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Christmas Eve Traditions :-)

  • 25-09-2011 2:34pm
    #1
    Registered Users Posts: 14,240 ✭✭✭✭leahyl


    I'm sure thus thread has probably been done before but I'm feeling very christmassy today so what the heck!!

    What do you all do on Christmas Eve? Do you have certain traditions that you keep to every year?

    I'm 26, single and still living at home so always spend Christmas Eve with the 'rents! We usually go to a shopping centre for a look around, then visit friends of my parents and then get a takeaway before heading back home to eat chocs and relax before the big day :-D my friends birthday is Christmas Day so I normally drop off her gift to her house on Christmas Eve also!

    What I love also about Christmas Eve is Joe Duffys radio show from Grafton Street! Makes me all sentimental! Jesus I'll drive my future husband insane!! :-D


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Comments

  • Moderators, Education Moderators, Regional South East Moderators Posts: 12,466 Mod ✭✭✭✭byhookorbycrook


    Christmas candle lit in the window. A few clean rushes at the door, supposed to be a resting place for the Holy Family.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 13,429 ✭✭✭✭star-pants


    Christmas Eve is my mothers birthday - so we usually get a chinese :)
    (I too live at home at present, so it's me, my parents and two of my siblings, and the dogs!)
    Showers, clean beds and fresh pjs are always part of the evening plan.


  • Registered Users Posts: 14,240 ✭✭✭✭leahyl


    star-pants wrote: »
    Christmas Eve is my mothers birthday - so we usually get a chinese :)
    (I too live at home at present, so it's me, my parents and two of my siblings, and the dogs!)
    Showers, clean beds and fresh pjs are always part of the evening plan.

    Aaaw that's lovely :-) i love watching the news at 6 on RTE as well cos they always show "Santa heading off from the North Pole" ahem! Lol! I love that RTE have kept that tradition!


  • Registered Users Posts: 12,921 ✭✭✭✭hdowney


    am trying to think of specific Christmas Eve traditions (we have several Christmas traditions) and i don't think i can think of any tbh.

    there is the preparing the sock for santa claus, and possibly sitting by the fire with a nice glass of wine. oh wait, we always have gammon steaks for Christmas Eve dinner.

    my Christmas Day and Boxing Day traditions are more prominant tho.

    Christmas morning, i still CANNOT sleep, and i am 26! the mother has a rule though, no waking her before 7am!. so 7am i bring coffee in to her room and we open the stockings. then we get up and have a fried breakfast and head to church (damn snow last year scuppered everything).

    come home from church and i am in charge of the dinner. all timed meticulously i might add. once the oven is on and the glass of wine poured we can sit and open the presents under the tree.

    then we have our four course christmas dinner and die!!!

    we have a Boxing Day tradition that my aunt started when i was young. she sent me a present and on it was do not open til Boxing Day. she did this so that BD wasn't the big comedown it usually is. so now each year the mother and i give each other one present that cannot be opened until that day :)


  • Registered Users Posts: 14,240 ✭✭✭✭leahyl


    hdowney wrote: »
    am trying to think of specific Christmas Eve traditions (we have several Christmas traditions) and i don't think i can think of any tbh.

    there is the preparing the sock for santa claus, and possibly sitting by the fire with a nice glass of wine. oh wait, we always have gammon steaks for Christmas Eve dinner.

    my Christmas Day and Boxing Day traditions are more prominant tho.

    Christmas morning, i still CANNOT sleep, and i am 26! the mother has a rule though, no waking her before 7am!. so 7am i bring coffee in to her room and we open the stockings. then we get up and have a fried breakfast and head to church (damn snow last year scuppered everything).

    come home from church and i am in charge of the dinner. all timed meticulously i might add. once the oven is on and the glass of wine poured we can sit and open the presents under the tree.

    then we have our four course christmas dinner and die!!!

    we have a Boxing Day tradition that my aunt started when i was young. she sent me a present and on it was do not open til Boxing Day. she did this so that BD wasn't the big comedown it usually is. so now each year the mother and i give each other one present that cannot be opened until that day :)

    Lovely traditions hdowney! :-)


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  • Moderators Posts: 24,367 ✭✭✭✭ChewChew


    I Live alone and so does my mum so on Christmas eve morning I pack up my stuff and fill the car and retire to mams house. We go and do some shopping/browsing. Home then and we'll cook the turkey then visit my sister and her kids and hubby. Back to her house and then she'll do what she does and I'll meet friends for gift exchange, a meal and a few drinks then back to hers.

    This year she is working Christmas eve and Christmas day so I'll be on my own during the 2 days and I'll prepare dinner and have it ready for her :)


  • Registered Users Posts: 199 ✭✭liamo22


    ChewChew everytime i read one of your posts all i can think of is that you do not sound like a "SADISTIC HEARTLESS BITCH" :pac: you sound nicer :D

    anyways Christmas Eve is for me alot better than the big day itself! I always go shopping with my parents and sister and we would have a meal before coming home and watching movies, drinking hot chocolate and of course the big christmas eve tradition ..... Watching the Christmas episode of Father Ted! :D
    I am the one who is christmas mad in the family to be honest the rest of them think I am just a bit mad so I always make my own little traditions like always watching home alone at exactly midnight christmas eve, visiting my elderly neighbours to make sure they are ok (although I do this almost every day) and just spending time with my family :)

    What I really like about Christmas Eve is the journey home by the many thousands of people not just in Ireland but throughout the world! The fact that everyone wants to be home and with family just for this one day and how they would do anything to make sure they get there. I know a friend of mine who works in a busy hospital in north Dublin. She was working the week before Christmas, Christmas Eve and Day and the whole week after, last year and with the snow she stayed in the hospital but on Christmas eve after her shift she took an 8 hour trip home to Fermanagh just to spend the night with her family and she was back in work at 1pm the next day!. I always find stories like this so nice.

    Christmas brings out the best in people and that's what I like to see. I dont care if we have no money this year or we get no presents as long as i can spend time with the ones I love and have my full health I will always be happy.

    Im 19 btw and I dont know anyone else as mad as Christmas my age :rolleyes: Sorry for rambelling :(


  • Moderators, Business & Finance Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators Posts: 24,650 Mod ✭✭✭✭Loughc


    Ah loving this thread!! :D

    Christmas eve for me involves heading to the Parents house, I stay there Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, then out for a nice lunch somewhere, then a nice relaxing stroll around town while having a chuckle at people rushing around buying last minute presents, although for the past 2 years I was one of those rushing, but not this year! haha.

    Then its off to my local for a few pints with friends, not too many tho, nobody wants a hangover for Christmas Day, haha.

    Then after the pub, stop off in the chippy and then home to watch some telly with the parents while getting the presents sorted for all the nieces and nephews (14 in total!!! :eek:)

    Then a freshly cooked ham sandwich with a cup of tea and bed shortly after that. You can't beat the Christmas Eve hang sandwich, my sister has her own family and house and yet she still calls down every Christmas Eve to get her ham sandwich, haha.


    Actually just re-read that it sounds like all I do is eat, its not!!! :P LOL Maybe at Christmas time I do!!! :P


  • Registered Users Posts: 14,240 ✭✭✭✭leahyl


    lockie1983 wrote: »
    Ah loving this thread!! :D

    Christmas eve for me involves heading to the Parents house, I stay there Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, then out for a nice lunch somewhere, then a nice relaxing stroll around town while having a chuckle at people rushing around buying last minute presents, although for the past 2 years I was one of those rushing, but not this year! haha.

    Then its off to my local for a few pints with friends, not too many tho, nobody wants a hangover for Christmas Day, haha.

    Then after the pub, stop off in the chippy and then home to watch some telly with the parents while getting the presents sorted for all the nieces and nephews (14 in total!!! :eek:)

    Then a freshly cooked ham sandwich with a cup of tea and bed shortly after that. You can't beat the Christmas Eve hang sandwich, my sister has her own family and house and yet she still calls down every Christmas Eve to get her ham sandwich, haha.


    Actually just re-read that it sounds like all I do is eat, its not!!! :P LOL Maybe at Christmas time I do!!! :P

    Sure that's what it's all about! Eating, drinking and being merry!! :-)


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,815 ✭✭✭lisasimpson


    so gald its a saturday this year. last few yrs have meant working till near three. then an hr and a half drive up home to the parents hse. generlly by the time i get home christmas eve mum already has the turkey in the oven so the smell is starting to develop. then after a chat, a ham sandwhich and a cupps off to deliver pressies, and when i get back home turkey is cooked so i have the wing with some hot herb stuffing before off to bed in new pjs even at 28 i still have the new pjs for xmas eve.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 10,264 ✭✭✭✭Alicat


    For the past ten years, I've worked every Christmas Eve til 6pm, and it's not going to change this year either. We don't get a choice!

    We have our Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve, and we invite all the family around, and even our next-door neighbours. There could be as many as 20 of us there some years. So when I get home from work, and drive to my parents', normally the guests are just arriving and it's straight into helping getting dinner served. I don't go 'off duty' til about 10pm so I'm normally wrecked after being in work from 9 or 10 that morning. As a result of that long day, I sleep like a baby on Christmas Eve :D

    That leaves Christmas Day to just veg out completely. There's no hassle of cooking or going visiting loads of people if we don't feel like it 'cause we'll have seen a lot of them the night before. We have leftovers for dinner and just chill.

    I would absolutely love love LOVE a Christmas Eve off one year though.


  • Registered Users Posts: 14,240 ✭✭✭✭leahyl


    Alicat wrote: »
    For the past ten years, I've worked every Christmas Eve til 6pm, and it's not going to change this year either. We don't get a choice!

    We have our Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve, and we invite all the family around, and even our next-door neighbours. There could be as many as 20 of us there some years. So when I get home from work, and drive to my parents', normally the guests are just arriving and it's straight into helping getting dinner served. I don't go 'off duty' til about 10pm so I'm normally wrecked after being in work from 9 or 10 that morning. As a result of that long day, I sleep like a baby on Christmas Eve :D

    That leaves Christmas Day to just veg out completely. There's no hassle of cooking or going visiting loads of people if we don't feel like it 'cause we'll have seen a lot of them the night before. We have leftovers for dinner and just chill.

    I would absolutely love love LOVE a Christmas Eve off one year though.

    Oh Alicat, I know how you feel with working on Christmas Eve. When I used to work in retail I would nearly always be working Christmas Eve and it used to ruin the whole day for me. I just love having it off now! If I didn't, I feel I'd miss out on all the Christmas Eve festivities! (not that there are any in particular in my house!)

    I have great respect for all those working on Christmas Eve :)


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,257 ✭✭✭Love2love


    I love Christmas Eve more than Christmas day! Normally I get up and strip the beds, love new sheets and covers for Christmas! Me and my son bake cookies and cakes for Santa! The smell is very christmassy!
    Then into town with the family. I always try to leave something to buy for Christmas eve just for the buzz in the air that's in town. Then somewhere to eat and then to Mammy's to meet up for 7:30 mass and Ham sambos! (Surprising just how many have that tradition, thought it was just us!)

    Then home, bath the kids, get into new PJ's and leave out the Cookies/ Cakes for Santa. Read the kids a story and when there asleep, I get all the Santa things ready. Sit down with a beer and watch Scrooged.

    Love, love, love Christmas Eve!!!


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,429 ✭✭✭branie


    Going to 10:00 mass and opening the presents from under the tree afterwards.


  • Registered Users Posts: 588 ✭✭✭littlehedgehog


    We have Christmas dinner (anything but turkey - generally beef or pork) on Christmas eve :) then my family go to mass, and I pass out on the couch.. When they come home, it's chocolates and tea and then bed.
    Christmas day, we get up about 8/9, and open presents.. Then breakfast, and the parents go visiting while I make lunch. About 5, we all pile in the car as the whole family descend on my aunt's house about 6pm, because it's next to my granny's and then she can see us all :)
    On steven's day, we go to another aunts, and my dad drops my brother and I home.. Where we've developed another tradition over the past few years - take away and watching movies that we got for Christmas :D awesomeness! I love Christmas :D


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,247 ✭✭✭milli milli


    Love2love wrote: »
    I get all the Santa things ready

    Don't you mean, you help Santa to get things ready??!! :D

    I'm really loving reading peoples traditions.
    My Christmas eve is quite chilled out. I rarely have any shopping to do. Shopping Christmas Eve is a nitemare so I avoid it if I can.
    I usually finish wrapping pressies at some stage during the day. I'll meet friends for a drink around 5 or 6 but don't stay out late. I'll usually go up to Mums for a bite to eat and to give her a hand, but she usually has things under control. Then I get ready for midnight mass and go there with my Auntie. My 2 brothers used to join us, but they stopped going a few years ago.
    Then I go home and stay in Mum and Dads. We might watch the end of a Christmas film. I like to go to bed early, so I can be up early Christmas morning! (don't like to miss anything!)

    But the last two years my plans were changed with the weather. I stayed in my brothers house out the country, so had to leave early Christmas Eve to avoid the worst of the weather, so had to forgo meeting friends.

    Also a tradition that Mum started when we were teenagers was to open one pressie Christmas Eve, so I do that too!


  • Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators Posts: 27,502 Mod ✭✭✭✭Posy


    Love2love wrote: »
    I love Christmas Eve more than Christmas day!
    Me too! :D
    I sometimes find the anticipation of something is often better than the something itself and Christmas Day sometimes falls under that category!! ;)


  • Registered Users Posts: 14,240 ✭✭✭✭leahyl


    Posy wrote: »
    Me too! :D
    I sometimes find the anticipation of something is often better than the something itself and Christmas Day sometimes falls under that category!! ;)

    Totally agree! I looooove Christmas Eve - it's just the whole build up, knowing everyone is heading home for Christmas or out shopping for the last bits before travelling home - gets me all excited! It's not that I don't like Christmas Day - I do, mainly for the dinner (!) but the run up to Christmas is more exciting I guess!:D


  • Moderators, Business & Finance Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators Posts: 24,650 Mod ✭✭✭✭Loughc


    leahyl wrote: »
    Totally agree! I looooove Christmas Eve - it's just the whole build up, knowing everyone is heading home for Christmas or out shopping for the last bits before travelling home - gets me all excited! It's not that I don't like Christmas Day - I do, mainly for the dinner (!) but the run up to Christmas is more exciting I guess!:D

    I know the feeling! Even the few weekends before Christmas Eve, are great craic, watching how busy the town is, seeing everyone getting in better and better form as they get closer to the holidays. And then the chaos of Christmas Eve itself is an event in itself.

    I love aswell just how peaceful Christmas Day is itself, every year I keep forgetting how eerily quiet it is outside, it's like the whole country stops for the day, I love it! :D


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,031 ✭✭✭tmc86


    This thread has managed to make me very christmassy even with the warm weather outside today!

    I finish up work on christmas eve for a half day and get the train down to the parents. Last year was beautiful weather and snow eveywhere and I was walking through town amongst the hustle and bustle with all me pressies!

    I get home unpack, wrap the presents then head downstairs for some wine with the family and dinner. then we head up to mass and have a few drinks in the local afterwards and bump into some old faces!

    home to freshly made beds and sleep till about 9am. up then and shower small brekkie and some bucks fizz followed by presents.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 42 PhantomShrimp


    Every year I watch Transformers Animated Movie, open gifts with my OH. Get in the car and drive home. I drop her off first and spend a little time with her family, then head home and spend time drinking coffee and catching up with my family. Next year we'll be married so probably new traditions.

    A new-ish tradition over the past three years is taking the dog for a walk in the snow after I drive down. Hopefully it won't take 5 and a half hours to get from Dub to Cork this year :eek:

    CHRISTMAS!!!!!


  • Registered Users Posts: 486 ✭✭DUBACC


    leahyl wrote: »
    Aaaw that's lovely :-) i love watching the news at 6 on RTE as well cos they always show "Santa heading off from the North Pole" ahem! Lol! I love that RTE have kept that tradition!


    :D Must admit i always watch that too. It used to be on the radio at about 5.20pm where someone would ring Santa and he'd talk about setting out from the North Pole. I remember hearing that as young kids and was amazed!! Ah the innocence......


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,522 ✭✭✭neilthefunkeone


    Grandparents come up and we get a big chinese dinner in.. Then im off to Molloys in Tallaght for drinks with all the friends..

    Not living at home this christmas but im sure its gonna be mostly the same!

    Cant beat it!:D


  • Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 15,676 Mod ✭✭✭✭Tabnabs


    Best day of the year Christmas Eve, bar none!!

    I'm very lucky to have a Scandinavian background so we celebrate two Christmases. On Chrismas Eve the family gathers in my parents house for the first Christmas dinner, this is usually a traditional Scandinavian dish including on occasion reindeer (don't tell the kids about the meat they're munching away on!). Then all sit around the christmas tree which is stock piled with presents from our extended family abroad and one person is nominated to dish out the gifts. This usually takes over an hour and is a wonderful family time. Then we have christmas cake, cookies and chocolates and sit there browsing through our gifts.

    Then we get up on christmas day, head to the inlaws and do it all again!


  • Registered Users Posts: 486 ✭✭DUBACC


    Cristmas Eve is definitely the best day of the lot! Usually spend part of it with my gran, who's 93 now - she is more christmas-mad than any of us!!

    Then home and make dinner while watching 'Its a Wonderful Life' - such a magical christmas film. After that we usually have a look around the movie channels as there is always one dreadfully cringy, yet lovely :D christmas film on. Up to 10 mass then and back to the wife's family home up the road. Big gang of us there having a few beers and raiding the freshly cooked ham for a sambo!! The sight of her chasing her fully grown sons around the kitchen always makes me laugh!!!

    This year might change though as we have a new baby daughter - ive already bought the santa suit so cant wait!!!


  • Registered Users Posts: 89 ✭✭Hufflepuff


    Love love love christmas eve :) Get the turkey and ham on in the afternoon and prep all the veg and stuff for christmas day. Always have a take away for dinner then into new jimjams and watch Muppets Christmas Carol . This thread is making me feel sooooooo christmassey:)


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,247 ✭✭✭milli milli


    Tabnabs wrote: »
    I'm very lucky to have a Scandinavian background so we celebrate two Christmases. On Chrismas Eve the family gathers in my parents house for the first Christmas dinner, this is usually a traditional Scandinavian dish including on occasion reindeer tofu!. Then all sit around the christmas tree which is stock piled with presents from our extended family abroad and one person is nominated to dish out the gifts. This usually takes over an hour and is a wonderful family time. Then we have christmas cake, cookies and chocolates and sit there browsing through our gifts.

    Then we get up on christmas day, head to the inlaws and do it all again!

    I love this (apart from the reindeer-eating). I would love to partake in a Scandinavian Christmas.


  • Registered Users Posts: 14,240 ✭✭✭✭leahyl


    Delighted everybody is enjoying the thread and it's making you all feel that extra bit more Christmassy!! ;-)


  • Registered Users Posts: 6 liv26


    Great Thread!
    I usually prep everything for the dinner first, then not too much pressure christmas morning. In the evening i meet my boyfriend and we exchange gifts as usually dont see each other christmas day. The go to mass and come home and watch christmas father ted.

    Cant wait now


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  • Registered Users Posts: 12 RainbowJack


    Love this thread but reading about your ham sambo's is making me jealous - I used to love those but since I had my daughter nearly 5 years ago I haven't had one on Christmas eve:eek:. We don't cook christmas dinner in our house (always go to my mam and dads!), and we used to go to his parents or mine on christmas eve just to get the ham sambo's but now like to stay at home and get all excited with our daughter!

    Our christmas eve normally involves going shopping - even though we usually don't need to buy anything but love the atmosphere! I love coming home and spending the evening wrapping presents and listening to christmas songs while my daughter "helps"! We have dinner then watch the news to see Santa leaving the North Pole! Baths/showers then into our new pj's (yes I know I'm a bigger child then my poor daughter but I gotta have new pj's too!). Leaving the glass of milk and some pudding for Santa and of course the carrot for Rudolph! Once my daughter is settled in bed is when my excitement goes through the roof, helping santa with the presents while drinking wine;)!

    Love Christmas!


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