How do you celebrate Christmas and New Year?

Some times i go to my parents house, where all the family likes to reunion. They live in a farmer.

But other times, when the relatives dont go there, i pass in onther places, with my girlfriend and his family.

Feast at my house. Usually includes my son Don, his current boyfriend AND ex's (we're a friendly bunch), Daughter Jess and her intended, both grandkids, hubby Dan, and whatever assorted friends of friends and family end up there. We're doing a pride tree this year since we have so many gays in our family/extended family.

Large family feast (we have several passionate cooks!), football, presents, and we usually go to a movie or something.

Christmas Eve day I make about 12 lb. of fudge (three batches) and several loaves of panettone (Italian fruit bread) in the bread machines.

Christmas Eve, we eat an early supper (including shrimp, calamari salad and bakala) and then pile into the car to take a load of food to the local shelter for their Christmas Day breakfast (including fudge of course! ) It's our "thing" each year. This tradition began because our daughter is an only child and has a birthday during Christmas week as well; we didn't want her growing up thinking the holidays are all about her, and we wanted her to develop compassion for the less fortunate. I've come to enjoy this part of our Christmas traditions the most.

We then attend a service at church. Later at home, hubby and I exchange little surprises (we don't give each other large gifts, but instead set aside money to buy what we wish for ourselves.) He has a large jar of Nutella awaiting him, a tin of After Eight mints and a Hickory Farms log, and he's been slaving away secretively in his workshop making me some sort of metal ornament. Maybe afterward we'll watch my husband's favorite Christmas movie, It's A Wonderful Life.

Christmas Day, our daughter gets her gifts. In recent years she's mostly wanted cash, but this year she wants presents to open.

Since my mother was widowed this year and moved back to CT, she will be joining us for Christmas dinner (lasagne planned) and will have presents of her own to open. She didn't want to come over on Christmas Eve, but I'm sure she'll want to stay all day on the 25th and past supper. Maybe we'll put on The Santa Clause for some laughs; I don't think she's seen it. This will be the first time she and I have had Christmas together since 1990, and of course her first Christmas with her only grandchild.

Christmas- just a plain, but stylish and diversified dinner with my family

New Year- a small, but tasteful party with immediate family and close friends

30 Roses, your description reminded me of a Hallmark card. Lovely! Big kisses to Mom

Lessa, thanks!

Over the years we've changed up what we did. There was a time when we had my husband's dad (now deceased) over on the 25th year after year and I could not stand the monotony anymore. Hubby's eyes would glaze over while I tried valiantly to entertain his Dad, who was practically incapable of holding up his end of a conversation. After several years of that, I gave up and insisted we go out for dinner-- and on Christmas, that meant an Indian restaurant!

Hey, whatever works, right?

Absolutely!
I've actually decided to do quiches and an assortment of sweet breads. Gives me more time to enjoy the grandkids and the conversation, which is usually quite colorful. Everyone is sick of turkey, anyway.

I don't because xmas is meaningless to me and I hate crowds. SO and I love our quiet evenings together, though.

We usually go to south Florida to spend Christmas with my mother and friends there, but this year we're not doing that. It will be just my husband and me here in Virginia. We don't have family here and we don't know a lot of people, as we're relatively new (you could live in Richmond 20 years and still be considered "new"! ). Tomorrow evening we're going to dinner at one of our favorite local eateries, Can Can Brasserie. Then later we're going to church for Christmas carols at 10:30 and the liturgical service at 11:00 p.m. Christmas morning, Saturday, we'll probably sleep later than we usually do, and we'll have lunch at a restaurant called Amuse at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. We like it there. We're expecting snow Saturday into Sunday, and the best estimate we can guess is anywhere from two inches to two feet!

Christmas is my favorite holiday, from both a secular and religious aspect. I believe you can avoid all the more stressful aspects of the season, if you really want to, and concentrate on those that are most meaningful to you. We have a tree but no presents under it, because we did not feel like dealing with the crowds and the shopping! We don't care about it because we don't have young children to shop for. We're actually enjoying doing what we please this Christmas. We've donated some money to charity. We don't need presents. If we need something, we buy it. If we can't afford it, we don't. It's not worth letting the commercial madness spoiling the good things about Christmas. I made little gifts for a few church friends (crochet), and said goodbye to the malls this year!