Here is something nice about celebrating Christmas on Christmas Eve: the next day, Christmas still isn’t really over. You know most other people are celebrating it right then, and in fact there is a relief to be past the worst part, which is when all your presents have been opened but you know most other people haven’t even started yet. Most businesses are closed, and Christmas music is playing on the radio all day. It still feels like CHRISTMAS. In contrast, after celebrating on Christmas Day, I woke up this morning feeling kind of flat and sad. I turned on the shower radio, which is set to the station that’s been playing Christmas music since Thanksgiving, and it was playing Take Me Home Tonight.
One of the things I like about the whole month of December up until Christmas is the continual enhancing effects of Special Christmassy things: I can listen to Christmas music on my walk and in the shower, and then I can choose a pair of Christmas earrings, and then I can have my breakfast on a Christmas plate and I can have Christmas tea/coffee in my Christmas mug, and there might be something Christmassy in the mail. When I am tediously making dinner for the millionth time, at least I can turn on the Christmas lights and choose the Christmas plates. Right now it feels like that Special Overlay is gone from everything at once, even though I still did use a Christmas plate/mug, and the Christmas lights will stay up until sometime in January. I could have listened to Christmas music on my walk and in the shower, but it didn’t feel right/appealing anymore.
Some of you asked what the Christmas Eve celebration schedule was like. When there are little kids in the family, stockings are filled during their after-lunch naps. (When kids are older, they go to their rooms and pretend to nap.) So then stockings are opened after naptime—earlyish/mid afternoon. (We didn’t do the Santa story, so there was no issue with that.) At around 5:00 we’d have a light dinner, usually soup, and then we’d go to the Candlelight Christmas Eve service at church. (When I had my own kids, we went on a Christmas Light Drive instead of going to church.) After church (or Christmas Light Drive), we’d come home, change into pajamas, and open presents (with wine/cocktails for the grown-ups and sherbet floats for the kids). Partway through presents, like around 9:00, we’d break for Christmas dinner, which was wurstenbroodjes (sausage rolls) and red and green Jell-o salads; then we’d open the rest of the presents, and then bedtime usually thrillingly late, like 11:00 or midnight. That was when The Worst Part was: knowing our Christmas was over, while most other people still had theirs ahead of them.
But then Christmas Day was fun in its own way: wearing new clothes, reading new books, playing with new toys/games/crafts, eating leftover stocking candy. Leftover wurstenbroodjes for breakfast. And by the time we woke up, sleeping late if we wanted to, we knew that most other people had caught up with us and their presents were unwrapped too.
Well! How was your Christmas this year? When I see a question like that, I sometimes feel as if I have to tell the entire story or else summarize broadly or else nothing—like it would be odd to tell just one or two details. But we’re all probably a little too worn out to tell the entire story, and summarizing has a way of making things sound more generic than they were, so I think you should feel completely free to tell just one detail/anecdote, or pick just a few things. That’s what I’m going to do:
• Elizabeth had said that when she didn’t have to wear a scoliosis brace anymore, she wanted to have matching pajama sets—but she didn’t give me a clear idea of what she meant, and I was nervous I’d choose wrong: she’s 15 and that can be a tricky age for mothers to choose fashion; also, women’s sizes vary so much from brand to brand and I wasn’t sure I’d pick the right size. I got her two plaid sets from Old Navy and they were a huge success: they fit great and I could tell she felt very cute in them.
• Paul’s sister’s package did not arrive in time. Her package to us, which she shipped a week after we shipped ours to her, DID arrive in time, so the whole thing feels very unfair. I tried not to let it feel like a very big deal: some people lost PEOPLE this year, and a late package is very minor compared to that. But I wish it had arrived in time, and I hope her Christmas was good anyway.
• I got Rob this Field Guide to Dumb Birds of North America, and I’d dithered about it because it’s very sweary—but every time I looked at the sample pages I laughed, so I bought it. And when he first opened it he thought it was a real field guide, so he said in a normal, mildly-interested voice “Oh! Cool! Field Guide to…” and then got to the word “Dumb” and was completely surprised. Then I told him to read a sample page out loud, and I started laughing in anticipation, and then he tried to read some aloud and was laughing too hard to do it, which made me laugh harder, and anyway it was a fun gift.
My 8.5yo has been jonesing for an automatic garbage can (the kind with a sensor you wave over and it opens) since she saw one over the summer so…we bought her a small one. I never thought anyone could get so excited about a garbage can. It was a lot of fun. :)
Just four of us this year. Should have been 8, including my 4 month old grandson, but my daughter and her partner and the baby stayed at home, as did my other son with his girlfriend, who had been due to head home to her family up north. My father in law, who is in our bubble, has come, so that he’s not alone. Against my better judgement, I’d prefer him lonely to covided up, but my other son and I are nearly always home and my husband got a rapid response test done on Christmas Eve, and insisted that his father come.
.
Yesterday was ok, much better than I’d feared.
We face timed the others a lot, having zoomed late on Christmas Eve so that I could read the Nativity stories I’d read them since babyhood, and then zoomed at 8pm for a family Christmas quiz that my son put together. That was lots of fun, and my sister joined in, with my dad who has Alzheimers making some very puzzled comments in the background.
Today has been very low key; leftovers lunch, with bubble and squeak which is the best thing about Christmas food in my opinion, and another family quiz booked for later.
My husband bought me the presents on the small list I had given him, then decided to go off piste and get me a ridiculously luxurious wrap, which has my initials embroidered on it in case I forget who I am. I have approximately 750 scarves languishing in the top of a cupboard upstairs, which I very rarely wear. The only places we go at the moment are the local common and woods for long walks, it would undoubtedly get caught on a gorse bush or ruined in the rain. I fear he’s become victim to the Etsy culture, goodness only knows what I’ll get for my birthday.
I got my wife some svanetian salt, which is a herb and garlic and salt blend from Georgia (the country, not the state). She loves weird and unusual seasonings and flavours and is quite a foodie, so it was really nice to get her something she hasn’t heard of before and that she is excited to use.
My dad is incredibly hard to buy for, but he has some favourite mugs which were limited edition releases… Back in 1996. They are almost impossible to find now, but I managed to get my hands on two mint condition mugs from the collection and he was completely thrilled. He also almost never shows any emotions at all, so for him to specifically tell me how happy he was is really meaningful for me.
We got matching family pajamas for the first time ever which was even more fun than I expected, and leant an air of respectability/purpose to our staying in jammies all day, even on family zoom calls.
Santa did not bring the right LEGO set which the recipient bore with great forebearance.
My husband and I made an elaborate and time consuming dinner which was delicious but perhaps not quite worth all the work and dishes.
It was a good day, and I definitely understand the feeling of letdown. But for me, I usually prefer the day after Christmas. No expectations, a lot of loafing and leftovers.
My brother, who has concerning conspiracy tendencies, came over and SHARED NO CONSPIRACY THEORIES! I didn’t have to set a boundary or leave a room or get upset, he just made cheesecake and we talked about the kids and our jobs and it was lovely. It was a MIRACLE
I had a nap. It was truly delightful. (I mean, there were also normal festive things and delightful new-to-me books, but Christmas Afternoon Nap was really exactly the ticket this year.)
From the perspective of someone who is single and doesn’t celebrate ANY religious holidays, I always feel relief post-Christmas, kind of like, whew, I survived another solitary holiday. I was sad about not being able to participate in my usual Christmas day activity – volunteering to serve a holiday meal. It’s nice to be part of the helping community and perhaps make someone else’s holiday a bit more cheerier. Not a lot I could do about that this year though.
MORE IMPORTANTLY: DID PAUL’S SISTER RECEIVE HER PACKAGE?
That seems like a crucial question/answer and I have added it to the post!
We kept some traditions we usually do with more extended family (Christmas Eve caroling by the fire in a very amateur fashion! Christmas crackers with paper crowns and silly jokes at Christmas dinner!), and it was surprisingly still pretty fun with just the nuclear family (me, husband, kids aged 16,13,10). It helps that the kids are still Very! Enthusiastic! about Christmas. We could do Christmas morning stockings and gifts right away without waiting for other family to come over, which felt like a silver lining. We FaceTimed some family which I was afraid would make me sad but it didn’t too much. Overall, Christmas was still Christmas and still fun. It reminds me of the lime from the Grinch: “He hadn’t stopped Christmas from coming, it came! Somehow or other, it came just the same.”
We had a last minute change of plans thanks to UK Covid rule tightening (I was relieved tbh, it gave me a get-out clause that didn’t cause huge family drama and I was feeling very uncomfortable about the whole thing). So it ended up being myself, my husband and our 5 and 1 year olds.
I think I had underestimated how much work is involved when the parent:child ratio is 1:1. And one of the parents doesn’t do any of his allocated tasks until 10pm on Christmas Eve and then spends 2 hours wrestling a doll buggy, leaving the other to do *everything* else…. ho hum.
But the actual day went really well. In England the standard fare is turkey, pigs in blankets, roast potatoes, Brussels sprouts. We had all that and I made chocolate raspberry mousses. My husband is the chef thank god. The kids liked all their gifts, nobody got jealous, no huge tantrums. My daughter got a sleeping beauty costume which sheds glitter absolutely everywhere. I think the only thing I forgot was to ask my 5 year old to write the tags on her gift to Daddy – I’ll take that as a win! But gosh, all I really want for Christmas is some more sleep and a cleaner, being at home so much this year with a baby has left me feeling like a whiny domestic drudge rather than an adult with a professional job and any kind of identity of her own.
It was just my husband and I at home. My family tradition is to have eggs benedict for Christmas breakfast so I made that. It was delicious but also made me cry with missing my family. We watched movies. And then ate a pot roast. My grocery was out of ham (??) on my pickup order and that’s really what I wanted. Scrolling social media made me unreasonably angry seeing pictures of big groups. Sigh. It was a weird one for sure.
Santa brought my 6yo a Baby Yoda plushie (the one with the hard plastic head and hands but soft body) and she has carried him around with her ever since his appearance. Today she wrote a letter saying, “Dear Santa, I love Baby Yoda so much. Life is a lot better with him. Love, Thora” and it made me feel very good about what I initially thought was sort of a random silly gift.
(My side of the family are also Christmas Eve-ers and it was weird this year to have most of Christmas actually ON Christmas day.)
This was my first yr celebrating on Xmas day too. We figured there’d be more time for the kids to actually play with their new toys if they opened them in the morning.
I got a baby yoda t-shirt (don’t want to say his real name as a spoiler!), the kids got a video game controller which just hooks up to the tv and has very simple games like pac-man on it. I’m already wondering if that was a good idea. I can see them easily moving into too much screen time.
Also, my husband has been vegetarian for about a year now and since it was just the 4 of us I bought some oven bake veggie spring rolls and mozzarella jalapeño sticks, then did a charcuterie board minus the deli meats – so essentially crackers, cheese, fruit and nuts. A bit of everything, it was great actually even if not traditional!
Here’s my Christmas Day detail:
Group-watched the latest British Bake-Off Holiday episode on Netflix. My nuclear family watched with me in-person, but also we did a Zoom call before and after with friends, and there was a bunch of group-texting during.
This episode has half a dozen cast members from the British comedy Derry Girls instead of the usual aspiring bakers. Really funny and lighthearted, and since the expectations were set so low there were quite a few joyful moments where someone did way better than expected.
Highly recommended for anyone who needs something to do after dinner this week, even if you’re not usually a fan of baking shows. But like all reality tv, definitely try to find at least one person to share it with, either in person or remote, who is willing to chatter about it during and after. This one is too fun to keep to yourself.
Instead of buying presents for each other, my husband and I spent about $160 on catering for our family of four for both Christmas Eve and Christmas dinner. We had Mexican food one night and a more traditional ham/turkey the next, and there is plenty left over. I would highly recommend this if you are a person like me who hates to cook.
We did our Christmas a day early this year because of our custody split. It was lovely, and then when the kids left at noon on Christmas day to spend a day with their dad I had my parents and brother over to play games and snack (we are all in one bubble except for two week chunks of time before/after risky things like a medical procedure or potential exposure).
I got up this morning and watched the Christmas episode of Call the Midwife, which included a lovely moment of “Believe me, this is what will make the holiday” so everyone, go watch that.
I don’t think of Christmas as over yet. We’ve got 12 days of hunkering down with the loot and the lights and the carols, and I’ll be savoring them.
My brother sat outside in the fresh snow and we gave him brunch through the open dining room window. Then he moved down to the living room window for opening presents. He’s not in our bubble of my parents and kids so this was what we felt comfortable with. He’s a great sport so it was funny and worked out.
My 4.5 year old ended up overstimulated with the morning excitement of gifts and zooming with my husband’s family so he had some hard moments. We had the rest of the afternoon quiet with an early dinner (with just the four of us).
We live in South Korea and all our family is in the States. The kids were up early to open gifts and it’s a 14 hour time difference from here to the East Coast so we FaceTimed our parents, which was fun and festive watching them enjoy Christmas Eve drinks while we unwrapped presents. The plan had been to go to a friend’s for lunch, but because Korea is also seeing a spike in cases we decided instead to drop off gifts and meet them for a walk along the beach before going home to have dinner at our own house. That worked out well, as we still got to see them but were all masked outside in the fresh air.
I will say it was disheartening, then, to wake up on the 26th and see all the FB posts of people at home gathering together with their family and friends. For perspective, my city of 3.5 million people has been averaging 20-30 cases a day and people are panicking. But ok! The people I know in the States are not panicking! We are all doing the best we can! Or maybe we all aren’t! Anyway, I should probably channel some energy into taking the tree down because what is festive on Dec 25 seems plastic and depressing anytime thereafter.
can you give us a full report of what all the kids got? i always love hearing what you gave them.
I am SO bummed for you that Paul’s sister’s package didn’t get there on time.
It was a little quieter but not that different for us. Nice family time, some good wheezing laughs (Poetry for Neanderthals is a really fun game), the kids were nicely and vocally appreciative of their gifts. I am enjoying the torpor today.
Curious: do the kids exchange gifts amongst themselves? If so, do they get coaching/ and or financial support from adults? I can see this being complicated in a large family!
They don’t; it’s been too tricky to figure out.
I have 4 kids (ages 11-18) and about 5 years ago I started having them draw names for a sibling gift. I set a budget and pay for them and truthfully I just buy them one less gift, so no hit to the budget. But this year that was the very first gift they all wanted to open Christmas and that made me cry. Kids that fight like crazy will surprisingly spend so much time agonizing over what gift they think their sibling will love and can’t wait to see them open it.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA I LOVE THIS SO MUCH I WANT TO TRY IT NEXT YEAR
I’m a single mom with decision-paralysis to a kind but typically picky teenage girl…all this to say there aren’t usually a ton of surprises at Christmas because I want to be sure she likes what I’ve saved up to gift to her. Think specific pairs of shoes, or this exact comforter set, Mom.
Buuuuuuut…I managed to surprise her with her big gift, and I put it in her stocking, which is NOT where we ever do big gifts. The genuine look of surprise and gratitude was a total highlight of my month. 😊
It seems in my little corner of the world, EVERYONE decided to make breakfast casseroles for Christmas breakfast. We used up the last of the hash browns we had on hand for our Christmas brunch of waffles, hash browns and sausage. So yesterday, C went to 3 different stores trying to get more for our usual Sunday brunch of waffles, hash browns and sausage and only found empty shelves where the hash browns should be. We settled on some small circle tater tot-y type “hash browns”. I think one of the fast food places does them for their hash browns.
I usually end up messing up one gift. Q did not give a list so I had to come up with ideas of my own. So I looked through a few gifts lists and from those I got Q a mandala kit. The mandala is made from paint/ink dots. Unfortunately I managed to get what seems to be an expansion pack rather than the starter kit as it had no instructions or anything to actually paint/ink on in it. I’m ordering calendars later today so I’ll add a mandala kit with actual instructions to the order.
Like Slim, we do the 12 days of Christmas, so we have just really gotten started. Christmas was just the 4 of us. My husband made scones in the morning (an unbreakable tradition) and then we opened gifts. We had a long zoom call with family in the afternoon and ate lamb, potatoes, and Brussels sprouts for dinner, plus strawberry cake. We listened to Christmas music all day. Everyone liked their gifts and there were some real surprises despite shopping off of provided wish lists. And it started to snow around 4pm. It was just a wonderful day.
Nothing exciting to report (presents! Messenger video calls!), but I do have a question for you Swistle. We also don’t do the Santa story. But now my kids are 6 and 4, and kids talk about it at school and I’m not sure what to do to make sure they don’t ruin it for other kids. Did you ever have that issue? How did you handle it? Did other parents ever make you feel bad about it? Happy holidays to you! Thanks for making such a great “place” to hang out for a bit.
So, even though we didn’t do the Santa story, we still had some books that mentioned Santa, and of course we watched Christmas specials with Santa in them and so forth—and so each year I let those Santa references remind ME to remind the KIDS that We Absolutely Never Tell Anyone Santa Isn’t Real, No Not Even If You Think They Already Know, No Not Even If They Ask You, No We Don’t Ask Them If They Still Believe in Santa Either, In Fact Tell Ya What Let’s Just Never Discuss Santa At All. I was always worried they’d slip and say something, but as far as I know they never did. (And my hope/assumption is that families who tell the Santa story as real and true MUST have a way to answer/counteract someone who DOES slip, considering how often that must happen.)
I felt that very flat, post-Christmas let-down feeling ON Christmas Day this year, which was unfortunate. I think my expectations were too high (how, tho). I guess I was expecting to feel a nice sense of relief and calm at not having to do all the usual things I would be doing (cooking, prepping to go to my in-laws, last minute wrapping of gifts to take to my in-laws). Finally, a Christmas of doing nothing much stressful! But it turns out that when your life has been days if not weeks of doing nothing much stressful, doing the same thing on Christmas, just surrounded by some new stuff and a lot of trash that now needs to be gathered up and put in the recycling, makes Christmas feel somewhat less than enchanting.
However. We did have some successes. 1) My strategy of handling the bleakness of pandemic holidays and birthdays by buying more stuff to make the children feel extra special and thus instill in them the value of rank commercialism seemed to work. They had already been warned that there may be fewer gifts to open because we weren’t seeing people in person, and because some people maybe didn’t have as much to give during a pandemic, but they got extra books and some keepsake jewelry (a camera charm for my 10-year-old’s bracelet and a locket for my 7-year-old), and I bought a puzzle and board game (Pandemic!) for the family and wrote a super sappy note to the girls about how proud we were of them during These Trying Times. And while they displayed the usual let-down feelings after all the excitement of gift-opening was over, they also stayed occupied all day and seemed to be having a lot of fun, so. Overspending for the win.
2) I got my husband’s adult niece in his family’s gift exchange. On my side of the family, people are fairly specific and quite online, and everyone emails their list to the organizer to distribute, and you basically get something you’ve asked for, especially if you have an Amazon wish list. On his side of the family, we write our lists on paper (this year, we sent them via text chain), and many of his relatives are quite vague, writing things like “earrings” or “pants, size 36.” Some people don’t get around to doing a list, and most of his family is not online, or only via phones, with no Amazon accounts, and others just ignore the list and get you something they found on the clearance rack at Marshalls that is too big and is also a gold lamé puffer vest. Or so I’ve heard. (This is fine! These are gifts! There are no conditions on gifts! A friend told me I should wear the oversized, gold lamé puffer vest roller skating, and someday I just might do that!) So, gift giving/getting can be somewhat adventurous with his family, is what I’m saying. Anyway, his niece had “makeup” and her shirt size and her favorite color on her list and … manga. Well. I don’t typically read manga, but I am familiar with manga, and I absolutely love to gift reading material, so I did some research about what was good/popular, and with no idea what genre she liked or what she’d already read, I bought two very different types of manga (Full Metal Alchemist and Perfect World, if you are interested). And crossed my fingers and fretted. We dropped the gifts off the day after Christmas but didn’t stay to watch her open them, and 20 minutes later, I got a text from her saying she wished she’d had her husband film her reaction because she was so happy and excited, and super glad I drew her name because she was sure she wouldn’t get manga (as mentioned, I am the person in the family who gives books). And I have had such a satisfied feeling about it ever since.
3) Someone in these very comments, I believe, recommended artist Janet Hill, and I showed my husband some of her prints and pointed out one in particular that I would like (Austen Dresses), and he bought it for me back before my birthday in November (I do the banking/accounting for our household, so spoiled the surprise). And then he didn’t give it to me, but saved it for Christmas and bought a frame and matting, and even though I hadn’t completely forgotten about it, it was still very pleasant to open and see it Christmas morning and to know it will soon be hanging on the wall above my desk.
This is awesome – you win Christmas. “instilling in them the rank value of commercialism” lol. I put off buying the Janet Hill prints in my basket, but I bought all my presents for myself from my husband anyway and he was grateful so I should have just done it. Oh well. Birthday present.
That was me! I recommended Janet Hill, and got my daughter a print as well! (Miss Moon Was A Dog Governess. Lesson Three: Respect The Property Of Others)
Also, I could have written your 1). I too deliberately overspent on the kids this year, and got Pandemic as a family gift (on the recommendation of other Swistle commenters, actually). And they did seem to like their gifts and declared this to be a great Christmas.
The best part of Christmas for me was that my plan to make Christmas Eve feel more intentional/special worked! We had a nice dinner and everyone was required to get dressed for it (I.e. wear pants that button with a polo and I wore a comfortable dress). I had Christmas music playing as everyone came downstairs and then – my son started singing along to Christmas carols! And then so did my husband and other son! This may seem normal to some people but my boys and husband NEVER want to sing. Any attempts I make at singing Christmas carols are typically met with eye rolls and annoyance so when it happened spontaneously it really felt special to me.
I also added in having a roast for Christmas dinner to the schedule when usually we go to the movies and just do a casual dinner on Christmas Day. I was worried it would be too much after doing a nice dinner on Christmas Eve but it turned out to be just enough. The meal was surprisingly easy to put together and by dinner time we had all spent plenty of time relaxing/watching movies/playing with gifts so it was nice to come together another time to mark the day as special. It felt like just the right amount of relaxation and effort – and it only took me 14 Christmases with kids to figure it out!
My kids (1,4,6 and 8) were all grateful and sharing which is all I really want. I got the one thing I asked for and a few things I didn’t.
Best part: my 4 year old niece told us over zoom that she couldn’t believe Santa brought her gifts because “he must not have been watching.”
Post Christmas let down: the 26th started out fine until the shower backed up and the toilets gurgled and we realized the septic was backed up. So instead of savoring that end of the holiday we were dealing with sht in my front yard. 2020 strikes again.
We always visit my in-laws for Christmas and I always whine about it a little. This year we were home and it was delightful. And next year, if we can be back at my in-laws, there will be no whining from me.
Also, I made my mother in law’s coffee cake for Christmas morning breakfast and now it might be my assigned job for next year.
I’m in a part of Australia that is fairly Covid-free at the moment, so we were lucky to have a fairly normal Christmas. My kids are 13 and 15, and this was the first year that we had to wake them. My husband’s parents and my mum came over at 9am for breakfast (ham and cheese croissants and fruit salad) and we did all our presents then. That was also a first as we have previously done our family presents first thing in the morning. 15yo daughter got a gaming chair (*rolls eyes*) and various clothing/ toiletries/ makeup. 13yo daughter got Birkenstocks (are they as fashionable with young teens everywhere else in the world??), books, clothes etc.
After that group left, we then had my dad and stepmum and various siblings and nieces for lunch. It was the Australian usual: seafood (king prawns) entree; then turkey and salads; and Christmas pudding with custand/ icecream/ cream for dessert. After they all left around 5pm, we then went to my husband’s cousins with a large group for the evening (leftover cold meats, salads and many christmassy sweets).
It was lovely and a usual christmas, but as always, absolutely exhausting. I am still recovering. And eating the remaining jelly slice; rocky road; gingerbread; christmas biscuits etc.
And preparing for the inevitable next wave prior to whenever we might start getting our vaccinations…
Christmas was FINE. It was fine. It was fun! The kids declared it the Best Christmas Ever! I survived my first Christmas Totally On My Own (single foster mom who has previously brought the kids to my extended family for Xmas).
But the next day— and every day after that— I have woken up joyful that it is Not Christmas. I gleefully packed away all the decorations on December 26th and am glorying in my less cluttered house. I am… maybe becoming the Grinch.
Christmas this year was so blessedly normal that I almost get teary remembering it. We did a full-on 2-week isolation, keeping the kids home from school and my husband staying home from work (I already work from home) so we could combine our households with my mom and my husband’s dad who is married to my mom for Christmas Day. Those who regularly read the comments may recall I was worried about my dog falling sick and maybe having to break our quarantine, but she was tested and treated and there was only one follow-up she had to have during our quarantine time and the vet hospital did a distanced parking lot exchange to get her, and even wiped her and the carrier we used down before getting her back to us. She seems to have stabilized for now.
So yeah, Christmas: we had a totally normal day! We woke up, opened gifts here, then threw things in the car and did our traditional Christmas Day at Mom’s, including stockings and brunch and gifts and ending with a turkey dinner and trifle. We even got to go back for leftovers on Boxing Day! It was hard saying goodbye since we don’t know when we’ll be able to interact closely again, but it was just so nice to have a normal day it made the 2 week quarantine totally worth it. I’m hoping we can manage it again before the end of summer! Or even better, that the parents can get vaccinated soon, which will greatly reduce the risk of interacting. My husband and I will be last on the priority list as healthy middle-aged people who work from home, but it’s not the risk to us that really worries us.
We celebrated with my IL’s, which was somewhat Covid-risky (they drove to us from TX) but they are very homebody people and everyone is vaccinated and it was fine. We had planned to do some outings while they were here, but omicron is too nerve-wracking so we just took walks outside and sat around our living room. We did play a fun game I got for their family for Xmas, Hues and Cues. Definitely recommend for mixed-age groups. The instructions somehow make it seem a lot more complicated than it is.
We (ok – I, I did it) divided up the celebration with the big dinner on Christmas Eve and presents+brunch+games+snacks+leftovers on Christmas Day. I just cannot cook a big meal on Christmas Day, I don’t have it in me. But the (bought) quiches, heat&serve sausage, and homemade overnight yeasted waffles with maple syrup were a big hit.