What do you do with kids on Christmas day (and eve too)?

[Anonymous]

We travel to see family for Christmas, so we usually drive back & forth between different houses to open gifts & eat.
The one year we stayed home, we went to church on Christmas Eve, and on Christmas Day: presents, relaxing, cooking, eating, playground.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Spend time together? What a weird question.

Christmas Eve - chat with family we don’t see often, bake cookies, watch Christmas movies, play board/card games

Christmas Day - open presents, play with new toys, eat a big meal, catch up with more family, laugh and play games, talk about old times, eat more.

Have you realized yet that some of us don't have family togetherness on Christmas? Mine are in Europe.

You can catch up on FaceTime. Holidays are a great time to catch up with family even if not in person. The rest can be done with immediate family.

And then what do you do after the 1/2 - 1 hour conversation on Facetime is over? You are obtuse, insensitive and live in a bubble. If you have no family around, you have about 2 whole DAYS of holiday to fill. You can't do that all with phone calls. Next time try to get out of your own self absorbed world and look at an issue from someone else's point of view before you post something snarky and clueless like "what a weird question".

You must have known most people don’t live on separate continents from their entire family? If you only wanted responses from people without family, you shouldn’t have asked what families do. They spend time together. Whatever size family that is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Spend time together? What a weird question.

Christmas Eve - chat with family we don’t see often, bake cookies, watch Christmas movies, play board/card games

Christmas Day - open presents, play with new toys, eat a big meal, catch up with more family, laugh and play games, talk about old times, eat more.

Have you realized yet that some of us don't have family togetherness on Christmas? Mine are in Europe.

You can catch up on FaceTime. Holidays are a great time to catch up with family even if not in person. The rest can be done with immediate family.

And then what do you do after the 1/2 - 1 hour conversation on Facetime is over? You are obtuse, insensitive and live in a bubble. If you have no family around, you have about 2 whole DAYS of holiday to fill. You can't do that all with phone calls. Next time try to get out of your own self absorbed world and look at an issue from someone else's point of view before you post something snarky and clueless like "what a weird question".

OP here. I didn’t post the FaceTime response but the poster is right. I FaceTime my family every other day anyway. My question wasn’t directed specifically to ppl with no families. I was just curious what people do with kids to keep them occupied.

You must have known most people don’t live on separate continents from their entire family? If you only wanted responses from people without family, you shouldn’t have asked what families do. They spend time together. Whatever size family that is.

[Anonymous]

When we have had Christmas with only our immediate family, we have also simply spent time together. Hang out, open presents, eat favorite foods. Walk to the local playground. Maybe walk to the local pizzeria on Christmas Eve.

If you're from another country/culture, it sounds like a great opportunity to teach your kids some traditions from said country/culture.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Spend time together? What a weird question.

Christmas Eve - chat with family we don’t see often, bake cookies, watch Christmas movies, play board/card games

Christmas Day - open presents, play with new toys, eat a big meal, catch up with more family, laugh and play games, talk about old times, eat more.

Have you realized yet that some of us don't have family togetherness on Christmas? Mine are in Europe.

You can catch up on FaceTime. Holidays are a great time to catch up with family even if not in person. The rest can be done with immediate family.

And then what do you do after the 1/2 - 1 hour conversation on Facetime is over? You are obtuse, insensitive and live in a bubble. If you have no family around, you have about 2 whole DAYS of holiday to fill. You can't do that all with phone calls. Next time try to get out of your own self absorbed world and look at an issue from someone else's point of view before you post something snarky and clueless like "what a weird question".

Do you actually need help/suggestions on what to do on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day? Or do you just want to complain about how you have no family nearby. How do you not know what to do? Bake cookies, watch movies, wrap gifts. We are so busy we don’t even go outside usually. My God, it’s not rocket science!

[Anonymous]

There is stuff open Christmas Eve night and everything is back open 26th am. You literally have one 12 hour span on Christmas Day where you can’t go to the trampoline park. Go outside, it’ll be mild this year. Go to the movies. Or just freaking chill at your house without filling every hour with planned outings for once.

[Anonymous]

We take our dogs for a moderate hike at the local reservation as their Christmas present, and go to the playground if it's warm enough. Otherwise we lay low - watch Christmas movies, enjoy holiday food, play board games, completely relax.

[Anonymous]

For people who don't have extended family nearby, you still have your own family and can do many of the same activities.

Christmas eve - bake cookies, decorate gingerbread houses or similar item, go to see a light display, dinner at a restaurant

Christmas day - open presents, make a nice breakfast, go on a walk/hike depending on weather, watch a movie (at home or out), make or go out for a nice dinner - maybe at a nice hotel to see their Christmas decorations.

[Anonymous]

We have no local family (just our family of 3) but will often get together with friends for skating or a hot chocolate, then church & dinner on Christmas Eve. On Christmas Day, we have a leisurely morning with presents, go out to a fancy brunch, walk home and then dd plays with her new toys, I nap, and dh reads or calls people. Then for evening we have little pre-made nibbles (no cooking for me) and play games with each other, maybe have friends over if people are around. It’s super chill and a sweet time - nice to have a couple of days where we’re all off from work/school so for us the days go too quickly.

[Anonymous]

Smithsonian is open on 12/24...a quiet day for a museum trip.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Spend time together? What a weird question.

Christmas Eve - chat with family we don’t see often, bake cookies, watch Christmas movies, play board/card games

Christmas Day - open presents, play with new toys, eat a big meal, catch up with more family, laugh and play games, talk about old times, eat more.

Have you realized yet that some of us don't have family togetherness on Christmas? Mine are in Europe.

You can catch up on FaceTime. Holidays are a great time to catch up with family even if not in person. The rest can be done with immediate family.

And then what do you do after the 1/2 - 1 hour conversation on Facetime is over? You are obtuse, insensitive and live in a bubble. If you have no family around, you have about 2 whole DAYS of holiday to fill. You can't do that all with phone calls. Next time try to get out of your own self absorbed world and look at an issue from someone else's point of view before you post something snarky and clueless like "what a weird question".

Responses like this really bother me. Quit looking for things to be offended by. The pp is saying what they do on the holiday. It is a bit of an odd question as most do spend time with family. If the OP wanted better answers, they should have specified-what do you don Christmas Day if you have no local family?

[Anonymous]

It sounds like there are some people who are finding the holidays to be hard. Lots of people do -- it's "supposed" to be a time of joy, and it can be hard to be the mom in charge of making joy if there are challenges.

My family is far away and my father is not well My parents are getting older. I miss them this year.

We'll spend the holidays with my spouse's family. Open presents and have a nice breakfast. Skype with extended family. We like to cook, so we will cook a nice meal together. Kids will spend some time playing with new toys. Someone always gets a new board game or something that can be shared and so we'll do that. There are ALWAYS books, so folks that want to curl up and read a book can do that. We'll go out for a walk to stretch our legs (and also because we eat all day). Eat a huge meal, then sit around and drink wine and probably play more games.

[Anonymous]

Small family of three DH, DS13, me- on the 24th, church then out for a nice dinner afterwards.

I wake up early the 25th and make a great breakfast. We eat casually, then open gifts. Dinner is a baked ham and easy sides so we can enjoy movies, board games, gifts, and spending time together.

It's always a great, relaxing holiday. I would love to have a larger family, but it's not in the cards for us. We make nice traditions with our little group of three.

[Anonymous]

You don’t need a giant extended family to do the things people listed. Here’s some stuff we’ll do at some point:

Sing Christmas carols
Drive around looking at Christmas lights
Big puzzle we can all work on together
Decorate gingerbread houses
Bake cookies & pies
Watch Christmas movies
Play board games/ Uno
Coloring/drawing for the kids
Art kit they got for Christmas
Play with toys they got for Christmas

[Anonymous]

Also, for the people who don't have family near, I know it's hard. One year, I was living on a separate coast from my family-- young, single, and didn't know many people. My new job had a major deadline right after New Years so I couldn't fly home-- to top it off, my roommate left to see family, the weather was bad, and I didn't have much money. It was actually quite difficult and lonely. I would have loved it if someone had invited me somewhere.

After that experience, I joined a church. I also kind of watched for people at work and in my life who might be single or have family living far away. We've had a few years with extra people over a Thanksgiving or low key Christmas dinner.