Winter Holidays Thread

[waverly]

1. What holiday activities are you doing this year?

2. Bonus points if they are free or lets say under $25?

3. What are your plans for Christmas and NYE?  Other holidays if you celebrate?

4. How is your shopping going?

5. Any vacations planned?  

[waverly]

1. So far this year we went to the lake house for Thanksgiving

2. For cheap or free activities, I am doing a cookie decorating play date ($10), and middle school or high school plays that are about $7 per ticket. We saw a murder mystery play and will be seeing the Little Mermaid. I don't want to do the big theaters this year but if I were then thinking Blue Man Group maybe for the kids in January. We have a neighbor party, and a GS party and outing that are holiday themed.  I am debating a nutcracker ballet with a different story line, but it is $90 for all of us, so I haven't decided on it yet, but definitely better than $400 for a city musical.   

3. No plans yet for Christmas or NYE. I guess family is not coming to our state, so we will be on our own for Christmas. They might come for New Years. So we need to come up with something to do for the Christmas weekend.

4. I have not done much shopping yet, but I plan to go to stores on Sundays. I got a tackle box for nephew's Dec birthday. And I got the GS gift for their party. But I need to buy for the kids and H. Luckily don't need to buy for extended family yet anyway.

5. No vacations planned, but eager to hear about all of yours.

[cjcouple]

1. I'm going to a small local Santa Con in a couple weeks, I am going to a winter ight stroll at a local horse farm, a light parade, bake some goodies, and I got some wooden ornaments to paint with my son.

2. All of above are free or cheap. Just cost of materials except Santa Con. the event is free but the food, drinks and whatever I wear will cost me a bit

3. Christmas eve we go to my sisters, Christmas Day we host ILs and NYE not sure yet

4. Not good. This inflation has made things very challenging

5. Taking week after Christmas off from work but no plans to go anywhere.

[waverly]

I should add one, what are your plans for winter break for childcare?

We don't have anything planned and I am wondering if I will be regretting that since I am not taking any time off, and DH's schedule is uncertain.

[twinmomma]

1. What holiday activities are you doing this year?
Festival of Trees, cookie weekend, school's Breakfast with Santa

2. Bonus points if they are free or lets say under $25?
Most of our traditions are low cost. Festival of Trees was expensive mainly because Beau went overboard and bought a million raffle tickets.

3. What are your plans for Christmas and NYE? Other holidays if you celebrate?
Our holidays this year are a hot mess. I only have the girls starting at noon on Christmas day until noon the next day. Beau doesn't have his son at all for Christmas and we're assuming mom is flying him to go see her new husband so no chance to even pop in and visit, which sucks. So I have no idea what we'll end up doing for Christmas at all. Probably just hanging out at home. For New Year's, we have the kids for that weekend so we'll celebrate our family Christmas during that stretch of time, including with my parents and siblings.

4. How is your shopping going?
I'm done. Just waiting for the last few things to arrive that I ordered. I haven't started wrapping anything though.

5. Any vacations planned?
Nope, we just went away for Thanksgiving so we'll stay local for Christmas. We may go visit my parents for New Year's just for something to do, depends how we're all feeling.

For childcare we have no real plans. The kids pop in and out of our house all week so I'll work from home like usual some days and took a few days off when they're here.

[rere]

1. What holiday activities are you doing this year? We will make candy both with just our family and then with friends in a couple of weeks. We will also make cookies several times. When Ds comes in he will wipe them out and we will make another batch. We have a day at the movie theater with DS's work. We will also watch a couple of movies as a family. Dd and I will decorate the church for Christmas. We also do what we call Christmas extravaganza on the 23rd. Dh and I will get in the kitchen early with some wine and cook ham, Turkey, sausage balls, veggies and dip, etc... to eat on through Christmas. Next Friday is my friend's Christmas with Christmas pjs or silly shirts.

2. Bonus points if they are free or lets say under $25? These are all pretty cheap.

3. What are your plans for Christmas and NYE?  Other holidays if you celebrate? I am not sure if my brother is staying here or if he is braving moms. But Christmas eve is always at MIL. It is usually relaxing with appetizers and such. Christmas is moms with the entire Turkey dinner. Not relaxing because mom is overbearing. I have little patience with her anymore and my brother has less. My youngest brother still lives with her and I assume he lost his hearing or he secretly drinks.

New years we are probably going to a friend's house. Her Ds has a New Years bday, and is Bff with my Ds, so it will be a mix of kids and parents.

4. How is your shopping going? Im done with the kid's. Mil won't tell me what she wants and neither will Sil. Other than that, just giftcards.

5. Any vacations planned?  I wish.

[waverly]

rere, "lost his hearing or secretly drinks" LOL

[sandandsea]

Dec 2, 2022 11:57:54 GMT -5 waverly said:

1. What holiday activities are you doing this year?

2. Bonus points if they are free or lets say under $25?

3. What are your plans for Christmas and NYE?  Other holidays if you celebrate?

4. How is your shopping going?

5. Any vacations planned?  

We decorate the house and try to find a night to get Starbucks and drive around looking at lights. Otherwise we keep it low key. When the boys are a smidge older we want to start going to the city for a broadway or other show and a nice evening out. The holidays are always so rushed and busy though so who knows if it will ever happen. We also like the Christmas Eve candlelight service at church with my parents.

We are flying to visit family as is our tradition. We will have about 3 days with each of our parents and will go to my grandmas for the “big family Christmas dinner” on the 26th. I think we fly home on the 31st so sleeping in my own bed is a high priority! We always celebrate with the east coast so we get to bed early!

I’m done shopping for my family. We haven’t started for Dhs family or our kiddos. Eek.

Sadly no vacations. Dh was trying to convince me to have ds race in Europe next summer. The price tag was a big NOPE.

[sdlaura]

cjcouple, what is a Santa con??

1. What holiday activities are you doing this year? There’s a street near us that decorates a lot and we’ll go walk around there. We went to a light event at our botanic garden, but I was disappointed because it was less geared toward kids than in past years and more geared toward letting people take pics for social media in front of unique light effects. DS2 will have a preschool holiday singalong, which I’m sure will be adorable. My book club meets up at a winery that has a whole holiday village with food stands and gifts for sale and roving carolers. And our friends whose last name is Griswold host an incredible adult holiday party every year.

2. Bonus points if they are free or lets say under $25?

3. What are your plans for Christmas and NYE? Other holidays if you celebrate? Christmas is just our immediate family. We’ll open gifts and then if it’s nice we might go to the beach sometime that day. For NY weekend, we’re going to the desert for a couple nights with two other families. Hopefully that is enough to break up the 17 straight days my kids are out of school 😬 The older 3 will also do some camps, since school doesn’t go back till 1/9.

4. How is your shopping going? I think I’m more prepared than ever for it only being 12/2! I took an inventory this week of all the stuff I bought throughout the year and figured what else I need and feel like I’m in good shape. My parents went back to the east coast this week after being here for a month, and I wrapped everything I had so far for them and for my sister’s family and sent it with them, so I have less stuff to ship.

5. Any vacations planned? Just that weekend in the desert! Because the kids are off for so long at the holidays, I think we’ll do more traveling over winter break in the future, as the youngest hopefully gets easier to fly with.

[cjcouple]

sdlaura I've never actually done one but the event says its a convention of Santa's. Everyone dresses up like Santa, a reindeer, or an elf and pub crawls. lol

A couple friends invited me. It could be lame, I just want to go out with friends. I will let you know. lol

[mommyatty]

Dec 2, 2022 11:57:54 GMT -5 waverly said:

1. What holiday activities are you doing this year?

2. Bonus points if they are free or lets say under $25?

3. What are your plans for Christmas and NYE?  Other holidays if you celebrate?

4. How is your shopping going?

5. Any vacations planned?  

1. We decorated the tree, have Advent calendars, and do the elf (elves for us). Most years we do a cookie decorating day where we invite a few kids whose parents we know and like to our house so their parents have some open time to wrap presents, last minute shop, etc. 
2. our cookie decorating day is just the cost of cookie making and decorating supplies. Maybe around $20 if you start with nothing. I have most everything on hand, so it’s basically free to me.
3. I cook, we hang out around the house and watch football or movies or whatever, and just enjoy the day together. My kids generally take all day to unwrap gifts, even though we don’t lose our minds with buying stuff. It literally takes them like an hour to get everything out of their stockings. So that’s a fun, chill process. New Year’s is just movies and football and me laying on the couch telling everyone I’m done and to get it their damn selves if they want it.

[mustardseed2007]

1. What holiday activities are you doing this year? Our elf has not come out, but we will do that. We have our advent calendar which the kids picked out so the elf did not bring it. And we have been doing that. We will decorate Gingerbread houses at school on Friday, middle school had a christmas party in the evening the other day, and DD had her girl scout holiday party. DS already had a gift exchange with his theatre group. I think we'll see Santa this weekend and then next week we'll be going to new york and will see Christmas Spectacular at Radio City Music Hall among other things.

2. Bonus points if they are free or lets say under $25? Under 25 bucks is the advent calendar, gignerbread house, or elf is usually free bc we don't do all the gifts and stuff.

3. What are your plans for Christmas and NYE? Other holidays if you celebrate? We are stacking visiting both my and DH's family on Christmas day. Normally that's spread out with DH's family on Christmas Eve but BIL has a new girl friend who sees her family on Christmas eve...my sister can't do anything Christmas Eve because she's a minister. She actually has limited time on Christmas day too because Christmas is on Sunday but we'll see how it goes. It'll probably be too much but I am looking forward to staying home on Christmas eve.


4. How is your shopping going? I bought a ton of stuff on amazon over black friday. I also bought some stuff through a hot topic facebook add, lol. I have a few more things to get but we're getting there.

5. Any vacations planned? NYC!

[186momx]

1. What holiday activities are you doing this year?
Not a whole lot. DD will have her white elephant gift exchange party at the gym with her gym family. I got invited to a sock exchange party but don't know if I want to go or not. I need to figure out ride home from practice for DD and the lady hostings family has been nothing but majorly sick for the last 6 weeks and I'm just don't' know if I want to shove myself into a situation with lots of people.
2. Bonus points if they are free or lets say under $25?
DD's party has a $10 cap. Sock party would probably cost me about $25 to fill my socks full of treats.

3. What are your plans for Christmas and NYE? Other holidays if you celebrate?
Will go to my parents' house for Christmas eve and Christmas. We open presents at home Christmas morning and then go over usually around lunch time on Christmas day. NYE is going to be a quiet night at home where we celebrate at 9. I will also drug the dog because you can light fireworks off and they will start at 9 and go until about 1am.

4. How is your shopping going?
I'm done shopping. I need to decide if I should order something for DD from Santa but just can't decide if I'm ready to let that go. DD says she is too old to see Santa.
5. Any vacations planned? No, but I wish.
My BFF may be going to her grandparents' house (south OR coast) over winter break if everyone is healthy to go (4 kids so no germs to 90-year-old grandparents). If that happens DD and I will drive the 2 hours to her grandparents to visit with them and winter beach walk.

[polecat8]

1. What holiday activities are you doing this year? We visited Santa on Saturday and got a photo. The best part is that if you donate $10, it goes to the food bank and you get a free photo. There is also a nearby park that does a drive-through light show we like that also takes donations for local charities. We are going to a laser holiday show at a local park this Saturday. My family will get together to make pizzelles sometime soon. The boys will have their various holiday shows and event at the elementary school.

2. Bonus points if they are free or lets say under $25? All of them are free or less than $25!

3. What are your plans for Christmas and NYE? Other holidays if you celebrate? We don't go anywhere for Xmas eve. It's a lazy day to do whatever we want. The last few years have been unusually warm (60s) so we have done hikes and bonfires. Xmas will day will start at our house with breakfast and opening presents. We'll head to my parents' house around 3pm for dinner. Xmas with the in-laws will be on the 27th. On NYE, we might go out during the day. For dinner, we have appetizers and then play board games until midnight.

4. How is your shopping going? I know I have more to do but I'm stumped on a few of them.

5. Any vacations planned? We'll stay local for Xmas break. I'll be off work, so we'll find some local stuff to do. We're hoping to take a road trip to South Dakota in June if I can figure out the details.

[dglvrk2]

Dec 3, 2022 7:00:08 GMT -5 cjcouple said:

sdlaura I've never actually done one but the event says its a convention of Santa's. Everyone dresses up like Santa, a reindeer, or an elf and pub crawls. lol

A couple friends invited me. It could be lame, I just want to go out with friends. I will let you know. lol

I’m sure it will be a blast!!!  Have fun.  I’m jealous.  Perhaps I start my own Santa Con in my little town.

[dglvrk2]

1. Holiday activities this year:
Our community has some fun activities. DD1 has a band concert and DD2 has caroling with her class next week. I have a few work parties. Otherwise nothing big.
In terms of culture, my mom’s family is German and has always celebrated the Feast of St. Nicholas, which is tomorrow. I’m about to wrap some some gifts for the Ds to find in their shoes and open tomorrow morning. One of my coworkers wants to make latkes and drink wine the weekend before Hanukkah starts. H and Ds are part Jewish by heritage, but have never practiced. Our girls are super excited to partake in any fun Hanukkah activities, so this will be great!

2. I’ll collect bonus points! Most activities are inexpensive. I’ll buy my coworker a nice bottle of wine for hosting a Hanukkah party.

3. My parents just decided they’d come for Christmas. They’re splitting their time between me and my sister. We’ll all be together the afternoon and evening of Christmas Day and most of the day Christmas Eve. They live several states away, so traveling is a project. Moreover, my mom can be a lot to host, so I had mixed emotions about them coming. In the end, I’m glad they’ll be here. I know I’d be sad Christmas Day if they were alone. They’re very extroverted, so a holiday without family is not fun for them. Having them say with us part of the time and my sister the other part is the best arrangement for everyone too.

4. My shopping….I just can’t get excited about it this year. I’m not a big shopper in general, but I”m having a tough time finding gifts I’m really excited to give. It doesn’t help that I have to order just about everything since we have limited shopping where I live.

5. Vacations? I wish! We have the first week of January off of school. (THIS Is a fantastic gift IMHO!). If we find a last minute deal somewhere warm (think Bahamas or Mexico), H and I agreed to take advantage of it that week.

[librarychica]

1. What holiday activities are you doing this year?
Mostly school-related stuff and family/friend activities. Both kids have music performances — DD1 has chorus at school and a local holiday fest and DD2 has a guitar recital. We have a couple of Christmas parties to attend — one with some very close, old friends of mine and my brother and the other a large group of H’s friends and their friends and so on. There is a holiday around the world night planned at school, the younger kid has a field trip to the nut cracker. The girls are going to a holiday art camp for the first piece of break and then H and I have some family time planned.

2. Bonus points if they are free or let’s say under $25?
For the smaller holiday party we are going to do one of those family puzzle “escape rooms on paper.” We’ve done them before, it’s fun and different and a little silly. We buy the digital download for the story/digital prints on Etsy for like $15.


]3. What are your plans for Christmas and NYE?  Other holidays if you celebrate?
Christmas Eve is the big in-law party, Christmas Day will be at home with presents and a nice breakfast at home and then my parents and brother will come for a late lunch. Nothing planned for NYE. DD1’s birthday is Christmas Eve and we are going to try and have a small party for her at some point after Christmas. It’s hard with where the holidays land this year.

4. How is your shopping going?
Pretty much done. This year was difficult. I have doubts.

5. Any vacations planned? Nope.

[mae0111]

1. What holiday activities are you doing this year?

We always go to a drive through light display near MIL's house when we visit for Thanksgiving. There's another walk through display near us, so we have tickets to that next week. The kids have a Christmas bazaar at school this week as well as two "dress down days" - instead of their uniform, they can wear red and green one day, and PJ the other. The kids also have a school Christmas concert next week. There is a store nearby that looks like tacky Christmas exploded all over it, so we always go there to look around. It's closing after this Christmas, and I've heard it's not great because they didn't restock, but we will see. We might try to fit in a nice family celebratory dinner in between all of the basketball games.

ETA I thought of one more.  DD1 is participating in the annual Spanish Nativity at school.  The English version is all narration, with the actors not having any lines.  DD1 is the Spanish narrator.  But she has yet to share WHEN this is happening.  I have the date - next week - but not the time.  It's really freaking annoying that, since there are a lot of SAHMs at school, they just, like, don't share when stuff is happening with any regularity.

2. Bonus points if they are free or lets say under $25?

The light displays are pretty cheap and count as donations because they're all for charity/nonprofits.

3. What are your plans for Christmas and NYE? Other holidays if you celebrate?

Christmas Eve we just stay home, the 4 of us. We watch Mass on TV, make homemade pasta and sauce and chicken parm. Then we watch a movie together with popcorn. I think we're watching Spirited this year.

Christmas is usually my family - parents, both sisters, BILs, and nephews/nieces. This year my mom and one sister are spending it together on the west coast, and my dad and other sister are coming. DH's brother and family are also coming this year, so that should be fun. It must be so strange for my parents - they've been married 52 years, together since high school (my dad was friends with all my mom's brothers) and this is the first Christmas that they will spend apart.

4. How is your shopping going?

Ugh. Well, the kids are done, the DCF family we've sponsored is done. Older nephews and niece get cash. I need a few more small things for DH, but he just buys whatever he wants so he's tough. Need to send my toddler/baby nieces their gifts, but they're in my cart on Amazon. I don't know what to get my parents this year. I was thinking about a tank of oil because it's crazy expensive and they're worried about shortages. DH has to worry about MIL - he bought her Amazon Prime, Hulu, and Paramount Plus since she doesn't leave the house and just watches TV all day, but maybe 1-2 more things.

5. Any vacations planned?

Nope. We talked about going to Scottsdale for a few days in the late winter/early spring, but I think that if the kids get into the school they're hoping to attend, that will eat up our winter vacation money.

[cjcouple]

Dec 5, 2022 19:59:02 GMT -5 dglvrk2 said:

Dec 3, 2022 7:00:08 GMT -5 cjcouple said:

sdlaura I've never actually done one but the event says its a convention of Santa's. Everyone dresses up like Santa, a reindeer, or an elf and pub crawls. lol

A couple friends invited me. It could be lame, I just want to go out with friends. I will let you know. lol

I’m sure it will be a blast!!!  Have fun.  I’m jealous.  Perhaps I start my own Santa Con in my little town.

Yeah, it looks fun.  The event posted a schedule of pubs to visit at what times and there is a group photo at city hall scheduled for people to congregate. 

[mae0111]

Just wanted to add a post about how much I'm killing it this holiday season.

I have no plans to take my kids to see Santa. They haven't asked, and I haven't offered.

However, I made darn sure to book a photo session with Santa for the dog. THE DOG.

#momoftheyear

[186momx]

mae0111, I still haven't decorated the tree and we set it up over thanksgiving. I decided not to decorate it. I also wrapped everything in the same two rolls of paper instead of multiple like normal. Anything I have left is going in gift bags from previous years. Ba-Humbug is how I'm feeling this year. The dog has her christmas scarf on!

[sdlaura]

mae0111 I don't think we would have seen Santa at all if it was just my 8- and 10-year-old. My little boys still love all the Christmas magic, so I've been feeling guilty about not doing more. 5-year-old was so excited to decorate the tree that he basically did it himself using a step-stool

Last Saturday we only had one morning sports practice, so I took my kids to the zoo in the afternoon. And randomly we wandered past "Santa's workshop" and there was only one family in line before us! So I got a decent shot with all four kids. Then DD made sure to tell me multiple times that she was getting too old to visit Santa She doesn't believe anymore, but the other 3 do.

[rere]

My mom is being the most already. My brother will be in tomorrow and she's already starting to force everyone into plans. For 2 years, we had a bonfire when they were in, so now she thinks its a staple. Its going to be highs in the teens and windchills in the negatives. She trying to have spaghetti and meatballs tomorrow at 5. Because we liked spaghetti as kids, so it has to be had.We have plans. My brother is only here 5 days and would like to see friends, plus maybe we just want to chill and have drinks or be spontaneous. We are in our 40s, so maybe we should get some input.

Ds got a chuckle when he came into the kitchen this morning as I was yelling I DON'T WANT FREAKING SPAGHETTI AND DUMBASS MEATBALLS.

[mommyatty]

I put my sweatpants on backwards this morning. Didn’t notice. DH noticed the white strings in the black sweatpants hanging down my butt as I went to take a box to the curb for the garbage guys. I think he laughed for half an hour. I’ve chuckled most of the day. Sooo… that’s how I’m doing today.

[waverly]

Well we are about to get a blizzard, so that's how my holidays are going.

[supertrooper1]

We have almost a foot of snow and I need to go to the Target and Costco this week. And I'm now worried about the last of my internet purchases not making it here because of the snow.

Two weeks ago, Beau's DIL said she wanted us to come over for Christmas dinner. Ok, so I told my mom and she suggested that we do Christmas dinner with them on the 26th instead of our usual 25th. Now, DIL doesn't want to do dinner and wants to come over "sometime Christmas morning". No, I don't want to. I want to lounge around with Beau and DS Christmas morning and then go somewhere for dinner. But now I feel like an ahole since I changed my family's plans for something that's not even going to happen. Beau's mom usually has something Christmas eve, but he said we'll just stop by his mom's sometime Christmas day. That's fine with me, but he hasn't talked to her about it! So she's probably going to plan a last minute Christmas eve not knowing the dicked around plans Christmas day. I wish his family could plan! I can't wait to get a bigger house so we can just invite both sides over.

[186momx]

rere, your mom sounds like my mom. Just because my sibs are coming home for a long weekend doesn't mean that DD and I need to be over every single day. She lost her shit when I said we would be over until dinner time on x-mas eve. Then was like what are you making for dinner. I'm not I'm driving straight to your house from our other plans. I'm going to be 40 and can make plans without getting you saying it is okay.

sdlaura, Macy's had a Toys R Us display with a giant Geoffrey Giraffe. DD gave me such crap about sitting next to him so I could take her picture. When she was little things like that scared the crap out of her and now at 11 she is too old. I titled the picture not a Toys R Us kid.

[twinmomma]

Beau and I are going to see his mom, sister, and brother in law on Christmas Day since we have no kids. His mom’s kitchen is currently under construction and mid renovation. The rest of the condo is covered in construction equipment, and her bathroom is also not fully renovated. Plus, despite raising three chefs who own restaurants, she cannot cook to save her life. (I can’t either, so no judgement there) But I can’t figure out wtf is actually goi g to happen on Christmas Day….

[mae0111]

waverly, I honestly love a good blizzard, assuming power and heat remain in tact.

We are expecting to have 15 people for dinner, including us.

1. My sister announced on Sunday that she and her family will probably not come because we were sick. But maybe. But probably not. They would just "play it by ear". Which would be fine for an open house/casual gathering situation. But she knows we're having a formal sit-down with beef tenderloin, which was $$$ to buy. And I had to freeze it, so I need to know if I should take out the second one or just leave it in the freezer. Because I can't refreeze it - I'll ruin it. I understand that she's very nervous about flu season and her asthmatic (adult) children, but just... tell me? They're 6 adults, basically - I need to know.

2. My dad is in my sister's camp - let's just wait and see! Less impactful than 6 people, but just... let me know please.

3. My BIL and family are definitely coming on Christmas day, and will be staying with us. But they won't tell us when they're planning to leave. I don't really care as they're pretty easy house guests, but... am I cooking on Tuesday? Wednesday? Should I make plans to do things? Maybe a nice adult dinner and leave the kids home? When? Are you staying through the new year? I don't care how long they stay, BUT JUST TELL ME!!