What do you do on Christmas Day?

My hubby is European so we celebrate on Christmas Eve.

Start out with Pirags (also known as Piroshki) which are lovely little pastries with bacon/onion in them. Then this year we are having seafood followed by a BBQ of exotic European sausages.

Because of the little kiddies, we will give them dinner, then light our tree (real candles - not lights) and give them their presents so they can go to bed. Then the grownups will have dinner and then give out gifts as well.

On Christmas Day we usually sleep in, and have a quiet one. This year we are going to one daughter's place for lunch, then the next day we pack and on the 27th we leave on our trip.

I'm looking forward to Christmas, but also to it being over - 18 people is a lot to entertain!!!

realme wrote:

This year Ill also get my kids to pick a gift for a child which is not so fortunate and we will put it under the Kmart tree.

I usually do that but was walking through a a local small shopping centre and there was a Christmas tree put up with the Lions Club with the gift tags and I was so surprised and so sad to see that there were elderly people in need of a gift and most of there were just requesting some food ... I can't believe the world we live in anymore ... I sponsor a child through World Vision so I thought this year I'd get a Christmas gift for a Grandma or Grandpa.

realme - Mum was telling me one Christmas they bought my brother some new expensive Tonka Trucks and my Gran got him a 50 cent plastic plane ... I guess I don't have to tell you what he played with all day *chuckles*

neljatye - mm mmmm! Crackling, my belly just rumbled ... any room for another guest, my husband knows his way to Grafton!

I have wonderful childhood memories of my aussie christmas'. I remember waking up, running to the christmas tree to unwrap my pressies and playing all day with my new toys. I also remember we would spend the day at my cousin's house in the pool while lunch was being prepared by all the adults and then we would all eat and eat and eat and then the adults would snooze while us excited kids would try our hardest to be quiet and continue playing with our shiny new toys.
Now as an adult and a mum I get just as much if not more joy watching my children unwrap their gifts and seeing their little faces light up with happiness and excitment from their gifts. This year Ill also get my kids to pick a gift for a child which is not so fortunate and we will put it under the Kmart tree.

I have always loved christmas but enjoy it so much more now that I have kids.

Christmas is always a great family time for us.. we live on the sth coast and so do my parents.. usually we have christmas at mum and dads and my brother and sisters and neices and nephews and some single aunties and uncles all come down from sydney and spend a couple of days with us...the kids wake us up (way too early after we've spent christmas eve/day wrapping the gifts) and we move to the loungeroom to open the gifts under the christmas tree that the kids have cut down themselves from the xmas tree farm..... finally we move onto breakfast just whatever we can find....then about 9am my little family (and whoeva has camped at my place) go up to my mum and dad's house where there is another round of gift opening (and as usual mum has brought way too much for the kids)....Dad has already started cooking and as soon as the pressies are done my husband and dad retire to the spit roast and put on a chicken, a pork roast and a lamb... then Sailosi (my husband ) is in charge of the meat while my dad continues cooking the vegies and putting the salads together...i get to make the gravy..... after lunch we all have a rest and then we go home to pick up our bags and then run to Sydney to have xmas tea with sailosi's sisters etc.. usually a big island feast....then everyone lazes around for the next day as well...meanwhile everyone here in Gerringong have dinner at mum and dad's..(ham and salad) then on boxing day everyone has ham and eggs at mum and dad's....

BUT!!! and it's a big but....last week my mum rang me and asked could we have xmas lunch at my house this year.....oh crap.....so now i am begging my dad to still take over the crackling cos i sure as hell can't get that right and now i have to organise what everyone brings and all that jazz...not sure how this year is gonna work but am looking forward to it as it's the time spent with the family that is the best part...(still hope i get the crackiling right though..lol)...either way the joy, fun and laughter in my kids eyes is always worth whateva effort it takes....wish me luck with this awesome responsibility that has been thrust upon me.....grrrrr mum and dad...lol.....

I have to admit I have never really grown up when it comes to birthdays and Christmas. My Mum goes all out. Even now she'll put up streamers and balloons for our birthdays and I've just turned 40!

I love all the little things we do that I really didn't realise we had made into a tradition.

Like most Australian's, it all starts with over shopping and buying way too much food for Christmas Day ... which turns into leftover meals for the next week or so!

Before anything, decorations! Not before 1 December though. I don't know where Mum got it from but it is a supersitition and it has carried on with me. We had the fantastic plastic tree but now as there are no kids or grandchildren Mum has moved to the outdoor Christmas light display ... aided by me. No where near the Griswalds but one wall of the house is covered with lights.

Ham and eggs for breakfast in Christmas Day is a must - yummo, I love it ... with tomato sauce and some fruit juice, lovely ice cold fruit juice. For as long as I can remember - ham and eggs.

Then we open gifts. In days gone by, my parents and grandparents would then watch my brother and I go crazy playing with toys and so on and then Mum, Gran and my Aunt would move on to cooking up a storm.

We'd have all the hot traditional foods - roast chook, roast lamb, ham, roast vegies and Mum would also make a load of salads - potato and pasta salad along with the other standard salad goodies.

And then it'd come - the loosening of the pants lunch! My favourite was always the roasts - lamb and chicken and potatoes, carrots and pumpkin. Oh and yeah, my food would swim in lovely gravy my Gran would make.

Then it was the afternoon nap time, there was no noise in the place, not even from the kids ... let me correct that, Dad would always be snoring!

Sometime around afternoon tea people would manage to squeeze in Christmas Pudding with custard, for me and my brother it was an icecream and of course more napping and layaing around like a couch potato!

At dinner, it was and still is, prepare yourself dinner ... if you dare try to fit in anymore food!

Even with the sleeve, I don't see that changing at all. Of course, the amounts will be nothing but even as I type, I don't really care. I'm still looking forward to Christmas and my small portion of ham and eggs ... now I'm hungry!

Before we all grew up and went our different ways. We lived on the NSW Central Coast near Wyong and it was a little fishing village. So on Boxing Day everyone just dragged chairs and whatever to sit on across the road along the river and feast some more and just hang out together. It just went on all day - us kids would be in and out of the river ... what a bugger to grow up sometimes.

Boxing Day is usually in Grafton and it is just a quiet day to relax, which is great.

But besides all the food and gifts, I just love this time of the year. People seem to be a little more friendlier ... well - I am not talking about being friendlier in the confines of the shopping carparks or centres in the days before Christmas *chuckles*

What do you on Christmas Day?