Merry Christmas to everyone from all of us here at Review This Reviews.
For me, Christmas is a time to be spent with the people you love and a wonderful time to create memories. Everyone celebrates Christmas differently and has different Christmas traditions, one such tradition is the Christmas Tree.
Some people put the tree up as soon as Halloween is over and others on December 1st, when I was a child it was Christmas Eve in our household. My brother and I tried to talk my parents into putting it up earlier and one year we thought victory was ours as mum relented and said okay we'll put it up on the Saturday before Christmas.
As it got closer to Christmas we realized that Christmas was on a Sunday which meant the Saturday before Christmas was, in fact, Christmas Eve! When my daughter was younger we would put our tree up on the 1st Saturday of the school holidays. This leads us to how you decorate your Christmas tree, there are lots of ideas that can be found on this Christmas Facebook page. We used to have special ornaments that we put up every year, but some people like to create a new theme every year.
My brother and his family have a tradition of giving their children a present every Christmas Eve which is a pair of pajamas for them to wear that night. They used to open the presents while still in PJs so it meant all the photos always looked good!
Growing up we would use pillowcases in lieu of stockings and when talking to some other ex-pats from the UK a few years ago we found that we had very similar things placed in our stockings each year! There would always be an orange, a toffee dime from the Quality Street tin(how strange that this was the one that my parents didn't like from Quality Street - a must-have for any English household over the holiday season at that time!). There would also be a book and/or a little game to entertain us and a nice outfit to wear.
After waking our parents up at whatever time in the morning it was that we discovered Santa had been we had to go back to bed and weren't allowed up until 9am, hence the book/game. Then we had to get dressed (hence the new clothes) and eat breakfast (which was usually porridge that took soooo long to cook!) before we were allowed into the front room to see the Christmas tree and all the gifts. I can feel the excitement just recalling the moment when we could see the tree on Christmas morning.
I have spent far more Christmases in the antipodes than I did in the UK so Christmas for me these days is in summer (I do still miss Christmas being in winter though I must admit). Our family Christmases certainly look different to my childhood Christmases for one thing we usually watch Christmas movies (my daughter used to love Elf, whereas my husband and I are more Die Hard fans) in the lead up to the big day - when I was growing up we didn't watch much television.
Board games were a big part of our Christmases and I know they are for lots of other families as well. I also come from a family of readers so there were occasions where after Christmas lunch was over we would all be stuck with our noses in books! If you're after a book to read then be sure to check out our recommendations, and best of all most of these can be downloaded to your Kindle straight away (just in case no one gives you a book this year!)
Some people enjoy doing jigsaw puzzles, others build Legos whereas others take walks as a family or for people Downunder it often means being in the pool or playing backyard cricket. The first Christmas we spent in New Zealand we went down to the beach and tried out fly fishing rods that mum and dad had got, then found a log and tried our version of tossing the caber, I seem to recall a jandal throw as well. Our very own Christmas games on the beach!
Whatever you're doing and whoever you're spending Christmas with this year make sure you are making some fantastic memories. Keep safe, have fun and goodwill to you all.
