Julia – I once told my kids that Santa works on faith: the moment they stop believing he is real, he will never visit them again.
As a result, all my kids, even my 12-year-old, absolutely swear they believe…so Christmas in my house begins with a very early wakeup from three over-excited kids tumbling down the stairs to rip open their presents and inspect the obligatory dusting of ‘snow’ left all over the floor.
This year I will be having Christmas at my house for the first time. We usually have a huge extended family meal at one of our parents’ houses, eight households in total. With Covid making that impossible, we are doing separate meals this year and meeting instead of for a morning walk with all the kids and a late afternoon tea in my Mum’s garden with our beloved 94-year-old Grandma.
Molly – My favourite thing about Christmas is my Christmas tree.
I buy a real tree every year and decorate it with all white, silver, glass ornaments and lights. It sits in my front room and sparkles throughout Christmas. I love sitting in the room with all the other lights off in the evening and maybe eating a mince pie (or two.)
Sophie – My favourite part about Christmakkah!
I’m one of the lucky ones who get to celebrate both Chanukah & Christmas . . . my kids are obviously very happy with this arrangement due to the multitude of presents. Chanukah is special because every night we light the chanukiah candles, sing a song, have a chocolate coin and my little monkeys get a gift (yes one every night! That’s 8!!) whilst eating a doughnut.
But its Christmas that gets the full shebang experience in our house. On Christmas eve we leave Santa and Rudolf their carrot, mince pie and milk (the dog gets the carrot, hubby the mince pie and me the milk lol) and then once the little ones are asleep, I fill the hessian sacks with ‘Santa’s’ gifts and put fake snow all over my house with footprints just for extra effect. The kids’ faces when they can see ‘proof’ Santa has actually been there is priceless.
Alex – Ba Humbug!