So, what are we all doing for Christmas?

[Mikey]

Usual ritual here, Christmas eve is my favourite as it starts with putting the turkey in the oven around lunch then off to the panto, come home baste turk and go back out to our street get together where Santa make a quick pitstop for a mince pie before disappearing off on his travels, then back home for tea and hot turkey and cranberry sandwiches for tea. Then a walk up the local inn for carol singing and a few tots, before coming home and putting the nipper to bed and relaxing before the mayhem of Christmas, and family descending.

[PyreneesPlot]

Christmas is a bit odd for us because my dad died just before Christmas and we moved to France immediately after that Christmas - in fact he died the same weekend that we exchanged on our house sale and both resigned from work.

The madness of trying to do sensible handovers at work, packing a house up to go into storage and organise a funeral meant I didn't deal with my grief until later the next year. It didn't help that we had a car crash too and wrote off our car.

Christmas is therefore a bitter sweet time for us all - a great celebration of new beginnings in France but sadness that dad didn't get to see the house. I don't have any brothers or sisters and all of mum's family are all gone so she always comes to us. Its a good job she likes to eat and drink!!

We'll have goose and champagne and a toast or ten to absent friends.

[Potstubsdustbins]

We love Christmas but we do it our style.

Christmas Eve will be just me and SWMBO, chinese takeaway with a bottle of German white and each other.

Christmas day starts with a full english for me then the son and grandaughter appear for a couple of hours. Late lunch anything but turkey SWMBO has yet to decide.

Boxing day toast and scrambles for breaky and lunch at the pub with friends.

For me then its feet up until Jan 2nd.

Potty

[PyreneesPlot]

If the weather was up to it we always used to take the motorbikes out for a blast on Christmas morning. Nice quiet roads.
We got carried away one year and found the in laws on the doorstep waiting when we got home. Needless to say we were tired, grubby and funnily enough I hadn't started cooking.
Bit of a lead fart moment.

[ladylottie]

Thanks Lottie Stairs I can do!
I have several invites - but I'll probably spend most of the day on my own with beans on toast for lunch My life - my choice - sympathy not required

I'm the same as you VC - after many many years of cooking Christmas dinner for at least 15 people I now love spending Christmas Day on my own. In fact I go to quite a lot of trouble to make sure I do - people always say "You can't be on your own on Christmas Day" and have been known to disrupt their own celebrations to pop over and make sure I'm ok. Nice kind thoughts but not wanted.

I don't eat turkey anyway so usually eat whatever I fancy when I want to. I always have lots of invites but usually choose to stay home. Sometimes I do go over to friends for an hour or so for Christmas tea.

[Tripmeup]

Soooo looking forward to Christmas Eve.......finish work at lunchtime and home to help with whatever needs doing.....then watch the Polar Express with the kids and get them as tired as possible!!
Then its off to bed for them and time for the herself and myself to relax with a glass of vino or two or three in front of a warm fire....Then time to stop vino-ing and "let Santa do his stuff"


Christmas Day morning, my family will visit, and dinner this year is with her family with roast turkey and trimmings and too many Quality Street

[ancee]

We've moved back from Devon to Doncaster, down there = tonnes of family who all came to mine every year we lived there (5 years) so was more like mass catering than a family meal This year it's just George, (hubs) Theo (son) and Madeleine (daughter) the dog and the cat. Oh and me of course! We'll have a lovely family time, and probably eat our Christmas Dinner off trays on our knees as our house is too small for a dining table, unless we put it in the middle of the front room (which is strangely what they do in Coronation Street!) We are keeping it real! Next year we should have the back garden completely sorted, as the decking is done I could put a table out there - and we could eat in the garden

[mothhawk]

A quiet Christmas for me with no visitors I hope, just my mum (94) and me for turkey and trimmings, plus H/M blueberry and cherry pavlova - hate Xmas pud - then a sleepy afternoon to recoup after ten straight twelve hour shifts, family visits on Boxing day, then back to work Thursday...

Jules, I'm curious - do you all put coats on and eat outside, or just barbie the meat and then bring it indoors? (Is that a daft question?)

[julesapple]

No, that's a perfectly good question.

We just barbie the meat outside. No use good steak going cold. We've got a permanent gazebo on the patio, which is sheltered from the wind if it comes in from the coast, but I think it would still be too cold to eat outdoors. Ours is a firepit BBQ so, if it's dry, we might chuck some logs onto the embers after we've had dinner then sit outside and relax with a brandy. We did that in the snow a few years ago.

Our neighbours think we're nuts.....

[WendyC]

OH and I have been married 22 years and this year for only the second time we are at home with just our sons. Sadly we are excited by Christmas telly which we never get to see (except telly is playing up tonight and keeps turning it's self off) Outlaws coming Boxing day.

[Tripmeup]

No, that's a perfectly good question.

We just barbie the meat outside. No use good steak going cold. We've got a permanent gazebo on the patio, which is sheltered from the wind if it comes in from the coast, but I think it would still be too cold to eat outdoors. Ours is a firepit BBQ so, if it's dry, we might chuck some logs onto the embers after we've had dinner then sit outside and relax with a brandy. We did that in the snow a few years ago.

Our neighbours think we're nuts.....

Well you are a Nutter club member

[FROSTYFRECKLE]

Just Mr Frosty and me plus a teeny weeny new addition to our family (albeit a temporary addition). We will be kitten sitting over Christmas and New Year. So no Christmas tree and decorations for us, the tree would probably last 30 secs once Ronnie the kitten arrives. Ronnie is just a wee bag o' bones that fits into my hand, so I'll pop some photos on once we get him.

[Alison]

I like my Christmas to be quite traditional and to me it's really important to see family and friends. We tend to take it in turns to spend the day with one of our mum's and this year it's the MIL so we'll go over to her's for the day and spend it with SIL too. Will be a proper turkey and all the trimmings, I'm taking the Christmas pud which I made a couple of months ago - it's quite a light one without suet so not as filling as some types. Mum is going to my brother's house so we're driving her there on the Sunday before and will have a lot of my family there for a big meal that year. Don't think we've got people coming to ours much but we'll still do a big glazed ham on Christmas Eve which we can then eat cold and I've ordered us a smallish turkey which I'll probably cook the day after Boxing Day so that we'll have loads of left overs which will see us through to the New Year while we're off work. Making me feel hungry thinking about it.

[chris]

We've our own family now, so will be spending it at our home - have got the MIL coming up as she's just had an operation on her foot so won't be up for cooking/looking after folk.

My house is a bit of a tip at the mo, as I've just (pretty much finished) put a new kitchen in (started in August!!! - but I have done it all myself with my old man doing the things that I wasn't able to do(move gas pipes, etc) and only really on the weekends.)

So yep, we'll have a brand new kitchen to enjoy a dinner in. I'm wondering what to cook though, as my MIL doesn't eat meat, I can do without meat but would like to start our family tradition of having xmas at ours now.

My MIL doesn't like nuts either, I've done the various tarts/tartlets for dinner before, meat substitutes - personally I don't agree with (why would I serve you something that looks/tries to taste like meat, when you don't eat meat?)), and they're like rubber anyway.

Looking forward to chilling out over it though - we're taking the kids to a few theater shows, pantos etc - and I've bought a load of booze in so I can enjoy a couple of glasses (bottles) of wine as I won't be driving over xmas

[veggiechicken]

Chris, re the Veggie meal for your MiL - Mushrooms (or anything) wrapped in Filo pastry look good and are easy to do. I may even do that for myself - and thanks
http://www.vegsoc.org/christmas?mc_c...eid=0b0a81e915