A Christmas-lovers' thread!

I'm looking forward this year to having three out my four DC home, with assorted partners and GC, and my fourth DC here immediately after Xmas.

There isn't much I don't like about Xmas and I manage to ignore what I don't like. Partly I like doing something different from the other 51 weeks of the year and I enjoy the simple but satisfying aspects such as making cakes and puds.

I love the trees and lights and pretty decorations but most of all I enjoy making people feel warm and welcome and of course well-fed. The best bit for me is Xmas eve when everyone has gone to bed and I can think about what it all means to me and then Xmas day after the meal has been finished and everyone can fend for themselves, foodwise, for a couple of days.

I will admit though, that wrapping presents has become something of a chore now there are fourteen of us, without counting wider family. That's a lot of wrapping!

I love Christmas, from wandering around the displays, deciding what to add to my collection of Santa Claus this year. Only buy one a year and never spend too much.
I love the cooking, preparing fresh mincemeat ready for making mince pies nearer the time.
I love making and cooking Christmas puddings that I give as gifts.
I love making a special Christmas decoration for my good friend who does so much to help me during the year.
I love spending time with my family.
I love that I will have the joy of meeting my 1st grandchild who is due at Christmas.

I have a Christmas Day birthday so a double whammy for me!

I love Christmas too. I love having all the family together for a lovely Christmas day - opening gifts in the morning, then an eggs benedict brunch, then games in the afternoon, and of course the turkey dinner with all the trimmings later in the evening. It's a long day but we all love it.

Of course in my family it becomes a bit of a challenge. We have many birthdays at this time of year. Three of my granddaughters, my own birthday, and my eldest son all have our birthdays between Nov 27 and Jan 15. It gets rather hectic to say the least.

I love Christmas and the run up to it. (There's a thread in AIBU about Christmas decorations, in which various opinions have been offered, some loving Christmas, others not so much). However, as I say, I love it. For me it begins with Advent, well actually slightly earlier as I make my cake around October half term, and my pudding on Stir up Sunday, but the decorations begin with the Advent wreath and a candle being lit each of the 4 Sundays before Christmas. A week or so before, the tree and decorations come out and stay out until 12th night.
I love all the traditions of the season - Carol concerts, The Salvation Army playing Christmas music in the town centre in the run up to Christmas, all the Christmas services, Christmas markets, Christmas films, mince pies, mulled wine, roast chestnuts, having family and friends visit us and us visit them, the lights and tree, oh, everything, really! ?

Christmas Eve is the real start of Christmas for my family...decorating christmas cookies with the children, and hanging them onto a special small tree. We have been going to the Christmas Eve crib service at 4pm since my own children were tiny and it is always a magical moment for me....shopping, wrapping and all the other preparations completed, and when silence falls in the church at the start of the service, with the family all together, it is truly the start of celebrations.

I do start very early! christmas cakes and puddings are already done. I have most of the gifts bought, and picked up the Christmas cards and some wrapping paper today. Tree goes up on the first Saturday in December; the nativity set, influx of candles, and the odd swag and wreath make their appearance somewhen around the 12th.
Cannot wait

Lovely to hear all your non bah humbug thoughts!

One extra thing I'm looking forward to this year is Gdd's pre-school Nativity play. She's only 3, and hearing a lot of very little ones singing Away in a Manger (as I hope they will) is guaranteed to have me groping for the tissues!

Feeling decidedly hypocritical, since I'd always thought Christmas bedding a daft waste of money, I've bought a Christmas duvet set (admittedly pretty cheap) for the double sofa bed Gdcs will be sharing at Christmas. After all, they're not very little (and so easily delighted) for very long.

This year we are following Martin Lewis’s advice and are only spending £10 each on a gift, we’ve decided to try to make it a hand made gift if we can.

My DD2 painted me a lovely beach hut scene for my birthday, so I can’t wait to see what she does for Christmas.

I've just re-read my thread, and I mean "a week or so before Christmas Day" that the decorations go up, not a week or so before the Advent wreath, as it might read as if that's what I meant! ??

Yes I love Christmas too. Loved it when DD was growing up even until she left home we always put our tree up together, listening to Christmas carols in the background with a wee glass of mulled wine to accompany. It's not quite the same doing it myself but that can't be helped. Love looking and buying new Christmas ornaments etc and making the whole house feel Christmassy. Love the cooking of the dinner, although it is a bit stressful but hey ho no matter it's all good fun. Even more now that we have2 DGS, one who shall know that Santa will be putting toys in his stocking, he is now 2.5, the other will just be 2 months old and probably will sleep through it all. Just love the atmosphere. It will be different this year as DD and family normally stays over but with two of them now that won't be happening but I do appreciate things have to change. Lets hope everyone has a great time leading up to and during the festive season.

Absolutely love Christmas, I bake Christmas cakes, mince pies, sausage rolls and Christmas puddings. I cook a gammon ham for all AC as well as home made chutney and pickled onions.

Have a large real,tree in lounge which GC decorate (ends up being very eclectic) I have my Christmas tree in dining room decorated with silver and Chrystal decoration.

Wouldn't miss the Christmas Eve crib service with AC and GC, it is a very special and grounding part of the celebrations.

Yes, Grannygravy, we're going to a children's crib service too, where they can dress up and take part, in a lovely little old church near dd's house. Gdd at only 2 was slightly overwhelmed by it all last year, but I'm sure she'll love it this year. Gds was too little last year, but as a very rumbustious 2 this time, I dare say he'll enjoy taking part, too.

Our indoor tree, always real, doesn't go up until about a week before the day, so that it stays fresh until 12th Night. Our decorations are a very varied assortment, some dating back to when I was small and very excited to see them come out each year, though since money was tight we only ever had a very small tree, that was dug up and re-planted in the garden each year.

The poor thing would struggle to recover each time, but eventually it was 'pensioned off' and allowed to grow properly.

We buy a tree from a local estate - I live in Scotland where some estates have small Christmas tree plantations. There are so many types to chose from! Last year, the owner's daughter was helping out, along with her two day old baby! My own Dd had just had her first baby, too, and that really made Christmas for me. Shame I had the flu for three weeks from Boxing Day, which rather took the shine off it, but never mind!

I don’t really love Christmas ( am I allowed on here?)
But I do like it.
We all need a bit of light and cheer in Winter.The religious side of it doesn’t resonate with everyone ( it does for me though) but what I mean is that all can join in, even our Hindu friends do.
No need for anyone to be Scrooge like at this time of year, enjoy it all!

I have both Muslim & Jewish in-laws and they love Christmas! I think there's something for everyone at that time of year and that you can make of it what you want, small or large. There are no rules.

By the way, my daughter has informed me this morning that she's just finished all her Christmas gift shopping! She puts me to shame - she's married, has just moved house, has a small baby and holds down a responsible job! I don't know where she gets her organising genes from - it certainly isn't me or her father.

Your daughter is super organised Suedonim they say if you want something doing ask a busy person.
I love all the things mentioned by other posters. I used to enjoy visiting a local garden centre where they had a fantastic array of gifts and decorations. There is nothing like that here in rural France.
Christmas carols, reading again the Christmas story, its all familiar and heart warming.

She is super organised, Sodapop as is her sister. I won't talk about her brothers here!

After all, it was a pagan, Midwinter Festival long before it was absorbed into a Christian one, and no wonder they needed that, when you think what winter must have been like so long ago - it's bad enough now!

I often think that's why Christmas was not traditionally such a big thing in Mediterranean countries - Easter was certainly bigger when we lived in Cyprus - they didn't have such horrible, cold, dark winters that needed brightening up.

IIRC the Yule Log is a leftover from the pagan festival and they still call Christmas Jul in Sweden, though you don't often hear 'Yuletide' any more in the UK.

Yes, indeed it was Witzend, and isn't it wonderful to be able to take the bits you like from all of the festivals (Christian and non-Christian) to make the season your own?
Easter, too, has Pagan origins.

My DD too has also completed her Christmas shopping. Wanted it all done since DGS2 is only a week old. ❤️?

I love Christmas. I know it's a roller coaster time emotionally, I accept not everyone is having an easy time and in fact, I know we won't be because of bereavements, family issues and many other difficulties. None of that will detract from the joy that can be felt at this special time of year.
I always made a cake at October half term but currently I'm wondering whether to buy a small Christmas cake and make a couple of Middle Eastern orange type cakes, which keep well and are devoured by my adult children who don't like fruit cake (why not!?)
I listen to Carols, love playing the Messiah and my old Best Christmas Ever CD's, making mince, mince pies, cooking a ham on Christmas Eve and a turkey on Christmas Day. We're a much smaller gathering than when we were often 17 round the table. We had garden benches, garden chairs, borrowed an add on table but someone all managed to fit around and eat copious amounts.
Then, as now, various family gatherings need to be accommodated. My adult daughters and partners ate two Christmas dinners one year but we're slightly better organised currently.
I love the Nativity and hope to attend round the crib this year with grandchildren, at the Church their parents attended at the ages they are now. Their parents don't go to Church but they do make an exception for Christmas Eve

I can't stand Slade and I do become slightly bored by folks moaning about what an extravaganza it is - but surely its up to us to make it good.

Christmas trees - when dds were still at home, dh used to take them off to a garden centre to choose - with me saying, 'Don't get such a massive one this time!' - but they'd invariably come back with a whopper - he'd often have to saw two feet off the bottom before it would fit under the ceiling! And the base diameter would be so huge, we'd have to do some major furniture shifting to make room.

Luckily it's just me with him nowadays, and we stick to a 'modest' 5 or 6 footer - still plenty big enough IMO. And at least we don't have to shift any furniture.

Christmas cupboard filling up nicely .