What do you have to do to get ready for Christmas?

We picked up a tree this evening, so we’ll trim it this weekend. Got some decorations to put out at the same time. Gotta help my kids shop. Shopping for my kids will be sometime next week, it will be pretty easy to do.

My kids are with their mom from mid-Christmas morning to a couple days later, so after we get up and open presents they’ll be off to there. And I go to my brother’s for dinner.

Decorate our little tree this weekend, with the kids. Make a few handmade gifts and ornaments this year (usually, I’d buy them), wrap them, and shop for Christmas dinner, which will likely be a potluck this year. This year’s Christmas will, by necessity, be a simple one.

With the kids grown up, it feels like the traditions are just done on autopilot: because it is what is (and has been) done. No real joy or excitement.

Lots of present wrapping. Some baking and shopping for specific food. A bit more Christmas present shopping. Other than that – we are done (I think – I hope). Am I weird – does anyone else out there not like wrapping presents? I really don’t get off on wrapping presents. Some people seem to love it.

@Bellatrix I procrastinate like hell when it comes to wrapping them, but then I do it all at once and I kind of get in a groove and end up enjoying it.

I put up decorations around the house, set up the tree, put lights outside and inside, wrap presents, set up the Hanukkah candles and presents, set up the solstice table, put out all the winter village houses I have, plan the menu and try to pin down how many people will be coming to dinner.

If we are going to be with my husband’s family for Christmas then I buy gifts for who will be there. Anywhere from 4–12 people. If we don’t go I don’t buy anything, except I do send checks to our neice and nephew. I might buy one or two gifts for friends or a neighbor, especially if we are going to their house sometime during the Christmas season, or if I just feel compelled to gift them. If we are staying home I usually make one of the dishes his mom typically makes for Christmas, usually picadillo (he is Mexican, it is a ground pork dish).

For Chanukah I light the menorah. I make potato latkes one night, usually a weekend night whether it be the first night or any other of the nights, it doesn’t matter.

My husband and I don’t usually exchange gifts.

let’s see…
last weekend: we put up the tree and decorated the house.

saturday: my wife and I are doing all our shopping in one marathon day.

sunday: is homemade gift day where we bake cookies and make chocolate bark.

next thursday & friday: I will be wrapping all the gifts.

next saturday: clean and set up the house.

next sunday: food shop for Christmas Eve. Lots of fishes.

christmas eve day: cook all the fishes.

christmas eve: enjoy family and wait for Santa.

I buy the traditional menorah and candles, a couple of dreidels and a Hanukkah bush. But I digress.

Enjoy.

I’ve got to make sure to check out books today… inter-library loan closes next week.

We still need to get the tree and put up our decorations. All my shopping and shipping is done. I still need to finish my Christmas cards.

1) Decide which movie theater I am going to go to on Christmas afternoon.

2) Look at the various Chinese restaurant menus for the places nearby and order dinner.

@elbanditoroso : A venerable tradition :) I might do the same.

I just need to pick up extra wrapping paper and gift boxes and some stocking stuffers, and, the dinner fare. It’ll be a “wrap” by the middle of next week.
In the meanwhile I am waiting on about 6 more items to be delivered from amazon. :-)
One, for my daughter, is HUGE, weighs about 60lbs. THAT will be fun to try and wrap. I might just have to leave it in the garage and tape a giant sheet of paper over it. haha

All the Jews seem to go to Chinese restaurants for Xmas dinner. And then there’s me. And I don’t even like Chinese food. Well, maybe a little. I should go to Indonesia.

@burntbonez I do that sometimes, get Chinese food. Some cities I have lived in one or more of the nightclubs would have a Big Matzoh Ball on Christmas Eve. I only did that a couple times.

I wonder what lonely Hindus do on Christmas. I should find out if any of the Indian restaurants in town will be open…

@bookish1 Indian restaurants are sometimes open.

Number 2 on my list done. The wife and I were out shopping from 10AM to 1AM yesterday. Fifteen hours of holiday nuttery.

Surprisingly, the stores were not that busy. Very few lines.

My goodness @cookieman. That really is a shopping marathon. I don’t think I could stand to shop for so long. Well done to you both on your shopping stamina.

@Bellatrix: Truth is, I dislike shopping, but I commit myself to it one day a year because my wife gets a kick out of it. We try to have fun with it.

Tree is decorated!

Traditionally, we get the decorations out, the tree up, and everything set around the beginning of December (as early as the weekend following Thanksgiving, but by the second Sunday of Advent. They then stay up until January 6 (Epiphany/Three Kings’ Day/Twelfth Night).

However, this year was crazy, so we had no tree, about half the decorations out and up around the place somewhere around the third Sunday of Advent.

I usually try to get the shopping done around mid-December (earliest I’ve done it was one year when I decided to see what all the fuss about Black Friday was,and did it all in one day. Never again…), but this year I was still canvassing stores on the afternoon of the 24th (never did find what I was looking for…).

I send out cards (does anyone here still do that? We’ve gotten fewer and fewer over the years, and I’ve noticed even my parents are getting fewer from their peers than normal. Dying tradition…? :-( ) as well, and also aim for completing them by mid-December. This year got the last ones out three days before the big day, whew.

So for us it’s decorations/tree, shopping, and cards, and that gets us ready for Christmas. Now I just need to get ready for 2013…