Favorite Christmas Tradition

Oh I love this thread !

I have so many. I love taking out my Christmas folder before Christmas and flicking through all the prep we need to do etc.

I love our elf on the shelf antics!

I love that Mr glitz and I take our annual Christmas trip minus the minis to Dublin for some food and drink and just soaking up the atmosphere.

I love getting our Christmas Eve boxes ready

Oh and the toy show night with our goody bags and new pjs and take out.

I love Christmas Eve! A big fry up for breakie and something light for lunch the kids have their own special Christmas eve delph sets. And we do some prep for tomorrow watch a movie make some treats for Santa. Do our Santa and rudolph poem at night time in the garden. We go for a lovely drive around to see the house lights in the neighbouring estates etc. Then Christmas Eve boxes are opened,and bath and bed time,while Mr glitz and I chill and prep for tomorrow !

I'm actually very fond of the big Christmas clean up too :pac:

Omg I forgot the traditional ham sandwich which is sneakily consumed late Christmas eve :pac: followed by my giving out and complaining that Mr glitz is ruining my Christmas ham hahaha

I think elf on the shelf is creepy, and could stress out a kid so we don't have it in our house. I find that Santa is watching is enough. Please don't take that as I am having a go at anyone who does, each to their own.

There used to be a house in Rathfarham kind of area, narrow round as if you were going to roundwood direction which we were brought to as kids. There was a gnome house on that road too.

Love threads like this, I'm hoping this year to start some new traditions that we can do together, since Christmas Day itself is a bit meh for me these days.

Some of the stuff we do for traditions;

- Go to the Gloria Christmas Concert in St. Patricks Cathedral
- Cook the ham in the slow cooker on Christmas Eve and have a warm ham sambo in the evening
- Watch A Muppet Christmas Carol while putting up the tree
- Stockings on the fireplace for us and the two cats, with a new toy for each of the cats for Christmas Day :rolleyes:
- Get to some kind of Christmas market (whether in Ireland or abroad)
- French toast for breakfast on Christmas Day

Aww, with the fact it's raining here now and it's not horribly hot I'm feeling all festive

Just back to reality after our summer holidays away & am looking forward to adding to this thread... just not today though, struggling under a backlog of emails & work that hasnt been touched while I was away.
Only 5 short months until we're well into the build up though, that'll fly in.

The wife and I have started doing something "festive" here (we live in the UK) before we head back to Ireland for Xmas.

3 years ago: Xmas Market (we go every year but deliberately put it off until the very end this year)
2 years ago: theatre production of A Christmas Carol
Last Year: The Snowman with a live orchestra and narrated by Podge from Game of Thrones (the second half was Xmas Carols but we left at the interval having seen what we wanted to see).


Pressure is on this year to find something. I'm hoping for a classic movie being shown in one of the smaller, older cinemas.

Used to be waking up on Christms morning and watching black and white movies like tarzan et al but nowadays its listening to the Christmas music as the whole family helps out with dinner.

Christmas eve watching Scrooged is a big one for me too.

We do lunch out Christmas Eve every year since we married. In recent years since the kids arrived we’ve done Christmas Eve afternoon tea, it’s the official start to Christmas. We come home and the kids open their Christmas Eve box followed by Arthur Christmas and then we leave something out for santa

A favourite activity every year is the day that Lewin and me go into town for Christmas shopping: the atmosphere around town, look at the Christmas scene figures in the GPO, stroll along Henry St.
We always have lunch at the upstairs café in Eason's.
Eason's, by the way, is a great place for Christmas shopping: Books, calendars, posters, toys, maps, jigsaws, craft supplies....it all makes for a good day in December.

We buy a Lego Winter Village set every year, to add to our collection, which goes under the tree! Building it, really gets me in the Christmas mood!
They release a new one every year, and retire it after 2 years. Their 2018 set is released this week, for lego members only, and I am besides myself with excitement!
https://www.brothers-brick.com/2018/09/09/lego-reveals-10263-winter-village-fire-station-as-their-next-holiday-set-news/

chuckles30 wrote: »

That's fab Sundew

Chuckles look what happens when you have a build up of ten sets!
My idea of heaven but could be a Christmas nightmare for some :-D

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lRMYJzjSvjg
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=r_9EXxQ8h6I#

DvB wrote: »

That is absolutely brilliant.
Love building lego with the kids but can only imagine the work that went into something as detailed as that. Taking it apart would be such a shame. I'd have to box it as it is & keep it for ech year.

I have a few of the bigger winter village sets boxed like the Winter Cottage (use a plastic lidded box and put em in the attic). A few small ones I rebuild but it’s still much easier to store then solid Christmas village sets like the Lemax houses.....and you can alway break them up and make your own non- official Christmas buildings.
For future ref if anybody is reading: The retired sets are going for way over their original price sometimes 4 times what they were. Lego re-released a retired Winter Village Toy Shop was 2/3 years ago to the consternation of 2nd hand sellers. My advise is not to pay the inflated 2nd hand prices as I am pretty sure demand for the Winter/ Christmas Village sets, will ensure re-releases of retired buildings. I’m waiting to get my hands on the 2011 set as it has just got too expensive to buy second hand! :-(