It's beginning to look a lot like ........

We'll give it try - hopefully we'll like it! (Last year was a complete damp sqib - as my mum was so poorly and couldn't face a family Do, both DDs and families went to the other parents and DS and DiL decided to have a solitary romantic day. We took dinner to her. She enjoyed having just us to herself but ....)

Nfk having cooked that big meal for over forty years, a couple of years ago we were invited to DD1's house - it felt very peculiar and I'm not sure I want to do it again!

Yesterday DD2 asked us for C********s Dinner! No big dinner to cook over Chr...(blast nearly said it). For the first time in 40 years. Wonderful!!

I bought two felt DIY C **** stockings in John Lewis this week. Half price which I think is a reasonable price. The kits for children to make things are outrageous prices. I am going to get the DGCs to make one each for each other and find tiny gifts to go in and hide away as last year they had no C****** stockings as they had gone a way skiing and there was no room for presents in their packing!!!!

I bought some books for Christmas at Egton show in July It will be hard keeping them till then

I was abroad for a month before Christmas last year and felt it was too early to send cards before I went and too late when I got back. Instead I rang people up and it was GREAT !! I had long conversations with people I had not spoken to for years and have got back in touch with some on a more regular basis. The phone calls cost nothing except lots of time and so I sent a donation in leiu of postage costs to charity. A win win result and I shall certainly be doing the same this year.

I ordered cards yesterday... (sigh)

Seasons Greetings everyone, the best C*******s I ever had was years ago, when the children were small, and the house was full of visitors all expecting a slap-up lunch & dinner. I awoke on the morning of the day with a terrible tummy bug. Oh dear, I had to stay in bed all day, just managing to drag myself downstairs for the opening of the presents and to take my several new books back to bed with me. I spent the whole day alone with Patrick OBrian, and the festivities proceeded perfectly well without me (I didn't so much as have to wash up a teaspoon - bliss!)

I meant to say a bit about All Hallows, there will be a lot of decorations and shops advertising stuff for it, there are a lot of events on and some of the Communes organise lantern walks in parks with leaders to look after the children. People buy sweets and fruit for children who come to the door, if you do not want to be bothered you can put up an official sign which the Commune sends you in your window.
Then we start thinking about Christmas.

I much prefer that way of doing it. It's all got a bit out of hand over here. The postman arrived just now, and I had to laugh as I had just posted my last comment and was suddenly faced with my first Xmas catalogue. The deluge begins...

Christmas here doesn't really start until after St Nicolas day, 6th December, some children get all their gifts then and Christmas is more of a family get together, a big dinner on Christmas Eve and Christmas day to relax. Adults often give gifts New Years Eve, I know that is when my significant other gives me a gift, he is Flemish. The Christmas markets are wonderful, I am going to head to Aachen this year, but the Belgian ones are great too. All Hallows Eve is very important here, with children getting dressed up and parading through the streets with their teachers. My DGS will be almost 2 this Christmas so we are really looking forward to it, his Father was found on the steps of a Church in France at 10 days old, and spent 5 years in an Orphanage until being adopted by a Belgian woman, so my DD and I have a tacit agreement to allow him to get carried away. We are pretty strict the rest of the year.

Tegan, I can so clearly remember the first time I saw a shopping channel programme! I was so shocked! It was 9 years ago. So funny. I can't think how the presenters manage to keep a straight face as they spend 20 mins extolling the virtues of each item.

I forgot to mention the house I went to where they had a complete xmas crockery set. Where do you find room for that???

jane; I was watching a shopping channel last night [I do so sometimes out of incredulity that people could possibly want to buy the rubbish they sell] and they had these plastic bags that you put duvets and their covers in, use a vacuum cleaner and they become half an inch thick. I think that's where people put their Christmas things [wouldn't work with twig things though]. A lot of my Christmas stuff just hangs around waiting for the next festive season, including my bah humbug which lives next to the phone.

I have no idea, I have tried desperately to slim down our supply of frivolrous xmas knick-knacks but well-meaning siblings keep on re-stocking me. All I want is a tree and a pretty table and a garland above the mantlepiece, I thought I had managed it last year but SIL turned up with a huge vase of twigs that light up at the tips. It was about four feet tall, where do you hide something like that for 11 months?

At my mother's, that's where.

And, how do they remember where they put them?

I wonder that jane and I wonder when, in the midst of C*******s, do they find the time to be a****d to change everything.

I fear so.

Which brings me to my next question - where the heck (being polite) do people keep all their xmas soft furnishing substitutes for the rest of the year? Do they disappear up the chimney with Father Christmas? Tablecloths, napkins, cushion covers, bedspreads, throws, curtains, teatowels, oven gloves, loo seat covers, bath mats, duvet covers, towels and pillow cases. I can't think how people in relatively small houses manage to store so much stuff. I wonder if that is why Christmas has been extended, so that people get full usage from their quilted santa claus loo seat covers?

I lost the Christmas Eve pj's one year never to be found and over the years have bought Dirty Dancing Video and then DVD for DD and it vanishes every year, I have given it up as a bad job, do you think someone is trying to tell me something.

I agree, janerowena, and it also makes a lot of people heartily sick of everything to do with it by the beginning of January!

I wish Christmas was celebrated only every other year. [bahumbug] I get realy annoyed seein all the decorations out so early, I still have birthdays to buy for, Halloween and bonfire night and harvest festival. There's nothing to stop people stocking up on gifts all year but why do we need the cards and decorations so early?

So many people complained to our local bank when they put up a tree on 1st October last year that they had to take it down. I was in there, I didn't complain but I felt quite upset. It makes Christmas feel everyday and mundane if it goes on for too long, it ceases to be special.

one year, I hid the chocolate decorations in a wardrobe only to find that all that was left was a small heap of silvery paper and, in the garden, lots of silvery dog poo! We had two bassets at the time - nuff said.

Seeing Christmas choccie tree decorations last week, reminded me of the one year I was organised and bought them in early October. Guess who had to scurry around just before putting the tree up as they'd all strangely disappeared. I didn't think anyone knew my hiding place for Christmas treats but seeing as I was living on my own at the time ......?
{Yes I know it's ridiculous hiding things when you live alone but I think I got it from my lovely mum who always kept a bottle of sherry hidden in a cupboard.}

I just forgot to mention here, that it is my son's birthday 24th December, a lovely time to have a baby, and our Christmas has always started at lunch time on Christmas Eve - even now, 50 odd years on, we like to have a Christmas Eve lunch as a family, if we can. Incidentally, he was not due until 6th January, and when I told the mid-wife and the doctor that he would arrive at Christmas, - the mid-wives reply was 'As long as it is not Christmas Eve - because I am singing in the choir' and the doctors: 'If it is Christmas day - a pair of scissors and two pieces of string will last until Boxing Day'. As it happened he arrived early Christmas Eve morning, so no one was unduly put out.

I usually pick up things over the year (if I see something I think somebody would like)...there has been times when I forgot I have bought something and buy another thing, but I usually donate to local raffles anyway so it doesn't go to waste....I love sales lol :D

I dislike the way in which every tradition and belief is seen as a marketing opportunity. We can see it with the ever increasing cost of hen/stag nights (that are often not just a night out but a weekend or even a week abroad), weddings, honeymoons, "prom nights", Halloween, "baby showers", etc., etc., and, of course, Christmas.

A few years ago we decided to just buy Christmas presents for the children and not the adults. We've recently been persuaded to introduce a "Secret Santa" system for adults, with a maximum cost of £10 per gift. A bit daft really but it (partially) satisfies those that like the Christmas morning gift exchange tradition.