we started the festive season off by visiting our annual panto in Leicester. This year’s performance of Dick Whittington kicked off the Christmas season for us. In recent years, that has become a tradition and we book for the first performance around the 12th of December. Watching the film”National Lampoons Christmas Vacation” is also an annual must watch that I love.
For Christmas, I’m ready and have bought our gingerbread house to build. I’ve also sorted the Christmas Eve box and presents for the family. While I started organising late this year in December, I managed to organise everything and have everything wrapped by the 15th of the month. I usually prep much earlier.
Our two nativity sets are on display along with the decorations. One is my parents’ original set, nearly 60 years old, and the other is a newer clay model, 20 years old, that my wife and I bought on our first holiday in 2006.
Every Christmas, my daughter and I build a gingerbread house. We’ve been doing this for about eight years now and while the results have been mixed, we always photograph it and display it. Sometimes we build it later on Christmas Eve and just depends. This year we plan to do it the weekend before Christmas as a nice display item to have out in the kitchen.
We’ve recently adopted a newer tradition in the last 5 years of giving a Christmas Eve box to the whole family. I like to change the theme of the contents each year and we use a wooden box, signing it each time underneath. It’s our sixth year doing this and I try to vary the theme slightly. Last year’s theme was a box games and this year it’s Lego. It of course has chocolate and sweets included for while we build the Lego.
Christmas Eve is usually organised by me and I cook a steak and chips evening meal with starters and pudding.
Christmas Day starts with stockings and presents. We always have turkey for lunch and this year will be no different but family visits are a bit different this year. We’re having a relaxing family day at home on the main day. Our Christmas Day meal will then be on Boxing Day with family and then I get to see my sister the next day when we visit her family.
I’m really looking forward to a break and relaxing after work finishes on the 23rd. I’ve also planned to watch a few films, especially the new releases at the local cinema. Then I won’t go back to work until the 5th Jan in the New Year and I’m excited for some lazy chill time.
What traditions do you always keep up with every year? Happy Christmas!
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