For me the evening of Christmas Eve is a big part of Christmas. We usually laze around during the day and deliver any last minute cards or presents before the big day. Today we are changing things up a little as we are spending the day celebrating my birthday, which is tomorrow if you didn’t know. When this post goes live I will be out at a Christmas film festival with my mamma. However, a blog post on my birthday day will come later, so lets get back to the Christmas Eve traditions.
Like I said, there’s nothing special we do during the day but it all comes alive once we get to the evening. We like to sit down as a family and watch a movie, usually one that’s on the TV but if needed we do have plenty of movies to choose from. One of the best things is getting to eat pizza on our knees while watching the movie, this is a treat for us as we have to eat at the dining table for dinner. If we’re lucky my mom will crack open the big tub of sweets early so that we can have some with the movie.
As we’ve gotten older we’ve managed to push back bed time, so now it’s about 10pm, which is my normal bedtime anyway. However before we can even think about going to bed we must put out a snack for Santa and the reindeers, usually a small glass of milk, a mince pie, and a couple of carrots.
Once in pj’s we reconvene in my bedroom, where my mom reads to us (we really are like little kids at Christmas). She reads ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas and then we also have the Nativity story, which is an awesome pop up book! I’ve already been looking for a new version of both stories for my niece to have next year, I’ll still be keeping hold of our current version of The Nativity for her to have once she’s old enough for it, but I’ll be keeping my hands on ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas.
Once the stories are over it’s time to put out our stockings, we leave them on the landing outside of our doors, and then it’s bedtime so that Santa can come.
What Christmas Eve traditions do you have?