Christmas Schedule

El-e-e was asking about how people schedule Christmas, and Pann was writing about how when you have holidays at your own home for the first time it can be tricky to know what to do. So I’ll tell you how we do it in the Swistle Family, which includes Swistle, Paul, and kids; Swistle’s Mom and Swistle’s Dad; and Swistle’s Brother and Swistle’s Sister-in-Law.

We start “after naptime.” The quotes are because this holds true even if no one in the family is young enough to nap. We start at 2:30 or 3:00, after everyone is showered and coffeed and dressed and breakfasted and lunched and napped, and no one has to come to the celebration feeling gritty and tangled and exhausted while it’s still dark outside. Perhaps most importantly of all, we can go ahead and eat candy without worrying about breakfast.

First, everyone opens stockings, all at the same time. There is exclaiming and snacking and chatting and calling out, “Where did you GET this?” (one year my brother gave me a bar of Total Bitch soap—best stocking stuffer EVER).

When the chatting and snacking die down, we do the Child Gift Exchange: children take turns opening their presents and handing out the presents they have chosen for adults. There is much exclaiming and chatting and removing packaging and inserting batteries and reminding to say thank you, and the adults can continue to snack out of their stockings.

At this point it is time for a break: the kids are wound up, and the adults are worn out from the children’s excitement and from too many bites of chocolate Santa. It’s around 5:00, so it’s time for a light dinner. At our house we have Swistle’s Soup with garlic bread. (This soup is actually BETTER as leftovers, so it’s good for making ahead of time and not having to cook on Christmas.)

After dinner, the children change into pajamas and we go out on a Christmas Light Drive: just weaving around the neighborhood saying, “Ooooo, I like those!” and “Yick!” to our hearts’ content. We listen to Christmas music in the car.

Back home, it’s 7:00 and the children go to bed. Littler children go to sleep. Older children may stay up and read new books, but they have to stay in bed.

Because now it is time for the grown-ups to relax. The wine is brought out. Everyone changes into pjs or into comfier clothes. There are no children running wild. The snacking from stockings continues, and the gift-opening begins. We go around the circle, taking turns. Lots of chatting and exclaiming.

After gifts, the adults have a late dinner of worstenbroodjes, which are basically pigs-in-blankets but oh so much more delicious. Also, a red jello salad and a green jello salad.

It is so pleasant. We can genuinely enjoy the children’s gifts, and give the children a lot of attention. We can genuinely enjoy our own gifts, too, and not have to try to squeeze them in between the children’s hyper enjoyment of theirs. We can talk without shouting.

Here is the part we don’t know yet, because the oldest child in the family is only a third-grader: at what point does a child cross over into the adult group? We’re playing it by ear, but we’re thinking Rob is close to being ready. I think the most important part is that the child has to be old enough not to dominate the evening, and to get pleasure from watching people other than himself open gifts.

29 thoughts on “Christmas Schedule

  1. Jess

    This is great! I LOVE that you start later in the day! I always hated how in Christmas pictures we look like night of the living dead. Christmas morning (late evening whatever) wakeup calls must go.

    Reply
  2. fairydogmother

    Oh Swistle, that sounds like a lovely and thoroughly enjoyable way to spend Christmas! And I am going to be totally jealous of it come Tuesday morning.

    In my family we do breakfast gathering on Christmas instead of dinner, a tradition my parents started when we were kids. I love it, however I now share my life with someone whose entire family lives on the east coast. Unfortunately for this west coast girl their idea of letting us sleep in on Christmas morning is waiting until 5:00 am to call us, at which point we are expected to energetically participate in Christmas festivities via telephone.

    I do not do energetic at 5:00 am. Even on Christmas. I’m not even sure I do energetic before noon.

    Oh well, the great thing about being a grown-up is that I can now participate in another aspect of my family’s Christmas morning tradition: alcohol-laced coffee beverages.

    Reply
  3. Omaha Mama

    Growing up, Christmas was a parade of extended family extravanganza, going here, there, and everywhere. This year, we are hosting no one. We are going out on Christmas Eve only (because I’m under house arrest with pneumonia for now) and are trying to figure out what you do with a WHOLE Christmas Day when you are done with the kids’ Santa fun at about 8:00? It’s odd, this growing up bit. Yours sounds lovely, especially the part where you bring out the wine and jammies.

    Reply
  4. Jess

    This is a very smart and cool way to do Christmas. We have always done it in the late morning with stockings all at once and then everyone taking turns with the other presents. The idea was always that Santa brought the presents in the stockings and the presents under the tree were from family.

    I think your perspective on Rob is about right. It sounds like he’ll be ready soon enough, as soon as he won’t dominate the whole evening and also won’t be exhausted or hyper. I bet he’ll really appreciate being included, too.

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  5. the new girl

    Ah, Swistle,
    What a nice day. This makes me feel homesick. Did that ever happen to you? It’s like nostalgia and melancholy together and it gives me the homesickness.

    I suppose it has to do with the loss of my mom and the total ‘routine’ that we had (because the routines always seem to be bound up with the women in the family, I find). My sister and I are bumbling through these first christmases with kids which are also our first few without my mom.

    Thanks for sharing.

    Reply
  6. Swistle

    Suebob- They DO get pretty excited! But we talk ahead of time a lot about the Christmas Schedule and how things will go, and we’ve done it this way their whole lives so they just expect it this way. We do usually have to boot them outside to run off some excited energy, though.

    Reply
  7. Suzy

    We do late Xmas too – but the kids have already opened their Santa gifts in the morning. Do you do the Santa thing as well or not? Otherwise, our schedule is about the same -except we have a big dinner and then send the kids to bed.

    Suzy

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  8. desperate housewife

    So far my kids seem to be inclined to sleeping in, so I am totally going to try to work the late morning Christmas gift opening. We were always little brats growing up- I remember one year we seriously tried to get the parents out of bed at three in the morning. NOT HAPPENING in my house. I think a holiday of all days you should get to sleep in!

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  9. Laura

    How wonderful that sounds. We do that on Christmas Eve with family and then always spent Christmas Day with just us. But I don’t really want to do that this year, but then it is just me and James (Nik is still in hospital) so maybe we’ll bring all of it up there…but that will mean lugging it all back down. Here I sit on Dec 23…er 24…and have no idea.

    Reply
  10. JMH

    Sounds lovely. We usually have extended family Christmas before Christmas day, so on Christmas morning we (hubby and 2 kids) open our gifts and play with everything all morning. Sometimes, later in the day (after 2:00 or 3:00) grandparents come over and see the kids. We just put out finger foods and drinks and have a lazy, fun afternoon / evening. Also, we all play cards and /or board games too. Fun!

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  11. Stephanie

    I LOVE LOVE LOVE your schedule! So different from our Christmases but I love it. We get up at 5am (woken by grandma) and open presents until 9 then eat breakfast and lounge until mid-afternoon when we’re ready for a meal at the local Chinese restaurant. The rest of the evening is spent enjoying our new gifts and each other’s company. Love Christmas!

    Reply
  12. Tessie

    I can’t help but notice that you MENTIONED this delicious worstebroodjes concoction, without a RECIPE or even a LINK to a recipe. Not cool, man. Not cool.

    I hope you and yours had a great Christmas.

    Reply
  13. Marie Green

    I love the idea of letting the kids go first, then putting them to bed. Do you do Santa though, or do they know it’s you filling the stockings?

    Sounds like you had a great Christmas!

    Reply
  14. Swistle

    Marie- If you want to include Santa, Santa comes during their naptime. He has SO many houses to cover, he does SOME during the night and SOME during naptime the next day. OR: Santa fills the stockings during the night, but the stockings are up high out of reach.

    Reply
  15. Swistle

    Swistle’s Dad- I know; I deliberately left that out because the important part is the order/timing of events—which people might want to copy, but might accidentally dismiss if they think it has to be on Eve.

    Reply
  16. Nedra

    Hey Swistle,

    This is totally late to the game, but I’ve been a follower of your name blog for the last few months and have run out of name posts and so I’ve recently started to read some of your old non-name blog entries. Just wanted to say how helpful this has been to me. I’m currently pregnant with our first baby (I just wrote to you about my conundrum with the names Charles, Arthur, and William!) and I have often wondered how we’ll do Christmas celebrations in our family once there are a few kids in the mix. Our child will be the first grandchild for either set of our parents, so there’s nothing established yet and I’d like to establish the same tradition for both sides of the family. I will be talking to my parents and sister and also to my in-laws and hopefully we can work something out that will maintain some consistency no matter whether we’re visiting my family or my husband’s.

    Anyway, just wanted to say thanks. I know it’s belated! Also, since this post was 5 years ago, when did you decide that Robert was ready for the adults group? I may have to look through the more recent Christmas posts and see if you mentioned it again!

    Reply
  17. Swistle

    Nedra- We are still taking this year by year. The three eldest (which includes one of the twins, who is “eldest” by merit of being one minute older) are all ready to stay up, but the two littlest are not. Further complicating matters:

    1. The two eldest don’t get along. To the point of potentially ruining things if both are allowed to stay up.

    2. My brother and sister-in-law now alternate years between the two families. On the years they visit, we prefer not to have kids up.

    3. There is no way to let one twin stay up and not the other.

    4. With too many people up, presents take too long.

    So. We take it year by year. Rob stayed up for the first time in 4th grade, I think. Then the next year we had my brother and sister-in-law here. Then I think the next year Will stayed up, since HE was in 4th grade. Then last year my brother and sister-in-law were here. This year, we’re not sure!

    Reply

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