Faith's Family Christmas Traditions

I love Christmas and get massively overexcited every single year. Now I have kids, that excitement seems to be even greater as the look on their little faces when they see a full stocking is just the best thing ever.

We have a fairly traditional Christmas although my husband has only recently started having a proper Christmas as used to teach skiing. Every Christmas day since he was about 17 was spent working and teaching people to ski in the mountains.... I am however a home person at Christmas!

I tend to get our Christmas tree in early-mid December and we all decorate it together. There is no colour scheme and it isn't an "organised" tree, rather a mixture of all sorts of decorations collected over the years and many made by my eldest daughter. I like the chaotic jumbled look on a tree rather than it being too perfect and coordinated.

Christmas Eve tends to involve baking; mince pies and florentines typically and the afternoon/evening will revolve around the local nativity service in the nearby church. We have drinks at a friend's house in the early evening before returning home to get everything ready for father christmas!

We prepare a lovely tray for him and the girls go all out on giving him and the reindeer plenty of food and drink (he likes whiskey apparently).

Christmas morning normally starts very early! We have stockings in the morning as my husband and I come-to with a coffee and the girls get very excited. We then have a breakfast of smoked salmon and scrambled eggs... and I usually have a glass of my favourite fizz!

We then put the turkey on, prepare the veggies whilst the girls play with their stocking toys, have a dog walk and meet a few local friends for a quick drink in the local pub where the fire is on...We have a lovely catch up with them (and a sherry!) before wandering home at midday.

Lunch is usually around 2-2.30pm and my parents and brother and his family are coming over this year. We all have a relaxing and traditional turkey lunch followed by traditional christmas pudding with plenty of brandy sauce. We usually then move through to the sitting room to do just that... sit! ...And then a tradition that I have grown up with as a child, we watch the queens speech (often recorded as lunch is late!) and only then do we open presents.

We try to squeeze in a quick run on the beach with a baileys coffee or hot chocolate before the sun sets and then back to the log burner. We then end up playing board games/charades etc and nibble on leftovers for the rest of the day. Turkey sandwiches are a must with plenty of redcurrant sauce and I make a big load of red cabbage coleslaw to go with everything.

We do a fundraiser on Boxing day so are always up early and down by the sea for the annual swim where we put on mulled wine, hot dogs/bacon butties and brave a dip into the sea for a quick swim to raise money for alpha-1 (a genetic disease that our little girl was born with).

Everyone then heads home to their families and we head back to put on the fire, settle down on the sofa and continue eating turkey leftovers!

Thats about it! I'm feeling very festive now.

What are you Christmas traditions?

Faith

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