What do you love about Christmas? What have you done to make that enjoyable?

[Carol in Cal.]

I love the excitement in the air.

I love the decorations in our neighborhood and really everywhere I go.

I love the special music.

I love the gatherings.

I love the church services, especially the extra Advent, Christmas Eve, and Christmas Day ones.

I love the desserts and usually crab season is open so I love that, too.

I love that my birthday is in Advent.

[Indigo Blue]

I love the boys being home. I want to make sure they have good memories of our times together, but I keep it simple and only do what I can do.

I just love that the feeling in the air is more peaceful. After Christmas, it’s gone again.

I love the peaceful music everywhere. 

[Carol in Cal.]

What I do to preserve this is:

I try to get ahead of the obligations so that I can really enjoy things during the season.  So, for instance, I almost always do all my CHristmas shopping by Thanksgiving.  I never go out for Black Friday unless it is to one special store, like a local yarn shop.  (I hate shopping in crowds.). 

I’ve pared down the baking and just do what I have time for and feel like.  That usually means only 2-3 kinds of cookies.  Sometimes I do a cookie exchange and trade for more variety.  If I”m going to try some spiffy new recipe I do a trial run in October.  More often than not I stick with the tried and true.

I don’t send out Christmas cards every year—maybe every 5 or so.

When I was still homeschooling I planned field trips that were somewhat festive into December and lightened up on academics.  A science field trip an hour away is all the more fun if there are Christmas decorations to see, too.  On Thanksgiving we always went ot he local zoo for Feast For The Beasts.  We would do at least 3 decorations/music field trips during this period.  That was fun for me as well as for the kids.  

I block off my weekends into morning, afternoon, and evening segments, and as opportunities to gather or spectate arise I write them in and then around the first week in Dec I decide which things to actually do and see.  I keep the weekdays lighter than normal because the weekends tend to be packed.

I don’t generally decorate the outside of the house.  Too much trouble.  

I put out Advent stuff in Advent, and we bring in the tree the weekend before Christmas, and put on the ornaments on Christmas Eve.

We spread out our actual Christmas celebration until about New Year’s.  Then on New Year’s Day we have ableskiver for breakfast and switch from Christmas heavy to star/light heavy decorations, including a white on white tablecloth.

[mommyoffive]

Love this and can't wait to read what everyone says. 

Really quick because I have to run.  

I love Nutcracker ballet and seeing my kids in it every year. 

I love the fullness of my house and it feels like the crazy scene in Home Alone where the house is just buzzing with people and life.

[Indigo Blue]

16 minutes ago, Carol in Cal. said:

I don’t generally decorate the outside of the house.  Too much trouble.  

Same, here. I only put up a thin tree that is very manageable. 

[lynn]

I love having my house all lit up.  I turn on all the Christmas lights when I get up and leave them in until I go to bed.  I thought I wouldn't be able to handle Christmas this year.  I did cry a bit as dd and I decorated thinking about my mom but I know she wouldn't have wanted me to not have my house decorated the way I love to on Christmas.  

I love walking my neighborhood at night with all the lights people have on their homes.

Like my mom I love Christmas music.  I still have her time life records of Christmas music.  

I love having little ones around again.

I love baking the things I save just for Christmas season.  

Edited December 7, 2022 by lynn

[prairiewindmomma]

We all just love being together. We are generally all coming into the holidays exhausted from work and school and life so we plan for a quiet, restful time together with good food and good music. We walk the beach and look for shells, play board games, watch movies, sleep in, and hang out in the hot tub. 
 

I have asked to travel a few times or go skiing instead (we can see mountains from where we live and could easily make an afternoon of it) and no one else wants to take that on over Christmas. They’d rather sleep and hang out by the fireplace.

[regentrude]

Having a break after the semester.
Having one or both kids home for a few days.
Listening to Bach's Christmas oratorio

To make it enjoyable, I ditched all the traditions I thought I had to keep up but which nobody really cared about. I'm now very minimal.

Edited December 7, 2022 by regentrude

[lovinmyboys]

October-December is my favorite time of year. We do all the things, then our family mostly hibernates in January. I’m probably lucky that has typically worked out for us. We usually make 12 kinds of Christmas cookies throughout the season (Nov 1-January 6). We also do the 12 games of Christmas and play 12 different games. I used to get new games for this, but now we have plenty. I try really hard to not have extra things in December so we have time to look at lights, watch Christmas movies, do Christmas puzzles, etc. So unless it is urgent, we don’t do dentists, haircuts, oil changes in December.

We have moved every few years so we have enjoyed the different Christmas events where we are (Cincinnati zoo Christmas lights, seeing Christmas Carol at Ford Theater in DC, and Christmas markets in Europe). 
 

I think what works for me is not doing things I don’t like to do. 

Edited December 7, 2022 by lovinmyboys

[rebcoola]

I love the pretty lights and music.  I love traditions that bring us together. I hate the busyness.  I cant change when all the fun events and concerts and performance are so we do those.  I have moved bunch of our traditions and put them after Christmas day.  Like the friends who introduced us to the idea of choosing a family and gifting them for 12 days do it so the last days is Christmas. We did that the first couple of years because we would work together. But now we do it Starting on Christmas day.  We do things like build Cookie houses the week after Christmas.  We put up our decorations the 1st day of Christmas break and leave them up longer through gloomy February usually. 

 Right now the only sign of Christmas at my house is the pile of boxes growing in the spare closet.

[Clarita]

I love having these days set aside where there isn't anything to do but to sit, eat and enjoy people's company. 

My only must have tradition for the holidays is that everyone enjoys themselves. If anyone isn't enjoying themselves we bring it to the table and see what we can do to make the holiday more enjoyable for them.

A few years ago MIL said all the cooking stressed her out. So now we bring the main course and a little bit more.

We do a Christmas tree because it seems like fun for the kids but the adults just put up the lights the kids are in charge of the ornaments. So only the bottom 1/4 of the tree is decorated and a bunch of the ornaments are on the floor (my kids are 6 and 4).

This year we didn't do outside lights because the adults decided they would rather watch Top Gun Maverick.

We went from no presents to grandparents getting the kids presents (apparently not getting gifts stressed the grandparents out). No gift exchange for the adults, unless it's a present so good you can't help yourself. 

I do insert Christmas-y things in to our homeschool, but this year is a bit eclectic because little girls likes the Voscamp book and little boy likes Advent Around the World from church. So we are totally behind on all the advent things. Which is an improvement on last year where we were so behind that the advent things just fizzled out sometime past Easter. 

 

[HomeAgain]

I love the lights.

When I was a kid we'd have luminarias lining the walks.  That's not an option here, and I do miss it, but I love the tradition here of having candles in every window.  Our neighborhood doesn't do a lot of outdoor lights.  It's a rare sight, though, to see a house that doesn't have the windows aglow.  Even tonight, when it's wicked outside with rain and wind, I can see the warmth of my neighbors' houses through the trees.

The rest of my likes are oxymorons.

I love the loud joyful music, but reflect on this as a time of peace.

I love to bake and make candies, but don't enjoy eating them.

I love making gifts, but hate giving presents.

 

I should do more to make the traditions  we keep alive, but sometimes, I'm just tired.  Or we have things going on.  It gets harder as we get older.

[alysee]

I love the music. I love the baking. I love the tree. Also, the literal joy in my kids eyes for a month straight. 

 

[Carol in Cal.]

1 hour ago, rebcoola said:

I love the pretty lights and music.  I love traditions that bring us together. I hate the busyness.  I cant change when all the fun events and concerts and performance are so we do those.  I have moved bunch of our traditions and put them after Christmas day.  Like the friends who introduced us to the idea of choosing a family and gifting them for 12 days do it so the last days is Christmas. We did that the first couple of years because we would work together. But now we do it Starting on Christmas day.  We do things like build Cookie houses the week after Christmas.  We put up our decorations the 1st day of Christmas break and leave them up longer through gloomy February usually. 

 Right now the only sign of Christmas at my house is the pile of boxes growing in the spare closet.

This is so much like us.  Getting rid of the busyness by doing things in advance and afterwards have taken so much of the pressure off and left the joy in place, purer!  

[Guest]

I love It all. I love sweaters and cards and packages and decorations and special treats and traditional foods and music and lights. It is all warm and beautiful to me. 

[marbel]

Like (almost?) everyone, I like the lights. I guess that's because here (US, northern hemisphere) it is so dark. I like Christmas music though I can get burned out on it quickly so try not to overdo. I have multiple Christmas playlists to suit my mood - fun songs, hymns with vocals, instrumental hymns. 

I like to buy gifts but I think that is because we have never gone nuts with mountains of extravagant gifts. Some years there were just books, and used ones at that. One year there were no gifts under the tree, just incidentals in stockings, but plans for a small vacation. 

My kids have never been involved in choirs, ballets, plays, etc., so we have not had obligations there.

I love having the house decorated though as time goes by I want to deal with less and less. But my daughter does a lot. We have never done outside lights so that is simple. We bake and make candy but it's not a huge amount. 

We plan an extravagant appetizer dinner for Christmas Eve. Sometimes we go to a Christmas Eve service but probably won't this year due to the timing. Christmas Day is for a late breakfast and a traditional-ish roast beef dinner. Everyone helps to cook their part. 

We used to have a big party which was always fun but some circumstances led to being cut out from a significant friend group and then Covid, so we've embraced the small celebration of the 4 of us. This year one of the kids' significant others may join us one evening. 

We live near Philadelphia, and my daughter and I love to take the train into the city to walk around, It's very festive in the city hall area, with a Christmas market and lots of decorations. (My husband and son are not so keen, so it's usually just the two of us.) This year, though, my husband started working in the city so I will probably meet up with him one evening for dinner and a stroll. 

I used to dread Christmas when we had to go to my in-laws; it was so dreary there and always the threat of being snowed in/trapped. When we stopped it was just so nice. I have family within a few hundred miles but we just don't try to see them. This year will be the first in a long time that I don't have to work Christmas Eve and the day after, but my kids will likely have to. 

Such random ramblings! But there it is. 

[Indigo Blue]

I’m really excited this year as we have planned, weather permitting, to spend Christmas Eve outside by campfire. Music, a few strands of fairy lights, lanterns, and table set up with everything to make s’mores. Planning to have homemade potato soup, too, by the fire.

[Carol in Cal.]

One thing I did to reduce the calendar load was to suggest in all my groups that we have our “Christmas” get together after New Year’s.  Not everyone went along with this, but my weaving guild and book group did, and we had the nicest time going out for tea and doing a white elephant exchange or giving each other little things, during what is usually the doldrums between New Year’s and Valentines’ Day.  

[1234]

I’m super excited for us to go to The Nutcracker ballet again this year! We haven’t been since Covid. 

We quit running around like crazy when both dc were little. We often traveled to spend the holidays with grandparents but we refused to see everyone on the day of every year. It definitely made a huge difference.

Both of mine are young adults now but we still have a lot of fun. We’re all doing the ballet together (including ds’ fiancé) this year. We also watch some Christmas movies and do some baking. We’re not stuck on any schedule which makes it nice. We’ll also drive around looking at lights one night which we’ve always done. This year is even more low key because dh started a new job a few months ago and has been working like crazy. We’re all looking forward to time just to hangout. 

Edited December 8, 2022 by Joker2

[easypeasy]

Honestly, these past few years have been my favorite Christmas seasons of all time. When the kids were younger, there was so much... of everything. Excitement, pressure, catching-up (we often spent Christmas "break" catching up on school stuff), extended family drama, etc. It just wasn't fun.

Once they all hit adulthood, we had a big family talk. What traditions did we want to keep? Which ones to scrap? What things caused stress, and which were fun? Did we want to be busy with festive stuff, or chill by the fireplace chatting more often? We wanted to set a baseline of the "good" stuff because I was starting to worry that, once they were adults, they would head off to significant others' homes for the holidays, leaving dh and I all alone (or, heaven forbid, with the in-laws!) because our Christmases were stressful.

So: #1 thing decided by the kids: We scrapped ALL extra family. That was hard (on the extended family) but such an enormous relief. Our parents have caused us all so much stress over the years and have taken OVER our family holidays in the past with all their drama and emotional outbursts. We drew a hard line in the concrete and, once the concrete set, we are all SO much happier for the change. Wasn't easy, but was SO worth it.

It's now my favorite time because everyone (aka: the children) comes home. That isn't true during summer due to internships, travel abroad, jobs, etc, so I relish this time when they're alllll home under my roof and I can hug them anytime I want to. ♥ Looking at the "Find My iPhone" and seeing them all stacked together once again in our house is literally my favorite moment of the year.

I enjoy the sounds of my family playing games together while Christmas music plays in the background. I enjoy the weird movies we watch as one of the traditions the kids wanted to keep. I love introducing our bonus kid/ds2 to all our traditions and enveloping him into all our new memories of the holiday season.

We have gingerbread house decorating contests (new themes each year), play croquet in the snow or rain, hide pinecones like Easter eggs, eat exactly the same food for Christmas morning and dinner as we've had for the past 4 years, toast with champagne on Christmas Eve, have Christmas morning mimosas, stuff stockings so full they nearly burst at the seams, dress our dogs up like elves, bake cookies for Santa and eat them all on Christmas morning, and play so many board games I'm surprised they can remember all the rules.

Secretly, I love that, while the boys have significant others, they elected to not bring them home for the holidays, nor are they going to the girls' homes. 😶 I just know my days are numbered before they all are in serious enough relationships where they want to bring someone home for the holidays so I am enjoying this "before" period of time while I can. 😄 (I really did offer that they could bring their girlfriends home, though, I promise! I was just so happy when they both decided against it, bahaha!)

When my kids were younger, I dreaded the holidays due to all the stress, pressure, and family drama. Now, it is 100% my favorite time of the year. ♥ Maybe I'd feel differently if they all went to school close by or worked nearby... but they're scattered across the country right now & possibly forever.

Edited December 8, 2022 by easypeasy

[Ali in OR]

I'll return when I have more time, but real quick:

I love sitting in my living room on December evenings amidst the the decorations and tree lights.

I love the two-week break from obligations (still have 2+ weeks of school to teach though).

I put lights on the little star magnolia tree outside our bedroom window. It's so pretty that I leave my blinds open until bedtime and it makes me happy every time I pop into the room to see the lit tree outside.

[Tap]

Twinkle lights

People thinking about what others want, dream of and desire.

Decorations

Twinkle lights 

Edited December 9, 2022 by Tap

[Eos]

On 12/7/2022 at 9:12 PM, Indigo Blue said:

I’m really excited this year as we have planned, weather permitting, to spend Christmas Eve outside by campfire. Music, a few strands of fairy lights, lanterns, and table set up with everything to make s’mores. Planning to have homemade potato soup, too, by the fire.

Love this!

 

On 12/8/2022 at 2:14 AM, easypeasy said:

Once they all hit adulthood, we had a big family talk. What traditions did we want to keep? Which ones to scrap?

And this!

 

On 12/8/2022 at 2:14 AM, easypeasy said:

Secretly, I love that, while the boys have significant others, they elected to not bring them home for the holidays, nor are they going to the girls' homes.

Secretly this too!

I love Advent calendars, making pomanders, making wreaths, getting our tree from the woods with the kids doing our usual joke-bickering, lighting candles on the tree on Christmas Eve, caroling, eating, baking, making gifts with orders to stay out of each other's spaces. I love that my family is quite thoughtful about gift-giving and making.

[MrsMommy]

I love everything about the Advent/Christmas season. Everything. They don't call me the Christmas Queen for nothing!

It's just the day-to-day stuff I wish I could suspend over the holidays. Like, do the bathrooms seriously need to be cleaned this month? 🙂 And why do I have to cook regular dinners when I'd rather be baking or cooking special stuff? 

But the Christmas stuff? I can't get enough!

[ScoutTN]

I love sitting in my living room, quietly enjoying the pretty tree.

I love the choral church music! 

I love walking silently out of church into the frosty, dark night, after having sung Silent Night by candlelight.

I love giving gifts.

I love that our family is here and no traveling is involved.

I love having time to bake, read, reflect, rest, and reset.

Mostly, I love how these things encourage me to ponder Christ and the mystery of the incarnation.

[Carol in Cal.]

I guess I forgot to mention my very favorite.  The Christmas Eve candlelight service.  It’s not the most important church service of the year but it is still my favorite.  So beautiful!