How do you do YOUR Christmas?

[Jaycee]

Wow - you're all so lucky to have so many family and rellies to spend Xmas and Boxing day with. I'll be by myself with my kids on Xmas and Boxing Day as DH will be working.

I just want to make the day a special day for the kids.

That really sucks hun. Will you be seeing your dad and brother? I hope you can make it really special for the munchkins

As for me, DH's family all live interstate so we're not able to see them for xmas.

Last xmas eve we took DS up to the Lobethal lights, it's a little village in the hills and the majority of houses do their houses up in lights, it's really beautiful. I'd like to do that again this year, or at least look at some more local lights as it makes for quite a late night on xmas eve. I also love watching the carols on the tv at home with my family.

We start the day at home opening our presents, just DH, DS and myself. I usually cook bacon and eggs for brekky. Then we head over to mum's for xmas lunch, which is the whole big roast dinner, it's so delicious. Then we either go home for a bit of an afternoon snooze or snooze at mum's for the afternoon lol. At dinner time we usually go up to DH's step father's house which is a good 1.5 hours away and catch up with them.

So a very busy day, but very enjoyable too! Next year our house will be finished and I'll be hosting our first xmas!

[briggsy's girl]

i have an ideal Christmas, and what we actually have lol

Ideal Christmas - decorate the house (starting soon) - lights, huge tree, deco's everywhere. Santa photo for DD if we can manage it.
depending on DD's fascination with the lights, we'll go and look at some of the places here in town (some people go all out with yards you're encouraged to go into, fake snow etc)
Christmas Eve we will be here at home. Sopdet is coming over late, Santa will visit, we may have some stuff to assemble out in the yard, so we'll chill once DD goes to bed
Get up Christmas morning and let DD have some of her presents - not sure if she'll get all of them at once
Lunch with my family at my brothers house. (mum, dad, aunt, us, bro's family) - everyone happy and sharing the work
we do a family KK for the adults - the kids are open slather for people to buy for
after lunch, we'll likely head to the town we've just moved from to catch up with DH's bestie for a few drinks and let DD run wild in their back yard to burn off some energy

Actual Christmas - all that - except for the "everyone happy and sharing the work" - my bro has become a selfish twit lately. last Christmas was our turn to host Christmas so we decided rather than put all expense/work on one family (we had a 7 month old!) we'd divide the work, and just heat and eat kinda thing. my bro paid for stuff, but did bugger all - he turned up at nearly 1 (lunch was being timed for 1) with COLD food and we had to microwave it rather than cooking in the oven as it should have been. he then took the bulk of the leftovers (WE were the ones with zero income at the time) because "we're going away with friends, we can feed everyone". i think for so long they were the only one with kidsthey gott used to everything revolving around them and hate it that DD is here now and pedople expect them to pull their heads out of their butts and be a bit fairer!