Christmas!

Christmas will be here before you know it! :shock:
Soon, I'll be a fulltime student, which means we will have less money, and need to plan things well in advance. With three little boys though, there isn't a holiday season that even compares. I LOVE IT.


Anyhow I'd love to hear some of your christmas traditions, or ideas for inexpensive things to do.
I would like to really maximize our time not just money.




There is a Minor League ballpark by my inlaws that has a massive light display so that is on the list.
I'm thinking the whole family gets involved with helping the wife do some baking.

Wish I could offer some suggestions, but in spite of my efforts, it doesn't work that way around our house. No matter what I say...my wife and family always spends way too much on the girls and they never appreciate it like they should.
You seem to have the right idea so far. Time together is the best gift that creates memories forever.

A Christmas Tradition at my families house.
This is going to be long winded, its a major family event.

We celebrate Christmas Eve night, well actually since I got married we celebrate Christmas on New Years weekend, but you get the idea.

The women cook up dinner and the family/guests arrive around 4:00pm. Everyone dresses in our Sunday best, after all this is the birth of Christ.
Men serve beverages, age appropriate, and set the tables.
Prayer starts about 4:45pm. We do a round robin, everyone gets their turn to say what they are thankfull for.
Dinner at 5pm.
Clean up and the house preped for the rest of the night by about 6:30pm.
Another round of beverages.

Now begins our Christmas program.
We open with a Christmas Carol or two.
Everyone in teh family contributes something to the program, a special song (vocal, instrument), Christmas reading, poem, Bible reading, etc. 'Interspercied through out the program are more Chirstmas carols. Finally closed with another prayer, or special announcment.

Another round of beverages, potty break, and if there is still a dry eye in the house the booze will solve that come time for presents.
The children play Santas Helpers and make sure the gifts are distributed properly. Keeps them occupied.
We open gifts one at a time. If there is a story to go with the gift, it also gets shared.
We usually have another potty, beverage break or two through out the night. Intermissions.
Typically we finish up about 2 am.

We all look at it this way.
They are FAMILY!!!
Its only once per year.

My sons, wife and I have some very fond memories from Christmas.

A Christmas Tradition at my wifes family.


Christmas Eve night, meet at her brothers house for dinner.
Prayer, dinner, open gifts for the extended family and her parents.
Play a game or two.

By 8pm head over to her Aunt nad Uncles house where the rest of the extended family shows up. About 100 people or so.
Drink heavily, swap stories, socialize, etc.
Attend midnight service.
Home to bed.

Christmas day, Santa arrives. Those who believe receive.
Open gifts.
Eat brunch, play games, spend the day hanging out witht he immediate family. As the kids got older their friends would show up and spend the day too.
Eat dinner and chill for the night.



Two different families and two different traditions we do every year for the past 20 something years.

We also have traditions for Thanksgiving weekend.
Friday is Black Friday, my wife goes shopping and I decorate the outside of the hosue for Christmas.
My town has the Festival of Lights Parade every Saturday after Thanskgiving. The whole town decorates for it, its a major event and draws people from all over.

Saturday my family goes Christmas tree shopping, we cut a live tree from a tree farm every year. Bring it home and set it up. I mount it into the tree stand, and put the lights on. The rest of them put up all the ornaments and decorate the rest of the house. Whiel they are decorating the tree, I get out the platform for the Charles Dicken village we set up in teh bay window. The women set up the village. We pack all the empty boxes up and put them away. Do dinner and head down to watch the Fesival of Lights Parade.

Now that our sons are married, their wifes have the privilage of picking the tree out. Its a sight to see. All 6 of us pile into 2 trucks and we pack in the 4 dogs (Lab, Border Collie, and 2 Shih-Tzus) and tree shopping we go. I whack the tree down with a bow saw, and let the boys carry it back, or wait for the tractor/hay rack.

https://www.cityofeastpeoria.com/index.cfm?pageID=28
The floats are built around full size cars/trucks. Watch the video. There are some pretty neet floats, all lite up with thousands of lights.

hanr3, sounds like a great time with your family.


I'm already excited for Christmas. We are still building our Christmas traditions, since we only recently starting doing christmas/thanksgiving with our family, (the wife, me, the boys)


One of the things we want to do, is let Santa bring toys, and we (mom/dad) are going to take them to a couple of the museums in Chicago. Hopefully see some dinosaur fossils. They will remember that much better than some toys. We asked them to tell us 3 things they remember getting last year and they couldn't. They even got a Wii, which they were standing right by when I asked, and they didn't name it.

Lon, on Christmas eve, after all of the family get together thing, we load the kids up in the car, and ride around town and look at all the christmas lights. We're fortunate enough to have a couple of people who live in town that put up thousands of dollars in christmas lights and decorations each year, and open their driveway to the public to ride through, free of charge. Inexpensive, and the kids love it. Check around your town and see if maybe you guys have something like that.

Hanr3, you've really got the right idea. I love your traditions! After reading yours I'm going to adopt a few of them.

Some great stuff here. =D>

Many times we too just didn't have the money to really go crazy with gifts. We did though always figure a way to go look at lights prior to Christmas... Then it was make cinnamon rolls on Christmas eve then off to Midnight mass. Home for a breakfast of cinnamon rolls (yes you can have more than one) with a nice cup of hot chocolate to wash it down...depending on the sleepyness of the family we would sometimes then open presents. It seemed like the big things for the kids was the making of usually food stuff to give away....if the kids couldn't cook up something we would use some canned goods like jellys and the like.. But we always made the kids wrap the presents. And then the kids were the ones to hand the gifts to our neighbors, mailman etc. they really loved that.
good luck to you and yours and May I be the first to wish you a Merry Christmas.!

One of the best Chirstmases I remember was when we had almost no money. We went out to a dollar type store and bought the inexpensive plain color Christmas balls, some glue and some glitter. Then we wrote a friend's name and the year in glue on each one and covered the glue in glitter then let it dry. Then during the week leading up to Christmas we delivered them to our friends and spent some time with each of them. Years later if we stopped by around Christmas time those decorated balls we made were always on the tree and seemed to be very cherished.

Thanks! Adopt as many as you want, we didnt come up with them on our own either. We did mold them to fit our family.

For many years we couldn't afford expensive gifts and let the kids know in advance so they weren't disappointed on Christmas.
My wife an I each took the kids to make gifts for the other spouse. I still have most of those gifts around the house, and we ate the others.

Good stuff here guys!

Glad to see people still enjoy the holiday for what it is and not a time to only go shopping for gifts. Every year we do Christmas Eve at the in-laws and Christmas day with my side of the family. Just being together with everyone makes it awesome.

Also now that I have 3 little ones, Watching them open the few gifts form santa is a treat.

To be honest, my joy is giving the gifts, I really don't care to get any.

On Christmas Eve for the last 20 years or so a bunch of the family would get together and go to service around 6pm and watch the Christmas program put on by the kids in Bible School. After that we would go down to my Aunt and Uncle's where we would eat, drink the wine that my uncle makes, and just have a merry ol' time. We then started doing the "gift exchange".

Everyone would bring a gift that cost's $10. Then everyone would draw numbers. Start with number 1. That person would pick a gift, then the next person could either take that gift or pick a new one. Do that all the way to the end and then everyone opens their gift. It's always a blast because there is always 1 or 2 gifts that everyone wants! So it could go on for hours.


Now that I'm engaged, we have talked about what to do around Christmas. My fiance's grandpa turned 90 this year and his health has taken a turn for the worse. So we are going to go to church with him and that part of her family. Then go to his house and have supper. Then we will go to my Aunt and Uncle's.




On Christmas day, we start out at my parents house. We eat breakfast, and open a few gifts from my parents. Then we do a little gift exchange with my siblings and nephews. We exchange names before and buy each other gifts around $25.

Then we go to her parents house for lunch and open a few gifts that they bought us.

Then usually the weekend after Christmas is when all of her sisters and brother can get together at her parents house. We do a gift exchange with her siblings as well. Then we sit around and watch all the kids open gifts that the Grandparents bought them. She has 5 nieces and nephews so it is always a blast to watch them open presents. Then we have a huge feast!

Every year for as long as I can remember....we always went to Christmas Eve Mass then went home for food and gift exchanges. Then...after I got married...we still continue this tradition with my family and their families. We take turns hosting that night each year. Christmas morning though, has been (for my kids) about waking up to see what Santa has brought. My wife and I made the decision years ago that Christmas day was to be spent with "our" girls and not traveling from one family to the other. We have maintained that tradition and really appreciate the time we get to spend together on that day. Since my dad's passing 7 years ago, we do invite my mother to come join us, and she has been a part of the day ever since.
After presents are opened and things kind of settle down, everyone is welcome to go play with new treasures or take a nap or whatever. Plans for later in the day always include a movie. We always go to the theater to watch something "Christmas" related, but one year we couldn't find anything that was worth going to see, so we rented a movie and watched it together at home with popcorn and the works. These are great memories for sure.