I meant to ask you so many questions earlier, and then I got waylaid by Unexpected Holiday Baking, which was a delight, but on the other hand I didn’t ask my questions and tomorrow is Christmas Eve already, so some of the questions will have to wait.
We are, as I believe I mentioned somewhere back there in the archives, having our family’s very first Christmas Morning Christmas. Not one single member of this household has ever had one of those! (My family celebrated on Christmas Eve; Paul’s celebrated on Christmas Day afternoon.) La la la how fun! And also: how…do we do that.
Years and years of chatting with other parents of young children has given me lots of information for how to handle it with young children: the setting out of the cookies (and baby carrots for the reindeer); the firm establishment of The Earliest Possible Time Mother and Father May Be Awakened in the Morning; the opening of matching Christmas pajamas on Christmas Eve night, so that everyone is adorable for the photos the next morning even if they have not combed their hair or had their coffee; the reading of Christmas stories before bedtime; perhaps a dose of benadryl with the hot chocolate. I remember a lot of these tips.
But parents don’t talk to each other as fervently when they have older kids—and of course by then families aren’t trying to start/establish Christmas traditions: the traditions they started when the kids were little have morphed naturally into something else. So I don’t know how to START this when the kids are older. Our youngest is 13 and has to be awakened if we want him out of bed before 11:00 a.m. Possibly by now we would have morphed into an after-lunch Christmas. But THIS ONE YEAR AT LEAST we want a Classic Christmas Morning situation.
The children have done a hard pass on the idea of matching Christmas pajamas, even as a joke; I think we needed to have started it sooner, so that it would be ironic/nostalgic at this point, but it’s too late for that. They do accept the idea of ATTENDING in whatever pajamas they were already wearing. I don’t think we’ll set out cookies and carrots, though we’ve considered doing it just for the ha-ha-look-at-us-doing-traditional-Christmas fun of it.
I just don’t get how this is going to GO. Should we…set a time to meet downstairs? Or when you have older kids do you just start celebrating Christmas whenever they finally get up? That could be like 2:00 in the afternoon, and I don’t want that, so forget I asked the second question and just answer the first one.
Also, when do stockings happen? My family opened them Christmas Eve afternoon, as a badly-needed float for the children who were running out of patience to wait for the presents that were still hours and hours away (after the Christmas Eve service, which wasn’t until after dinner). And when do you FILL the stockings? (We filled them while the children were taking afternoon naps. When they got too old for naps, we filled stockings while the children were in their rooms pretending to nap, because stockings happen after naps—this is how that tradition morphed.)
What do you do about breakfast? The nice thing about starting festivities in the afternoon (both for my family, which started Christmas Eve afternoon, and Paul’s family which started Christmas Day afternoon) is that no one is eating stocking candy on an empty stomach. I have heard tales of hearty egg/potato-type breakfast casseroles assembled the night before and popped into the oven in the morning? If you have any good ones, I would LOVE to have the recipe: I don’t have ANY recipes for make-it-the-night-before breakfast casseroles. I have also purchased some festive danish, which freeze well if no one wants them after all the stocking candy.
Excuse me but those of us who partake in booze definitely put a little booze in our Christmas morning coffee, do I have that correct? I was thinking of a little swig of Bailey’s. My tolerance is probably too high to feel it, but I’LL FESTIVELY KNOW IT’S THERE.
What else? Oh, I know: WHAT DO YOU DO CHRISTMAS EVE?? I’m used to doing CHRISTMAS on Christmas Eve! So now I don’t know what to do with it. Theoretically I suppose I would do the same things I used to do Christmas Eve Eve, but that doesn’t feel right: Christmas Eve is A Thing in a way Christmas Eve Eve is not—even if you celebrate on Christmas Eve. We normally have Festive Snack Dinner (grapes, fancy crackers and cheese, kielbasa, vegetables and dip, popcorn, etc.) for Christmas Eve dinner, and we’re planning to go ahead and do that anyway, and then the usual Christmas Light Drive (which we started when I stopped going to a church service but still wanted something between dinner and presents).
And what do you do with THE REST OF THE DAY? One of the nice things about an evening celebration is that you take the strung-out overstimulated children afterward and you tuck them into bed, and then they wake up the next morning and one one hand they’re sad Christmas is over, but on the other hand NOW they can play with all their NEW TOYS / eat their YUMMY STOCKING CANDY! And the parents have had a good night’s sleep and are ready to find batteries and assemble things and play games. And it’s a nice peaceful day, with all the pressure off, and nothing left to do but enjoy presents and eat treats.
And what about Christmas Day LUNCH and DINNER? What do you do about THOSE??
I wake up the teen when I naturally wake up. We do stockings (which I fill before I go to bed on Christmas Eve) then we pause to put the casserole in before we exchange gifts.
This is the first Christmas I will be spending with just my nuclear family, which include three kids who do not wake up until postmenopausal moi is ready for a nap, so I am awaiting answers with bated breath.
I would happily eat quiche and fruit salad and down mimosas while watching Christmas movies, waiting for the boys to get up, but I don’t think my spouse will go along with that.
This is an amalgamation of my memories as a teenager/older kid and what I do now.
1. Christmas Eve was spent at Christmas Eve church service (not helpful this year) as well as finishing up chores (nobody should do laundry on Christmas) and prepping foods for Christmas Day. (Usually a vegetable soup) Now that I am a part of a non-church household, we start Christmas around dinner time on Christmas Eve. We have charcuterie and alcohol, watch Christmas movies in new (non-matching) pajamas, and each read a new book.
2. Parents take Christmas stockings into their room on Christmas Eve and fill them, bringing them out with them Christmas morning.
3. Christmas morning started with hot beverages and booze around 9AM. Presents were opened around 10AM, with people who didn’t get up in time for breakfast scarfing down something quick. Stockings were done first.
4. We extended the Christmas presents as long as possible, with each person (youngest to oldest) opening one gift at a time in turn. It took a long time since there were four kids and two parents.
W now alternate Christmas Eve and Christmas Day between my parents and my in-laws but here’s what we used to do Christmas Eve before I was married. We wouldn’t do much during the day since most people worked or worked a half day. But for the afternoon/evening, Christmas music or a Christmas movie would be on. We always do appetizers for dinner, and then sit around the Christmas tree visiting and having coffee or hot chocolate and gorging on Christmas cookies. Then, my dad would take us for a long drive to look at Christmas lights around town. We loved the Christmas light drive so much, we still go as adults on the years I’m with my parents for Christmas Eve. Lol.
Stockings are filled late at night on Christmas Eve after children have gone to bed.
Christmas morning…. Stockings, then a bowl of cereal and first cup of coffee. Then, opening presents around the tree. Then, my family does a big eggs and toast brunch (which ends up being just at lunchtime anyway). Afternoon is enjoying new things and/or, again watching a Christmas movie, lounging about, helping with getting the big dinner ready. Bug turkey dinner (repeat Thanksgiving, but as a Canadian it’s a little further apart than for Americans, haha). Boards games with coffee and more Christmas cookie dessert after dinner.
Ugh, typos…I’m on my phone. *Big turkey dinner, not bug! Lol
Wait, this isn’t the Stephanie that lives near me in Canada is it? Friends with Erica? I realize that there are a lot of Canadian Stephanies, but sometimes the world turns out to be a very small place…
We have morphed into a tradition that we repeat every year. I feel open to change, but some members of my family are staunch traditionalists when it comes to how we do Christmas. My family agrees on a time to go downstairs together- usually around 9am now that the kids are in their late teens (it used to be about 6:30 or 7am when they were little). I go down first and turn on the tree lights, and make a fire, and coffee. I turn Christmas carols on. Once that’s done, I yell up to everyone that it’s time to come downstairs. We then open presents with coffee and mimosas, and usually some coffee cake, or danish. About halfway through, I put a breakfast casserole in the oven (assembled the night before) so it will be ready to eat once all of the presents are unwrapped. After we eat, we go through our stockings (filled the night before, right before bed- if the kids are hanging around, I tell them to scram). Then we spend the afternoon relaxing, until it’s time to make dinner. Hope that helps. Merry Christmas! And here’s to a better and more hopeful 2021!
We usually have a universally-appealing dinner on Christmas Eve (usually lasagna or gumbo), the girls exchange their gifts with each other, and we’ll make hot chocolate and go drive around to look at Christmas lights. (This is some of the best Family Fun we have all season, and I love it so much.)
Christmas morning, my husband and I are usually up by 9 (will be way earlier this year thanks to our pandemic puppy!), and I’ll cook breakfast (some kind of breakfast casserole, cinnamon rolls, bloody marys for the parents.) The girls are usually up by 10 or so, and we turn on a Christmas movie (Christmas Vacation, Home Alone, etc) while we open presents and stockings. It naturally leads into hanging out together and watching the movie once the present hoopla is over.
Santa fills stockings after kids go to bed Christmas Eve, if the teens won’t go to bed I send them to bed so I can get on with it.
The ten year old wakes us up at some terrible hour agreed upon the night before, I think it’s 7. The teen needs less prompting than you might think because OMG CHRISTMAS still kind of works on 13 year olds here.
Everyone opens stockings ASAP, then we sort of eat breakfast but it’s things you can eat now or later – croissants, coffee, oj, fruit. I buy most of it the day before.
Then we do tree presents and then everyone takes a nap.
Usually Christmas Eve we have a fancy dinner and various people do various last minute Christmas things like wrap BIG presents or watch a Christmas movie or decorate cookies or something. General Christmas milling.
In chronological order:
1. One (1) gift is opened by each child on Christmas Eve. For us, this happened after church and before bed. Used to be the gift we got in our cousin gift exchange, but that ended when I was 20-something.
2. Stockings are filled by anyone with stocking stuffers between 9 PM and 6 AM.
3. Christmas morning starts between 8 and 9 AM with coffee and muffins/cookies/danish while we open stockings (always first) and then gifts. Pajamas are proper attire. Alcohol consumption is absolutely acceptable.
4. Once gifts are opened, food prep begins and others move through the shower.
5. “Breakfast” is served, but by now it’s 10:30 or 11 AM so “brunch” is a better designation. Eggs/egg casserole, waffles, bacon, the whole 9 yards.
6. Afternoon is free time – play with new toys, take a walk, watch Christmas movies.
7. Because of brunch, we usually end up with a happy hour/snack/heavy apps that lead into early dinner ~4-6 PM. If you want a formal sit-down Christmas dinner, this is the time slot.
8. Early bedtime for parents and easily worn out children. Ridiculously late bedtime for teenagers/college kids because it’s vacation/there are no rules/teenagers.
Merry merry!
Elizabeth’s description is just what we do, too, though I stick to a no-earlier-than-8 am rise time for my 11- and 14-year olds. I grew up doing it this way (with big family dinners on both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day to prep for/eat to pass any non-present-opening time, though now we skip the big family parties as I’m not the hostess my mom was). My husband’s family opens all presents Christmas Eve (except stockings on Christmas morning), and when we are visiting them for Christmas it always feels so strange to me. Isn’t it funny how tied to our own traditions we can be? I had to make sure my traditions “won” when we set them up for our own little family. But how fun to be trying something new for everyone!
Oh and no one wears cute pajamas, our Christmas morning pictures are universally terrible and it’s fine.
We usually have family over Christmas Eve to exchange gifts, but since that’s not happening this year…we will just zoom everyone. As for Christmas morning, the kids would get up and bring us their stockings and open them with us still in bed. Then we would all go out to the tree and open gifts. We always have pillsbury cinnamon rolls for breakfast along with eggs and sausage. Now that my kids are adults, my son will be the only one here. He would sleep all day if I let him, so we tell him to get up by 10am. I’ll make breakfast while waiting for him and then we will open gifts.
Really, the morning is anyway you want it to be. But if you have someone that would sleep all day, I would set a specific time to have everyone up. This really is the perfect time for you to set some new traditions with your kids who are mostly not kids anymore. You might want a Christmas Eve present for everyone to open, a book or pjs are always nice.
Whatever happens, enjoy! And Merry Christmas!
Love these comments!
For Christmas breakfast we prep the night before
1. Wife saved breakfast
2. Land of nod buns.
Google both for recipes!
Into the oven first thing for Christmas breakfast!
I’m so curious about what your usual Christmas routine is!
I have younger kids so I won’t be helpful with most of your questions. I like a black bean, corn tortilla, green chile egg casserole on Christmas morning, but our standbys are cinnamon rolls & bacon.
This is my favorite make-ahead breakfast thing. I’m sure it would be really good with mushrooms in place of the sausage, too.
https://www.thekitchn.com/recipe-sausage-and-greens-breakfast-casserole-243967
When I was an older kid, my parents would wake us up around 8 or 9. There would be coffee and open stockings first thing. Then we would make breakfast (there was/is a casserole, but also grits, eggs, and bacon.
Then opening the real presents (mostly taking turns so we can all see what is opened). Afterwards, snacks and movies and naps.
This is the BEST breakfast casserole. I do not enjoy traditional sausage and hash brown kinds, so this is much better. It includes white wine, Genoa salami, Parmesan, and green onions and is DELISH. https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=127468&page=1
Sorry, others have more helpful info but I felt it was important to share the recipe. Merry Christmas!
Here is our Christmas/Christmas Eve tradition (there are 4 of us kids, all in our 20s now and this has been the case since we were teens every year we don’t have little cousins around):
Christmas Eve we eat spaghetti and meat sauce and watch movies or play a game until a reasonable hour, and then my parents fill stockings when us kids go to bed and put them out before Christmas morning
We usually make a overnight french toast casserole situation Christmas Eve as well to be baked off on Christmas morning.
Christmas morning we gather at the tree at a predetermined time (usually around 8:30 or 9 – we’re mostly early risers in my family) (anyone who would be hangry Christmas morning without food eats a quick bowl of cereal first, coffee drinkers make coffee) (and someone is ALWAYS late but we wait patiently (read harass them to hurry up)) and open stockings then presents. At some point, my mom will preheat the oven and stick in the casserole so it’s ready when anyone who hasn’t eaten yet is reaching the level of hangriness that requires intervention. When the casserole is ready, we eat and then open any presents that aren’t opened yet. For the rest of the day, we try on any clothes that were gifted, set up tech gifts, and usually go for a walk (it helps that between the six of us, there are 3!! dogs).
Here’s the best Christmas morning dish (keto, too): I buy one of those football-shaped hams in the deli aisle and slice it kinda thick – maybe 1/8 inch – and spread it over a Pan-sprayed pan (the larger the crowd, the larger the pan). Then I crack some eggs over the ham (again, the bigger the pan, the more eggs, but this year I’ll be doing an 8×8 itch maybe six eggs). Then I drizzle heavy cream over the top – not so much that it looks like a soup, more like a nice estuary of drizzles) and bake it at 400 until the eggs are set, 15-20 minutes (my kids like hard yolks). Sounds not good but is so good, I promise!
We usually to go to Christmas Eve Mass but not this year, then home for dinner. We open one gift on Christmas Eve. It is always new pajamas, although they are not necessarily Christmas or matching. I have three boys-I usually get them matching pj pants and a shirt that matches their personality. The PJs are from the pets, I don’t know why.
Stockings are filled after they go to bed. We used to leave cookies out for Santa but I don’t know if we will this year or not as the youngest is 12 and it seems like this year we might not. We definitely send them to bed at a decent hour on Christmas Eve so we can go to bed too. Santa gifts are left out to be discovered in the morning as well. He just brings one thing for each child and it is not wrapped. Friends who have Santa bring wrapped gifts with special different paper…that sounds like so much work. Sometimes Santa will bring a big thing for all three to share-it depends.
In the morning the rule was that they could not wake us up before 7. If they wake up first that is still the rule, but if we wake up first (we usually wake up around 7 anyway) we will wake them up so we can all come down together. They can look at stockings and Santa gifts while we get coffee.
With coffee in hand we start unwrapping, sometimes with a danish for fortification. We go one at a time.
After gifts are open we have a brunch type breakfast. It used to be that we traveled to my mom’s for that, and then to my MIL’s for dinner- who are about 100miles away. This year will be the first year we stay home all day do we will do brunch and dinner here.
I have the feeling you’re going to get ten thousand responses because WHO DOESN’T LOVE TO TALK ABOUT THEIR ONE TRUE PERFECT CHRISTMAS? Anyway *my* (one true perfect) Christmas was always my mother’s family on Christmas Eve, a loud festive yankee swap for the adults, gifts for children from anyone who felt it appropriate, more food and treats than I can name, and then head home late, singing carols if we had the energy and didn’t have enough of that on the drive up, to exchange gifts between siblings, which were always smaller than “Santa” gifts and therefore more exciting on Christmas Eve then in the big rush Christmas morning. On Christmas morning we were allowed to get our stockings the second we woke up (as teenagers we got them after our parents went to bed and sometimes hung out together opening them, which was nice) and entertained ourselves with those until our parents deemed the hour appropriate, at which time we took turns opening presents and then had (overnight yeast) waffles with whipped cream and ice cream and spent the day in pyjamas until Christmas dinner with my dad’s side. These days, we do *almost* the same thing, but my spouse and I do Christmas morning with our 5yo before we head to my parents’ house and do Christmas there, including sibling presents which we no longer open Christmas Eve. The rest of my family goes to my estranged sister’s house and my little family goes home, still in pyjamas, to eat leftovers and laze about all day. THIS year, obviously, we’re not doing that. We’re going to my parents’ porch tomorrow afternoon to drop off their presents and stockings (I make stockings for them now, it’s enormous fun) and some homemade treats, maybe open a present a piece if the weather holds, and then do a video chat Christmas morning where we all open stockings together and watch my 5yo open his gifts. I’m throwing together a baked ziti for tomorrow’s dinner, which is my favorite Christmas Eve potluck dish, I’m mixing up some simple bread dough tonight, and depending on my energy I’ll make a pot pie tonight, tomorrow, or Friday for Christmas dinner. But anyway, I’m now also very curious what your family has always done!
I do not yet have older children, but as a person who has celebrated Christmas MORNING her whole life, I feel like I can contribute to the conversation anyway.
Christmas Eve dinner is served charcuterie-style, with cheeses and meats and crackers and fruit. Sometimes we watch a Christmas movie, sometimes not depending on the age/attention of children. Traditionally everyone (or at least the kids) get to open a present, which is always pajamas to wear that night/in the morning/potentially all Christmas Day. In my family the kids also get another gift, which is always an ornament, so that when they leave home someday they will have their own ornament collection for their first Christmas tree. I’ve also heard of other families giving books on Christmas Eve so that everyone has something fresh to read before bed.
Christmas morning with older kids: I am the kind that could easily sleep past noon, so what we did in my family was set a “you must come out of your room and participate in family Christmas” time the night before. Did it feel as cheerful as when I was a kid and we’d wake up at the crack of dawn and pull our parents out of bed? No. But it worked! We started with 9am and then as the years passed we pushed it to 10am.
Stockings first, then breakfast, then tree presents. Breakfast has never been a specific meal, probably because when we were kids we had to eat cereal in our parents room while they showered before we were allowed to go see if we had presents. The break between stockings and tree presents was probably so my parents could make coffee… but now in my household that’s also when we eat. Muffins are easy and quick to bake fresh in the morning (from a box obviously) but we’ve also done casseroles or pancakes etc.
Merry Christmas, Swistle!
We are changing things up this year because I always felt like Christmas Eve was a little anti-climactic as we don’t go to church which was always the “Christmas has begun!!!” event of my childhood. So this year we are doing a “nice dinner” that requires getting dressed as our kick off event on Christmas Eve. Then we open one gift, watch a movie and eat cookies and eggnog.
Christmas morning my husband I play Christmas music and turn the Yule log video on the TV (we don’t have a fireplace) and lounge with coffee until the kids wake up. Our early bird child usually wakes up our late sleeper because presents are always a big motivator to get up. Then presents, followed by stockings. I then make a big breakfast (frittata, fruit salad, bagels, juice) and we just have a relaxed day.
In the before times Santa would bring our family tickets to the movies so we would usually go to a movie late afternoon/early evening and I would have a lasagna premade as an easy dinner option. This year I’m making a roast and another “at the table” meal, hoping that it will help make it feel special all day long. Now I’m worried it may be overkill, but we shall see!
Your blogs have been such a bright spot during the pandemic. Merry Christmas to you and your family – I hope it’s a wonderful day!!
We open stockings before breakfast but I insist that my kids eat a substantial breakfast before any more presents so we don’t all get hangry or sick from too much sugar :). My kids are not at an age where they get up too early anymore or too late (they are 6 and 8) so that’s not an issue for us.
We open presents slowly and insist each member or the family opens one at a time in a round, then we play for a bit with the new toys. After that it’s lunch and then we go outside for a long walk. Then we come home and the kids play quietly with their new presents in their room and I start cooking Xmas dinner. Everyone dresses up for Xmas dinner in our house.
So anyway that’s Xmas at our house. Xmas Eve is finger food in front of the Xmas tree and one present for the kids and Xmas pyjamas.
Open one gift from relative on Christmas Eve
Santa fills stockings at night
Set a time for Christmas morning brunch. 10 sounds nice to me. Obviously serve mimosas or bloody Mary’s or Irish coffee or all of the above. Christmas mimosa drinking age was 18 at my house, 21 the rest of the year.
Open stockings before or during brunch (waiting for straggler) because stockings are good conversation starters.
Open gifts after brunch.
Take nap if needed
I started two comments and scrapped them-I am bummed because I turned 60 today, which usually is a pretty big milestone birthday- to say it has been anti-climatic is an understatement :)
Christmas with older kids-my daughter is 26, and we’ve been lucky enough to have her home for all the Christmas days. We would open one present on Christmas Eve, she always seemed happy with that. Always a nice dinner, like tomorrow we are doing a pasta bake. On Christmas we would wait till she woke up, which even in her teenage years was before noon. Coffee or cocoa, then opening presents. After presents we would do our stocking, kind of a wind down. Of course playing Christmas music the whole time. Oh, we also watch the Disney Christmas Parade!
Breakfast-I LONG for a place I could get a good coffee cake. Instead we have Pillsbury cinnamon rolls and bacon or sausage. Then we all usually take a nap, dinner is filet mignon, twice baked potatoes and rolls. We watch White Christmas as we eat.
This is going to be a weird Christmas because we sent all my daughter’s presents to her home. This is the first time we’ve done this, but having to ship her goodies was always a problem for her. I had a big Christmas-Birthday present which I got a month ago, so there is one present under our tree! Feels so strange and wrong!
I’m really trying to get into the spirit, but it’s been hard…
I’m sorry you didn’t have much of a happy birthday. When I turned thirty I had some health stuff that meant I didn’t celebrate at all, and thirty is the year my older siblings went all out for their birthdays so I felt super left out. The good news is that thirty was a really good year for me, and I really hope sixty is a good one for you! And I hope your present makes you smile and feel closer to your daughter. This is my first Christmas not at my mom’s so I get it.
Thank you Adi! Yesterday was one of the days where I know I have so much to be grateful for, and felt bad for feeling like I was missing out. A very little blip in the scheme of things. So glad 30 was a good year for you, 60’s here I come!
What a fun topic! We have pancakes for Christmas Eve dinner. I don’t know why or how this tradition started but it is What We Do. Stockings filled by parents after kids go to bed (dosed with melatonin because parents need time to assemble large gifts like a bike and want to go to bed at a semi reasonable hour.)
In the morning the order is: coffee, stockings, leftover pancakes eaten on the fly, tree presents. Hors d’oeuvre are grazed upon during the day along with any stocking treats. The afternoon is spent playing with new toys/reading new books. Occasionally a walk. Big sit down dinner around 4.
Our kids are 6.5 and 8.5, so a bit younger, but we…
-kid stockings on Christmas Eve
-husband and I exchange gifts Christmas Eve after the kids go to bed
-I make cinnamon rolls Christmas morning (I’m always up early) and usually a breakfast casserole*
-gifts after breakfast so the kids don’t get hangry
-face time later in the day with far away family so they can see the kids open their gifts (also the kids don’t open EVERYTHING in one sitting
-lunch and dinner at usual times
*mix up a bag of frozen hash browns, 6 eggs, 2 C shredded cheese, 1/3 C milk, and a pound of cooked bacon or breakfast sausage or smoked sausage…it can sit in the fridge overnight. You can put it in the cold oven when you start to preheat – that’ll bring it up to temp from being in the fridge all night. Bake at 350 for 45 minutes (timed from when the oven is finished preheating). Give it more time if you’re putting it into the preheated oven straight from the fridge.
We have always done Christmas morning. We have 4 teenagers – ages 13, 15, 17, & 19. They used to get up really early when they were little, but those days are clearly over. Now I wake them up roughly an hour after I get up. This gives me a little prep time. We do a snack breakfast – sausage cheese balls, mini quiches, cinnamon rolls, fresh fruit, mini bagels, etc. We all make small plates and eat in the livingroom while we’re opening presents. We open stockings first. Everyone goes one at a time so we can see what everyone got. We open presents the same way – one person, one gift. We go around in a circle. Because this takes longer, we take little breaks to refill plates and coffee. The kids are allowed to eat their stocking candy as well. When all the presents are opened, we have a nice long break. We only do 2 meals on Christmas day. Snack breakfast, and then a nice dinner sometime around 6:00 p.m. The time in between is for the kids to enjoy their loot, and for me to take a nice nap. (Mandatory rest and reading for this Mama on Christmas day!)
On Christmas Eve, we do dinner and a movie – at home. We usually go to a candlelight service at church, but not this year. We do not do matching pajamas.
For stockings, sometime before Christmas Eve, I sort the stocking stuff into a Target/grocery bag for each family member. When everyone goes to bed, I just have to unload each bag into each kid’s stocking – no sorting or unpackaging because I already did that part.
When I asked my kids what our Christmas Eve and Christmas traditions are, they gave me all food answers. My parents started serving (meat) fondue for Christmas Eve dinner when I was very little because it was a great way to take up time on that looooong evening before Santa. Also delicious and entertaining. Christmas brunch is always cinnamon rolls and egg casserole mostly prepped the day before.
On Christmas morning we open stockings first, which usually contain the first clue of a treasure hunt. This stretches the gifts out while the kids puzzle over the riddles I thought were super obvious and instantly solve the ones I thought would be hard. Treasure hunt gifts are small and cheap, kind of an extension of stocking stuff, or else books. After the treasure hunt any remaining tree presents get opened and then we have brunch.
If anyone is hungry for lunch they eat fondue leftovers and then we do some sort of nice but not difficult Christmas dinner.
I have found that in our family even teenagers are happy to get up on Christmas morning, so no worries there. I’m mostly grateful that we are now up at 8:30 am and not 5.
On Christmas morning we wake up and do stockings while I sip coffee ( my husband has so many admirable traits but I have Given Up on having a good stocking. It’s usually a brand of chapstick I’ve never heard of and Hershey’s Miniatures which we all know are trash candy). Then gifts and big breakfast. Cinnamon rolls, scrambled eggs, berries, mimosas. We get a few hours of downtime before extended family starts coming by (not this year!) for afternoon apps/ earlyish holiday dinner and more rounds of presents. My kids are the only grandkids/nieces/nephews in the whole family so they are spoiled rotten. After dinner and dessert there are usually a few rounds of goofy board games before everyone takes off.
On Christmas Eve the only real rules are that we bake cookies and watch Elf. Sometimes we see my husband’s family if they aren’t coming for Christmas Day for whatever reason. We always have seafood for dinner on Christmas Eve and cookies for dessert. Once the kids are upstairs we finish any wrapping and watch love actually while drinking boozy egg nog.
My husband is TERRIBLE with the stocking. lol. Otherwise he’s a great guy. This year I have purchased a few goodies for myself – some makeup I like, a nice candle, GOOD chapsitck!
My kids are 21 and 23, and so far have always been home for Christmas. We always spend the night at my mother in law’s, which I’m a bit nervous about this year, but I also can’t stand the thought of her being all by herself. We all tested negative, will wear masks, wash hands, etc etc. Anyway, enough of that!
Christmas Eve- used to be light, crockpot dinner, church, apps, drinks, games, prep the breakfast, brine the turkey, one present. Now, no church, planning to drive around and see lights, otherwise same.
Christmas Day- decide on a time to get the kids up, stockings, coffee/cinnamon rolls/put in breakfast casserole break, presents one at a time, breakfast (or brunch by now), lounge, games, turkey dinner fairly early to leave room for dessert.
Thanks so much for your blog! I enjoy it immensely! Merry Christmas, happy holidays, happy new year (please let it be happier than this one!)
This is what I have made several times with good success – made the night before in a 9×13 pan, put into the oven about halfway through gift opening:
https://www.thekitchn.com/how-to-make-a-frittata-cooking-lessons-from-the-kitchn-170717
Mimosas, yes.
Xmas eve we have an easy dinner, then kids each open a present. Sometimes jammies (not matching) but this year they are getting blankets that look like tortillas. We watch a movie, then the littles go to bed and the big kid helps move presents under the tree. I send him to bed and fill stockings.
Xmas morning we get up between 7-8 usually, kids open stockings and play with that stuff while we make a good breakfast. Usually a casserole and pastry and fruit. This year they asked for breakfast burritos, which is easy, and I’m trying to make a Moravian Sugar Cake tomorrow. We all eat what is the only decent meal of the day, then open presents one at a time. Kids disperse to play with stuff, husband and I watch movies all day and drink. The only other food is appetizers prepped the day before so we just graze all afternoon. We have a big ham dinner the day after Xmas because I don’t want to cook anything I don’t have to on Christmas.
Oh yes we do one present Christmas Eve but I get to pick what it is, I pick something that is good but needs a little alone time to shine and would be lost in a massive pile of big gifts – usually a book or a relatives present.
Also for the past few years we’ve been going to the movies on Christmas afternoons and that’s been really fun but obviously we are doing that so we will probably watch the new Wonder Woman.
We’ve been doing Christmas with teens for a few years. Obviously, there’s usually some extended family stuff involved, but not this year (EVEN THOUGH I’VE BEEN VACCINATED!!!). I’m recreating our traditional Swedish Christmas Eve smorgasbord that we’d have at my in-law’s, but only the dishes that at least 2 of us like. Then we all get new PJs – Old Navy pajama pants and t-shirts (this is usually done when we come home from my in-law’s). Typically we get home around 8 and go our separate ways, but I think this year we’ll watch a Christmas movie.
On Christmas morning, the kids usually wake up all excited and open their stockings while I sleep in. I do the stockings the night before after they’re in bed. And by “do them” I mean I already have everything in a plastic bag and I spend 3 minutes putting items into a stocking.
They usually wake me up by 8 (although this is the first year we’ve been doing online school and their sleep schedules have shifted so who knows) and Andrew and I sip coffee while we open all our presents. It takes a while because we do it slowly, one person at a time.
Then I make the traditional breakfast: blueberry pancakes, fruit salad (already put together), and bacon (already cooked – just reheated in the microwave.) We eat and spend the rest of the day hanging out, watching movies, eating appetizers, and reading/playing with our presents. Apps include: pizza bagels, shrimp cocktail, SO MANY CHEESES, crackers/breads, mini quiche, mozzarella sticks, veggies/dip, sliced meats, etc. Like a charcuterie tray or something that would be passed around at a fancy party.
Oh, and the booze question: we all drink orange pushups – equal parts orange juice and cream soda and I add a shot of vodka for the adults. The children mandate this for every year.
Thanks for asking this question. It’s made me excited for tomorrow.
OMG those drinks sound amazing. I am thinking this will be a good New Years Eve drink for us!
We set a time, do stockings first (parents fill them after adult children go to bed at a reasonable time, same as when they put presents under the tree), put the casserole in, open presents.
Ok I have a question I desperately want the answer to – how in Earth can you do Christmas, esp stockings, on Christmas Eve when Santa doesn’t come til Christmas Eve night after you’re in bed?????
Ha ha! We didn’t do the Santa thing, so it wasn’t a conflict!
We did it when I was a kid, and we just knew Santa came to our house before we were asleep. We had to stay in our rooms, or he wouldn’t come. My parents hung out in their room to also “hide from Santa” (works best with a two-story house – in fact, I think my dad hid in his office downstairs, which I suspect was also where the presents were hidden). I don’t think any of us stopped believing in Santa particularly early, so I guess we weren’t that bright, lol.
I’m looking forward to reading the comments on this one. First off, yes to Baileys in your coffee. In our house, we call it Christmas coffee (even when it’s not Christmas).
Second, we do stockings, presents, then breakfast, but we don’t let kids dive too far into the candy till they’ve had breakfast.
We are still setting wake up times for parents, but if I hazily remember my own teenage Christmases, I believe we set wake up times for teenagers.
Here is what we normally do…
Christmas Eve
If Christmas Eve falls on a workday, I go to work and bring my kids. My work sets up a bunch of holiday activities for kids, and a nice spread of finger foods. No work is expected to get done: we go in, we socialize, we eat, we shepherd any kids that came in through the activities, we go home at noon. We bake cookies for Santa when we get home and I prep the baked French toast* for the morning, then load the car and head to my Dad’s where we do dinner with them, then open gifts. After dinner we drive my sister to my mother’s so she can sleep there and be there in the morning, and then we head home and put out a plate of cookies and carrots. As soon as the kids are in bed we fill the stockings. In our house, Santa comes during the night before Christmas and he only fills stockings, he doesn’t give wrapped gifts.
* I use a version of this https://tastykitchen.com/recipes/breakfastbrunch/pancakeswaffles/baked-french-toast/, but first I had to figure out how to make it without eggs because my son is allergic, then I had to veganize it when my mom went vegan. So it’s loosely based on that recipe, but I make the custard out of almond milk and Birds custard powder, and I add blueberries and chopped apples to half (since there’s Someone who does not like cooked fruit in our family).
Christmas Day
My kids have never been ones to wake before the sun is up, not even when they were little, so generally I wake up first and turn the tree lights on. If they haven’t woken up by 8:00 I get them up. We go down, open stockings and gifts, then we get dressed and grab everything that’s coming with us and head to my Mom’s. There we pop the French toast bake in the oven and while it’s cooking we open stockings. After that we have breakfast (the bake, bacon, fruit, whatever else my mom felt like making). After breakfast we open gifts. Then it’s generally a low-key day of nibbling on finger foods and Christmas chocolate and maybe taking a walk around the fields if the weather is suitable, and playing with toys received. Mom and I do any food prep that wasn’t pre-done by her, and it all culminates in a turkey dinner.
This year we are strictly isolating for the 2 weeks leading up to Christmas so we can have a normal Christmas Day with my mom and stepfather, so we can’t go to my Dad’s as usual even if the pandemic allowed indoor visits. So today I’m working from home until around lunch time, then we’re doing some baking and prepping the French toast bake, and eating a nibble-dinner like you and watching Christmas movies in pyjamas. The Nutcracker is streaming live at 7:30 so we will likely watch that. Tomorrow though will be a normal Christmas Day for us, and the first indoor meal with them we’ll have had since March. My stepfather (who some commenters might remember from previous threads is also my husband’s father) was recently diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer that’s shown up in 3 different systems in his body, so we thought it was important to do everything we could to spend Christmas with him.
I’m so sorry about your stepfather. I hope you have a peaceful Christmas together.
We do what it seems most do—(kids are now 31, 30, 28, 26, 23)
Christmas Eve is church, nice dinner out, drinks at home and a movie
Morning is stockings, coffee, monkey bread/casserole and then presents
Rest of the day is napping, walk, reading, etc then a nice dinner
Copious alcohol
This year: no church or dinner out. No kids at home except the youngest (grad school) and her BF who is in our bubble (will stay overnight). I mailed gifts to 2 of the kids who are far away, took some to another (2 hours away) and will drop off more today with another daughter (20 min away) and her fiancee (wedding postponed to next year)–outside only.
My MIL egg/cheese/sausage casserole (prepare Christmas Eve) SO EASY SO GOOD
1.5 lb sausage, drained
9 eggs, whisked
3 c milk
1 t salt
3 slices of bread, cubed (I just shred it)
1.5 c shredded cheddar cheese
Mix all together
9×13 greased pan, covered with cling-film overnight, remove before baking
350* 1 hr in the morning
I would say that whatever else you do, set an agreed-upon awakening time, and make it later in the morning. Not 2:00, but not 8:30, either. The other thing I’d say is to have the agreement also be that if everyone else is already up and only one laggard is still in bed, that the laggard has to be okay with being awakened if everyone else is getting tired of waiting for them.
Our house growing up, the order was usually stockings in the a.m., breakfast, church (early years) break/return to bed (later years), Christmas lunch, tree gifts after lunch, people doing their own thing for awhile, Christmas dinner. I think the latest-allowed teenaged awakening during that time was about 10:00, but I’m not fully certain I’m remembering that correctly.
My main goal for each pandemic holiday has been to focus more on the mood I want, and then to fit the elements of the holiday into that. And to think about what it would take for the family as a whole to experience that mood. With a 4-year-old, that may mean opening a lot of presents all at once first thing in the morning, breakfast afterwards, doing crafts/playtime throughout the day, and allowing extra television when adults want downtime. We’ll be having a more traditional-style Christmas ham lunch, but dinner is going to be candelight and non-fancy hors-d’oeuvres (cheese, crackers, cut up leftover ham, etc.).
We have tried many different Christmas morning casseroles and this is our favorite (non vegetarian). https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ree-drummond/tater-tot-breakfast-casserole-4607655
As a kid, we went to Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve. And that started the tradition of Christmas Eve pizza for dinner (getting pizza from our favorite local place with extra pizzas for future meals). When my sister was 9 or 10 she discovered that other people opened presents on Christmas Eve! And then convinced our parents to let us open 1 gift on Christmas Eve. This usually happened between dinner and Mass. My poor parents. It wasn’t until I was well into my 20’s did I realize that we would get home from Mass around 12:30am. My parents would shoo us upstairs pronto so “Santa could come”. My siblings and I would make blanket nests near one of the bedroom window to watch for Rudolph. Once we were upstairs, my parents would fill the stockings and put out the presents from them/Santa. And of course, as kids, we were up and ready to go *early*. I think my dad established the “don’t come downstairs until 6:30” which seems dreadfully early considering how late my parents would have been up the night before getting everything together. We would go through our stockings first. Sometimes, my dad would hang out with us. If we weren’t too loud, my parents would try to grab another 30 minutes of sleep. BUT! we needed to get on with opening the gifts under the tree because we had to be at my Great Aunt’s house for Christmas dinner by 11:30am and it was a 1.5 hour drive. Breakfast was the stocking candy or if you wanted to make yourself some toast or a bagel. Christmas dinner was at 12:30. Gifts from grandma and the great aunts were opened after dinner. If the weather was decent we would stay until 5p-ish. My dad and Great Uncle would watch whatever sports could be found on the tv. My mom, grandma, great aunts, brother and sister would play Spite and Malice. I usually brought a book to read. If the weather was iffy or getting iffy, my grandmother would insist we leave at 3p so we wouldn’t be driving home in the dark. I don’t really remember what we did for dinner once we got home when I was a little kid. Once we got to be teens, we were expected to fend for ourselves. Most of the time this meant leftover pizza.
For my own family now: I have 2 teens. For the past couple of years, I get my daughter out of bed by 8:30. My son is an early riser and I feel like by 8:30 he/we have waited long enough. We open the stockings. Then we start on the gifts. We do it in rounds. Someone will get a gift for each person from the tree and the we take turns opening the gifts. Once the gifts are opened, we make waffles, hash browns and sausage for brunch. Dinner is usually around 3p. We have snacks or the stocking candy in between brunch and dinner. The time between brunch and dinner is spent reading books, playing with new toys or video games or whatever. I’m usually prepping dinner. Lastly, everyone is on there own for any food they want to consume after the big dinner. We don’t do a third sit down meal on Christmas. Most of the time after the big dinner and the subsequent clean up, the kids will be playing video games and will eat while they play.
Oh! On Christmas Eve, we order out for dinner. Sometimes its Christmas Eve pizza. Sometimes it’s carry out from our favorite restaurants. I’m always making something on Christmas Eve for the next day’s dinner so there isn’t as much to do. So I never feel like cooking dinner on Christmas Eve.
Anyway, looks like you have many, many descriptions of what people do for Christmas Eve and Christmas so you have lots of options to choose from.
Have a wonderful Christmas!
When my brothers and I were teenagers, we did gifts Christmas morning after breakfast (cereal). I don’t remember when my mom stopped doing stockings but it was sometime when we were all in our teens. We never had any must-do traditions but sometimes we’d drive around to look at lights after Christmas eve mass. We usually had the big meal at lunchtime on christmas day and then we would sometimes go to a movie.
Not having “must-do” traditions makes it simpler but maybe less festive.
As adults, Christmas was usually whatever day everyone could get together and we would have drawn names for the adults at thanksgiving so that each adult only had to deal with one present for one person. Kids excluded – we could spoil the kids (or not) depending on if we found things we thought they would like. This year we did separate meetups and tomorrow will be quiet.
I still have littler kids, so I don’t know how much of this will be helpful, but I will share what we do in case any of it will work for you. I went from a Christmas Eve tradition with my own family to a hybrid model, so to speak, once I got married and had kids of my own. Every other year we take a very long drive to stay with my parents over Christmas and so continue the Christmas Eve tradition with that side of the family (my parents, Sister One’s family, and sometimes Sister Two and her now-adult daughter, if they can travel from out of state). However, in the years we stay home for Christmas, we do our personal family Christmas in the morning and the Christmas with my husband’s family in the afternoon. This had the potential to lead to some very tricky questions about Santa and why presents were received at different times/days, etc., etc., so we decided to make traditions consistent across years no matter where we were. On Christmas Eve, we order pizza for dinner and open any gifts from my side of the family. The rest of the evening is snacking on cookies/eggnog and the kids playing with cousins and/or their new toys. We might throw on a Christmas movie just before bed to wind everybody down, or play a family game. Santa comes overnight, and we have our personal family Christmas in the morning (before breakfast because little kids can’t wait, but I can imagine waiting until after breakfast with older kids/teens). I actually started making my parents wait until Christmas morning to open their stocking presents when we visit because as far as my kids know, Santa fills the stockings, and it’s nice to have them join us in part of our tradition when we visit (my sister does highly religious, immediate-family only Christmas at their house on Christmas Day, which I view as a chance to get my parents all to myself for the day). When we’re at my parents’, the rest of Christmas Day is completely lazy, and in fact, a few years ago, when my mom started having memory problems and meal-planning became more challenging, we began a tradition of eating lunch out at a regional chain/Marie Calendar’s-type restaurant my parents like (and having leftover pizza for dinner). I love having a chill Christmas Day, especially because when we’re home, in a typical year, I have to almost immediately start cooking for getting together with my in-laws in the afternoon. This year, I get to have my favorite parts of both years – opening some presents on Christmas Eve, and having an only-us family Christmas/lazy afternoon on Christmas Day. We are going to order lunch from a restaurant and possibly Zoom with my parents briefly during the day, but otherwise it will be nice and calm. Christmas Day breakfast I typically try to make something nice, like crepes. This year, my older daughter wanted to help, so we’re going to make chocolate chip pancakes. Or, since both my girls are getting cookbooks this year, there will be a fight over who gets to cook what for breakfast. Hm. Guess I should have anticipated that one a littler better.
I make sausage gravy and prep an egg/broccoli/cheese casserole the night before Christmas. The casserole and biscuits go in when I wake up and the gravy gets put on to warm. We always put a savory snack like cheezits in the stockings to hold kids over until early brunch. We do that plus a fruit platter for brunch and then keep nibbling for lunch. Around 4 I set out cheese, shrimp, summer sausage, crackers, and snackie veggies for a grazing sort of dinner. I don’t cook on Christmas!