Any Christmas Traditions you no longer partake in

[NFLDERS]

Spinoff from Gingerbread thread.

Now that we are the Grandparents of 3; a few of Traditions now fall on the plates of their parents. But, I was wondering if busy growing families may have had to tweek their Tradition to do's.

 

[LBIJim]

DW and I are empty nesters now, but when DDs, now 28 and 25, were early teens or tweens, we stopped the stocking stuffer thing. I really don't remember why; it just fell by the wayside. Stockings are still hung on the mantle, but not filled.

And a few years after that, opening the gifts was delayed from Xmas morning until the afternoon. My teens wouldn't get out of bed before noon on a non-school day, even Xmas. By the time they were in college, gift opening was an after dinner affair.

 

[Gumbo4x4]

Traditional big Christmas meals. Now it's finger foods & such.

 

[Soldier's*Sweeties]

DW and I are empty nesters now, but when DDs, now 28 and 25, were early teens or tweens, we stopped the stocking stuffer thing. I really don't remember why; it just fell by the wayside. Stockings are still hung on the mantle, but not filled.

And a few years after that, opening the gifts was delayed from Xmas morning until the afternoon. My teens wouldn't get out of bed before noon on a non-school day, even Xmas. By the time they were in college, gift opening was an after dinner affair.

You're killing me! Stocking stuffers are my favorite and I'm an adult! I'd rather get rid of the gifts and keep the goodies in the stockings.

 

[Christine]

I'm leaning towards doing away with stocking stuffers. They have been a struggle for many years. I guess it's a preference thing. My kids (now grown) don't really want a toothbrush or anything like that, although, when they were very young they would get a kick out of a "special" toothbrush.

We no longer open gifts at the crack of dawn and now have a nice breakfast before doing so.

Other than that, not much has changed.

 

[lisaviolet]

You're killing me! Stocking stuffers are my favorite and I'm an adult! I'd rather get rid of the gifts and keep the goodies in the stockings.

Ditto. Hands down and back around.

Total blasphemy.

___________________________________________________________

For me, too many traditions have gone with my mother (dementia). I try hard but not as skilled as her and will never be. Nothing looks quite the same or tastes quite the same.

Kids notice. I do a big pre-Christmas dinner with movie for my family every year. One year something went on and I got a call from my niece that she was not okay with tradition leaving. I never made that mistake again.

 

[jerseygal]

We open gifts Christmas Eve.

The boys are busy, love to sleep late "when they can" so rather than rush anyone Christmas morning, we open gifts Christmas Eve...

Makes for a "less stressful" morning as I am usually in the kitchen preparing a nice Christmas meal...I usually make turkey on Christmas with "all the trimmings" so I am busy in the morning!

No more "Santa" now, but still ALOT OF LOVE!

Looking forward to one day "when the time is right" for little ones to share the thrill of Santa on Christmas Day!

 

[lizabu]

Christmas eve mass. It's the most beautiful service of the year but I'm the only one who wants to go. I find it difficult to get home from work, make dinner and try to make it in time when I'm the only one who wants to go. I've given up.

 

[SC Minnie]

We don't 'do' Christmas on Dec 25th anymore. DD has to work (CM with Disney) so can't come on the week before and after Christmas. We have Christmas when she can get here, usually a week or 2 early, or we have to wait until after Christmas.

Hospitality/Tourism is what she is majoring in so we have to get used to her not being around on holidays.

 

[gwynne]

We usually try to go out for a couple of very nice dinners during the holidays, that's our gift to each other.

We always do stockings for each other, though. It's sweet, and it's extra special to us.

 

[NHdisneylover]

Well, I stopped putting the kids' handprints on our tree skirt ages ago--big hands are just not so adorable

We've moved a lot, so our traditions have been kind of flexible all along, and we still have our kids at home (teens) so we have not stopped with stockings and the like (who am i kidding, I will ALWAYS have a stocking!).

We do our main Christmas as a family on Christmas Eve (big meal, gifts, etc). If my kids had somewhere else they wanted to be, I would move it, but as of yet they have not, so it stays

You're killing me! Stocking stuffers are my favorite and I'm an adult! I'd rather get rid of the gifts and keep the goodies in the stockings.

Ditto. Hands down and back around.

Me too! Stockings have always been my favourite part of holiday gift giving (and one of my favourite parts of Christmas at all!)
This confused the heck out of my husband at first, but he's learned to cope with it now

I love shopping for them too--I put more thought into those items than any other gifts most years

 

[FlightlessDuck]

I'm leaning towards doing away with stocking stuffers. They have been a struggle for many years. I guess it's a preference thing. My kids (now grown) don't really want a toothbrush or anything like that, although, when they were very young they would get a kick out of a "special" toothbrush.

Once both my children were aware of the reality of the Santa situation, we started a new tradition: everybody draws a name out of a hat, and you become responsible for filling that person's stocking.

But we never really did toothbrushes anyway. Candy. Small trinkets. DVDs/cheap games. And a clementine at the bottom. Always have to have a citrus foot in the toes!

 

[The Mystery Machine]

This year I am putting up an ADULT TREE. I am breaking tradition of all the "family ornaments".

Fresh REAL tree, white lights, and gold ornaments. Our youngest is a Sr. in high school, oldest is moved out.

I have my mom's gold ornaments handed down to me so I want to put them up this yr.

(Say adult tree out loud, lol).

 

[minnie mum]

We stopped doing stockings when our DDs were in their late teens. They didn't want candy or cheap trinkets, and their wish lists were usually full of things that didn't lend themselves to being stuffed in a stocking.

We also stopped opening gifts at the butt crack of dawn once the girls hit their teens and couldn't bear to drag themselves out of bed early. Now we open them later in the morning.

One thing that hasn't changed, though, is to watch the Disney Christmas parade as we have our morning coffee and while DH is making his egg nog French toast..

I tried to do am adult tree one year. It looked great, but the kids (adults by that time!) were horrified. Apparently its OK for them to have a color coordinated and fashionable tree, but I am forever obliged to include the family, handmade "heirlooms". I offered to give them to each, for their own trees, but they declined the offer. WTH?

 

[LisaR]

I'm going to break it to my kids over Thanksgiving break that I will be hanging stockings this year but not filling them. My 17 y/o won't care at all. My 19 y/o will be bummed. She is big on Christmas traditions. I have tried to change gift opening to Christmas Eve for years now and she refuses. She always says she is opening her presents Christmas morning even if she has to do it alone. We always joke that we should leave her there one Christmas morning and see what happens.

Stockings are a pain, imo. They've also become ridiculously expensive since socks and toothbrushes aren't very exciting anymore. My dog just had thousands of dollars worth of surgery that I am paying off so I'm cutting back on gift buying and stockings are an easy way to do that.

 

[Jedana]

Traditional big Christmas meals. Now it's finger foods & such.

Us too. I spent too much time in the kitchen when the girls were young. With DS, I just stopped cooking. I'll do a veggie tray, a cheese/meat/cracker tray and some dips and chips. Other than that, it's leftover Chinese (from Christmas Eve dinner) or whatever else they can scrounge up.

 

[apirateslifeforme]

This thread made me realize that we do NOTHING like we did when I was little.

We always had a large (6' and fake) tree in the living room. Multi-colored lights and Disney ornaments (wood paint-by-number ones made by my grandfather, and stuffed-and-sewn felt and sequin ones made by my mother). Every year, PBS would show Barishnykov's The Nutcracker and I'd watch it numerous times. On Christmas Eve, we'd have a big Chinese take-away feast and I'd open a few small gifts. My stocking was always filled and I particularly looked forward to my white chocolate Santa-on-a-stick from Crand's Candy Castle.

Now we have no more large tree. We don't even own one. First of all, we have a mischievous cat that knocks it over. We can't even attach it to the wall; he's a big boy and can still get it down (however, I still have my homemade Disney ornaments). We have little predecorated trees now, so we literally have a tree in every room.

The Nutcracker is no longer on PBS. I do have the DVD, but I rarely can find the time to watch it.

My in-laws come over on Christmas Eve now and I make a bunch of little appetizer-type foods (crockpot meatballs, chicken and bacon bites, various pinwheels, crackers and dips, shrimp ring, a simple cake for dessert, etc.). We do not open any gifts. Christmas Eve is a bit difficult, as my grandfather died on Christmas Eve 1998.

No more white chocolate Santa pop. Crand's closed some years ago.

Now I feel all nostalgic and a bit sad...I like Christmas, but it's not the same, is it?

 

[barkley]

it's not that we no longer do things-they've just been tweaked a bit.


since we had the only grandkids on one side (as well as the youngest on the other) we always had an open door policy on Christmas cuz we wanted our kids to wake up at home and stay home that day. as we've lost family members and people have moved away it's become just the 4 of us so it's more just scaling back on some aspects. I make a smaller roast for French dip sandwiches on Christmas eve, get a smaller ham for Christmas day-but it's not a sit down meal, people can graze throughout the day. the "kids" (almost 18 and 20 ) get to open 2 gifts on Christmas eve day-new jammies and 'something to keep you occupied' (these days a movie or video game). dh and I get new jammies as well.

I don't care how old my kids get-they still wake up WAY earlier than we want to get up on Christmas so those stockings are what they get to open while dh and I wait for our first cup of coffee to brew.

the only tradition I absolutely do not participate in that was the norm when I was growing up is opening all the gifts on Christmas eve. I was the youngest sib, and my mom felt that since db's had wives w/ young nieces and nephews they wanted to be with on Christmas morning we had to accommodate by doing our gift opening on Christmas eve. for me it made Christmas morning a big let down so in our house we open on Christmas day.

 

[NAB]

Well our tradition of going to my mom's on Christmas eve will be changed this year. She passed away in Aug. We are all lost for what should we do. I have 5 siblings and they all have kids and grandkids so it is over 50 of us when we are together.

Some of them tried to have there own Christmas parties but the kids wouldn't let them. It wasn't Christmas unless you went to Grandma's. The one time of the year we all are in one place and can socialize. Said we would do it until my mom passed and now that time has come ....

We want to get together because my brother has pancreatic cancer , found out the same time my mom was in the hospital with lung cancer. So over all rough year. So we need to get together, scared it might be his last as well.

I think I will go less on decorations this year and see if my family notices. I say this every year but more comes into the house every year.

As for stocking , even the cat here has one... usually I buy to much that I can't fit it all in everyone's.

 

[laurafergie]

Once both my children were aware of the reality of the Santa situation, we started a new tradition: everybody draws a name out of a hat, and you become responsible for filling that person's stocking.

But we never really did toothbrushes anyway. Candy. Small trinkets. DVDs/cheap games. And a clementine at the bottom. Always have to have a citrus foot in the toes!

That's what we did this year. When everyone was together over the summer, we drew names for stockings, even DD10. I have to say I'm loving it, because I was the one who filled everyone else's stocking and now I just have one!

The biggest change from when I grew up was not going to my Grandparents house on Xmas Eve and decorating the entire house from top to bottom on Xmas Eve. And then opening all the presents there Xmas morning. When my kids starting coming along, it was too much to move everyone around, so we stayed at own house.