What do you do on Christmas day?

[bianca]

Weather permitting, I hold down a lounge chair at Typhoon Lagoon. If it's chilly, I head to the MK.

 

[bigbabyblues]

It depends on if my husband is working on Christmas Day or not--he works 24 hour shifts, so if he is working, we can't just wait for him. If he is working, we have our Christmas at home on Christmas Eve day...when the kids were little, "Santa" always knew he would be working and came the night before.

Christmas morning we start at home (unless hubby is working). The kids open their stockings, and MIL/FIL come over around 8:30 or 9:00 to watch the kids open the gifts they got here, and we have breakfast at the same time or after, which is some kind of hashbrown/cheese/ham/sausage/egg casserole with fruit, cinnamon rolls, whatever else sounds good. The ILs leave and we get ready and go to DH's aunt's house, where there is brunch and gifts with the whole family (his parents, siblings, grandma, aunt, cousins and their kids, a couple of friends, anywhere from 18-25 people or so, depending on who comes from out of town). When we are finished there, we go all down the road to the ILs house for cookies, snack food, coffee, 24 hours of A Christmas Story, stockings for all the kids (big and little) and more gifts, kids playing with toys, and we are there until 3:00 or 4:00. The whole crew moves on to grandma's house up the road, where we sometimes lose a couple of people who have other places to go, and we pick up a couple of other friends who stop by. She has appetizers out when we get there, then we have Christmas dinner, football or movies on tv, and more gifts afterwards.

 

[AppleDumpling]

Simply put: visit with family, exchange gifts, eat.

 

[DiannaVM]

Because I know my in-laws are very particular, from the moment we got married DH and I made a decision on what happens and have kept up still (last year was a slight exception since his grandmother was in hospital and that morning when they called us it was to tell us they thought she was dying. She lived about three more weeks).

It starts with the two of us getting up early and enjoying the morning together, opening our gifts at home and enjoying each other's company. Then around 8 or so we head to my parents' to watch them open their gifts (and we get to open ours from them) and have a nice pancake breakfast and watch the Disney special on TV. Then we head back home for a bit until about midday when we go to his parents' house to watch them open gifts and open ours from them. Usually his grandmother and aunts and cousins (if they are here) would also join us there, but I don't know what will happen this year now that his grandmother is gone.

On Christmas day his aunt (who lived with his grandma) would throw a big Christmas dinner and my parents and grandparents would always be invited too, so I always got to have Christmas dinner with everyone without worrying about someone getting upset. I am hoping that even if she doesn't host a party this year, someone from my family will take it upon themselves to do it so we don't have to be put in the predicament of choosing who we go to. Although seeing that this will be my niece's first Christmas, I wouldn't doubt that my in-laws will head to Canada to spend Christmas and that DH's aunt will either visit her sister or go travelling. So that's to say, I have a feeling this Christmas will more than likely be mostly with my family.