So, what are your plans for Christmas (Giftmas, the holidays - whatever you feel comfortable calling it)

Having a big Xmas Eve Bash at our new home and then just hunkering down for Christmas by ourselves. A hike in the woods and cooking a killer Christmas dinner I have been looking forward to all week.

It’s weird because over the years, I’ve either gone to my mom’s or she’s been with me and other people come to our house. This time though it’s Christmas with hubby and his kids, kinda of quiet like. Hubby’s parents will have us all for breakfast and then we’ll have a dinner at our house. The Xbox will be super loud, my guy will be wanting a nap and I’ll be cooking stuff, all sweaty and beat, wishing for a massage, man/pedi and a glass of champagne.

We have already taken care of all of the family so we get to spend Christmas together this weekend without all the traveling and hassle. There will be plenty of grilling, football, and beer to keep a thousand folks happy!

just wish we knew where to get some fucking weed around here. <sigh> being the new kid sucks.

My niece has co-opted this year’s Christmas. She is coming to cook for us and her sisters, but we forgive her and collude with her on disrupting our traditions because she has played the I’m-going-to-Africa-for-two-years card.

Going to do some last minute shopping soon and then we are taking our children out for dinner tonight (it is Christmas Eve here already) and then to see a film. Then tomorrow morning, we all go out for a special breakfast. Home after brekkie, open presents. Then watch silly films (Walt Disney or Pixar films are favourites), play games, talk to each other and later in the day we all prepare a dish to share. Then the kids go home and we go to bed usually.

Boxing Day is usually just my husband and I relaxing and doing as little as possible. We might go to the cinema ourselves. A lot of new films start on Boxing Day. I fancy seeing War Horse.

@Jude, what do people elsewhere call Boxing Day?

I was so sure my oldest sister would come up to Canada with her husband and their children for Christmas, but I’m disappointed to find out that that won’t be happening. Her husband doesn’t get many days off work, so it’s not their fault. I will be spending Christmas with my family up here.

Hubby has the week off. My preschool grandkids are spending Xmas eve at their house, and then everyone is coming over here for a turkey dinner and opening presents. The kids will then stay here for a few days.

Christmas is my parents anniversary, so I will spend a bit of the morning at the cemetary, though I may take in a Christmas service. Then, off to my daughters house for breakfast (which is the big Christmas meal in my family) and gift giving.
My sister and her family may join us, and if they do, we will visit the rest of the day. Should they not, I may take my family to the movies. I don’t know what film we shall go to this year (last year it was True Grit), but it will probably be War Horse or Tin Tin or Mission Impossible. Next year it will be Django Unchained.
We snack thru the day, so we usually don’t do a Christmas dinner, but if we do, it will be a ham. I will drive my other daughter back home, and perhaps take in a Christmas service.

Drive. Gab. Eat. Gab. Open. Gab. Drive.

sounds awfully christmasy for an anti-christmastian

After getting off work I’ll pick up my father from his house and hightail it to my house where daughters number 2 & 3 will be waiting along with my 2 oldest grandsons (unfortunately my oldest daughter and her family live 3K miles away). Then everyone piles in the minivan and we meet my cousin and her husband for dinner at a restaurant. Afterwards we go looking at Christmas lights for a brief time and them back to my place. We always open our presents on Christmas Eve so my youngest girl and my grandchildren start passing out the gifts from under the tree while I start pouring generous amounts of amaretto in the egg nog (Martinelli’s for the youngsters). I always try to have us open the presents in a round robin fashion but the kids usually just start ripping into the gifts and chaos ensues. After the festivities I drive my father home and straighten up a little. Next morning Santa has filled our stockings (well, the kids’ stockings are filled. Ours usually have only 2 or so things in them). The we shower, dress, and drive down I-5 for about 45 minutes to Stockton to visit with Parrothead’s family. This year I’ll drive back to Sacramento to spend much of the day with my father. It’s the first Christmas without my mom so I certainly don’t want to leave him all alone on Christmas. (I was hoping to get him to agree to go down to Stockton with us but he refuses. If it wasn’t for the kids I’d just skip Xmas this year.) Then later it’s back down to the in-law’s for a game of 31 and then back home. 
Now aren’t you glad you read all this. Makes your holiday sound a lot more interesting, doesn’t it?

We do Christmas Eve at my (totally wonderful) in-law’s house every year…except for when my family comes from Ohio and then I host a meal and all of my husband’s extended family at our house on Christmas Eve. This year my family is going to my younger sister’s house in New York—so I’m not hosting. (Yay!) I’ll bring a dish (green bean casserole) and Christmas cookies..my fantastic MIL does the rest.
We get together with my parents-in-law, my sister-in-law and her family—and their kids and our kids are all close in age so it’s great fun. We’re past the years with babies (and often sick toddlers) and we’re now into the years of hard-to-shop-for-tweens and teens. We’re wrapping a lot of boxes just filled with cash this year. :)

After the nice meal (usually Turkey on Christmas Eve) we have a special family tradition of driving around to see some Christmas lights before the kids go to bed and wait for Santa to come. We may also go to a candle light service at the church—or maybe just on Christmas morning.

Christmas morning is just us and the kids..this year we’ll go to church and then have another nice meal on Christmas (usually ham or lasagna—this year is lasagna) at my husband’s aunt & uncle’s house (we adore them, too).

Then on New Years Eve we have yet ANOTHER fantastic meal….this year is tail-on shrimp and a tenderloin. Basically we just eat non-stop from now until Jan. 1st. :)

Christmas Eve Brunch at my MIL’s house tomorrow. I just set the pecan blueberry French toast to set in the fridge overnight.

Christmas Eve will be spent driving around light-peeping with cocoa in hand.

Christmas day we do nothing until about 2PM. My daughter spends the morning revelling in all that is Santa. I’m making a roast beef and scallop & lobster-stuffed tilapia for Christmas dinner.

I’m really looking forward to it.

Oooh @cprevite—I like your Christmas dinner dishes. Yum. Your holiday plans sound a lot like ours…but perhaps even more delicious.

@geeky-mama: I don’t know. Your spread sounds pretty good too (tail-on shrimp…Mmmm).

Seems like every year we get more low key. Giant Christmas Eve dinner has become low-key brunch, and such.

I love everything about Christmas, but I’m not a Christian. What’s an atheist to do.?

Christmas Eve I am going to zumba class in the morning, and we are going out to dinner, just my husband and myself.

Christmas Day I am making a couple traditional dishes for lunch. Christmas day night we are going to a friend’s house for dinner, there will be a small group there, and we are going to play the santa game where you can pick a wrapped gift or swap a gift.

So far for Chanukah I have lit the candles the days I have been home at dusk. Monday I am going to make latkes.

A friend invited me over to spend Christmas Eve with her family. She usually does most years. I otherwise don’t celebrate Xmas, so she feels all sorry for me. XD So I’ll be doing that. She has a huge family, and they always have these epic breakfasts on Xmas morning. Also there’s always a bunch of cute little kids who always wake us up really early, then I have to take a nap when I get home lol. XD
I will speak with my grandma on the phone though. We do that often, but Christmas, Easter (which she loves) and birthdays are usually a given, so I’m looking forward to that, too.

Christmas Eve – I work
Christmas Day – Family time!
Boxing day – Shopping?

Christmas Eve – our big family starts at 2, presents
Christmas Day – relax and get over the dysfunction

Opening presents on Christmas Eve. Having relatives over for lunch on Christmas Day. Visiting my parents and brothers on Second Christmas Day (also a holiday in Germany and many other European countries).

Family visiting. Happy Chanukah and Merry Christmas guys and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTspPG8oFK4&feature=related

@Bellatrix: Yay for you! That’s the kind of holiday time I love best.

@Bellatrix people in the US don’t normally celebrate boxing day. I’m not even sure what it is or how it is celebrated. Something about the rich people taking leftovers to the poor and working class people the day after Christmas. Is that right? or am I way off?
Is that what folks still do, or has the holiday changed? I hear now that there is shopping involved?
The day after Christmas here in the US is usually a day to got to the store and get half off on all the Christmas stuff. This year it also might be a regular working day for some people or they may get it as a holiday because Christmas is on a Sunday.

^ We have Boxing Day in Canada and it doesn’t seem to be how it started at all anymore. Up here, it seems to be mostly about shopping. :)

@wilma FYI Monday is the federal holiday, since Christmas is on Sunday.

I’ve been back in the Nickel City for the past few days and I’ll be heading back to the T-dot on the 27th. Mr. Fiance and I have been able to spend time with both our families so far, and last night we went out with friends and got nicely obliterated in an evening which culminated in my throwing up out my friend’s car window. Tonight we’re sleeping at our respective parents’ houses, then on Boxing Day morning he’s coming over here to hang out for a bit, then we’re heading over to his parents’ house where all his family gathers.

It’s been fun.

@wilma – Boxing Day up here is all about shopping. However, there’s a bylaw in Sudbury which means stores aren’t open here on the 26th, so around here it’s more a family day and then everyone goes shopping on the 27th. Or they drive to another city on the 26th to shop.

@Seelix Do they allow returns on Boxing Day? Someone once mentioned where they live they don’t allow returns that day. I would have appreciated that when I worked retail. The 26th is typically the busiest, worst day of the year, to work retail in the states.

@JLeslie – Many stores don’t allow returns on the 27th, and I’ve seen in a few stores signs posted saying that they don’t allow them until the 29th. It must vary from store to store.