Be Excellent To Each Other

Have my brother and family coming to us on the 19th-23rd. Then have sister in law and family on Xmas Day.

Then brothers on Boxing Day and nothing else planned. Will finish Friday but have to go into work for 2 meetings in the morning Tuesday that I can't get out of.

Looking forward to it as my son is 2 and a half now and I've taken him through the Raymond Briggs Father Christmas book. He knows who he is and that he will be brining him presents. All he wants (he told me) is a Fireman Sam clock which my some miracle I found on Ebay!

Feel more in the spirit this year than I have for years as my son is getting into it now, nice feeling

This year we have Russell's brother and his girlfriend, and their dog Charlie, joining us for Christmas Eve through Boxing Day for our first family Christmas with our little boy.

Russell and I usually enjoy Christmas alone so, for me, this is a LOT of people.

Obviously our little champ will have no concept of what is going on, but it will be lovely nonetheless, and we still have the excitement of Christmas to see in our boy in a few years to come.

I'm making a traditional Christmas dinner, and there will be board games and lots of chat.

It's the three of us for Christmas dinner this year, before Helen's son goes off to his dad's in the afternoon.
We shall start the day with a very nice breakfast - scrambled egg and bacon bagels with bucks fizz for me, and then a fairly traditional dinner. Out for a stroll round the park in the afternoon, then more food and drink in the evening.

Last year it was just the two of us so we went for a curry and had the turkey meal on boxing day instead.

I have no plans yet. Probably just going to rock up to one of the nice restaurants around here and throw money at them until they bring me lots of food and booze.


This will be my second ever Christmas away from family, first being during my gap year. I'll miss a bunch of the usual traditions, and it's a little hard to get into the Christmas spirit at 30 degrees Celsius, but I'm sure I'll be more in the mood come the 25th.

Heading back home for Christmas with the parents. Same procedure as every year.

Where will you be for Xmas? Sounds hot! I spent Xmas 1997 in Thailand with my mate, enjoyed it and will defiantly do something abroad again maybe when my son is older.

It'll be me, Gaz and the kids for a huge dinner - probably not turkey though - and then the kids are off to their dads late afternoon.

That's if I get all the things bought/prep done in time, given that Gaz and I are away from 19th-23rd so will have precisely one day to do all the things.

Cambodia, where I live now.

Ah, Christmas Eve. The most relaxed shopping day of the year...

I do not envy you, Jem. Can't you get ALL THE THINGS today or tomorrow and just freeze what you need to? I bought a little turkey breast roll from M&S and froze it, I'll just defrost it before Christmas day to save my sanity.

I can remember when Christmas Eve used to be a brilliant time for shopping - only about 10 or so years back I'd quite often call in at Merry Hill on Christmas Eve and it was really quiet.

Now the supermarkets are full of people panic buying six loaves of bread, just in case they run out before they reopen two days later.

I've always found Christmas Day a quiet day in the supermarket. The key is not to go at midnight or just before closing time.

We've got a load of food being delivered on Xmas eve for the three of us to stay at home together with no visitors. However the boy seems determined to spend Christmas in hospital again.

Christmas Day at my folks with my Sister's family. going to be better than last year when I sat in the office.

I don't know why people still bother with all the mayhem, the giant M&S near me is open 24 hours for the next week or so. My wife was stressing about getting things and I sent her down there at 8pm last night. The place was dead and she was back stress free with everything by 9pm!

We went to Ikea on Tuesday night, and I expected it to be heaving, but it was much quieter than normal (to be fair, Russell said he thought it would be quiet, but I imagined it would be full of people buying last-minute £5 dining chairs after realising they were expecting more bums than they had seats.

I'm hoping that my local butchers is still open on Christmas Eve because then I can just get the meat from him and have a veg box delivered and I won't have to worry about going to the big shops and trolley-raging my way through numpties.

Otherwise it's beans on toast for Christmas dinner

My experience of butchers is that they open for half a day, most of which is spent doling out turkeys to people who pre-ordered them.

The last time I went on Christmas Eve he was open til late, but that was the year we'd had a lot of snow so I'm not sure if it was just for that reason. Probably should check this before I go...

Yeah. Give them a call, reserve what you want, pick up and enjoy.

I've just watched the Nigella Christmas show and now I am going to have to get black treacle to go on Russell's Christmas ham.

But what has happened to Nigella? Did she always have that wobblyhead when she talked? She doesn't seem quite with it.

Also, she needs to stop trying to smile alluringly at everything. It's not normal to try making bedroom eyes atthe ham you are removing the rind from whilst slicing through layers of gross-looking fat. It looked pretty to do. See how much I love my husband that I will cook this thing.

I remember cooking a ham for the first time last Christmas. I spent ages looking for one before realising they are called something else.

My local butcher will not sell anything to you unless its an order and in his book from 22nd onwards.

Not getting anything from him this year, but there are usually 14 people in front of me when I go and collect my order and that's at 6am.

For the last couple of years I've been cooking mine (after soaking in water for 12 hours) in a Sous Vide. Around 5-6 hours and its so nice.

If you want to coat in stuff etc then not sure how well that works in a Sous Vide though.

I will do it as lazilly as possible. Stick it in the slow cooker with a bottle of cola, take rind off, score and cover in treacle, oven for 20 mins.

Maybe treacle and mustard if I have mustard.

That sounds far too organised.

I am not sure yet, I have my boy so it will be a quiet one. Lots of TV and lego. Need to decide on the food.

At MrsA's parents with Captain Shitpants. Nobody drinks there*, so it'll be rather quiet.


*perhaps one small glass of fizz with dinner.

Mines a bit like that, brother and sister in law off the sauce trying to conceive 2nd kid, my wife will have a few but not many, so will be stuck with them all commenting on how much I drink. I won't be going mad but you look like a bigger drinker when surrounded by people who aren't partaking.

My first Christmas with the family after missing three in a row - one I pushed off on my own, the other two overseas - and I'll be with parents, brother and his kids. Never had Christmas with the latter so that'll be extra cute and is all I wanted. Which is just as well, as we don't do presents between us any more.

Just get wrecked and see what happens.

I'm heading to Wales late on 23rd, to spend about six days with my mum. I'm taking my daughter and High Command is joining us on the 27th. Most of my immediate extant family will be around on Christmas day (older brother and sister, nephew etc), which should be good. Might interfere with my mums cooking to make sure she doesn't ruin the turkey. Other than that, I'm planning on lazing, reading a lot and drinking myself into a stupor while wearing paper hats. Might make my nephew bring his consoles over, seeing as he's going to New York on Boxing day.

Pretty usual stuff in the Warhead household. Christmas Day, my sis-in-law will be around for dinner, but my son will be in the USA (flying out on Christmas Day, actually) as he finds Christmas to be an unhappy time since he split from his wife late last year and wouldn't be seeing his daughter on Christmas Day anyway, as it's her mum's turn to have her on the day. So it'll be Mrs. W and I, our daughter and sis-in-law on the day.

Mrs W has ordered food from M&S which we'll collect on The Eve. She wouldn't normally do that, but she's decided to take it easier this year (which she deserves, as she had health problems 2 years ago and our son's break up last year, both of which were emotionally draining for her), so we're hoping to have a relatively relaxed time this year.

There will probably be a new board game after dinner, we usually get one each Christmas, but they tend to be a bit hit and miss.

My ex-parents-in-law didn't drink much at all and I still got shitfaced anyway. Fuck what anyone else is doing tbh

Give King of Tokyo a try.

Russell and I don't drink much, especially since getting pregnant, but we certainly wouldn't expect our guests not to make merry.

That said, there's nothing more dull than that one very drunk person being a nuisance when you know one of those people who become a bit of a bore or pest when they are drunk. I guess it depends on the kind of person drinking and what they do if and when they know they've perhaps had enough.

I didn't know Russell was expecting - congratulations

"We're expecting a baby - but it could be a velociraptor."

"Nature finds a way"

I rwally like king of Tokyo.

I'm off back home this Christmas to see the 'rents, and happily my sister, bro-law and nephew are too. It's my nephew's first Christmas, so I don't expect many moments of startling clarity or erudite wit from him, but it's all rather exciting!

The usual system for me is to clock in at Manchester midday on Christmas Eve, maybe buy a last minute present if I failed over the weekend, and then meet the parents in Huddersfield. Maybe a beer with them in the Sportsman, the best pub in Huddersfield, before headed home. A traditional Christmas Eve movie, a game of chess with my dad and then Christmas - yay!

We have roast chicken, by the way. Turkey's too dry. We tend to see relatives on boxing day, we prefer a quiet Christmas day and so does my grandma. After dinner and washing up it's off for a walk, probably Oakwell Hall, and then home to play Carcasonne or something and watch a film. Then read one of the inevitable new books I've received as a present and flop around drinking Tanglefoot, which always tastes better from a can rather than draught, funnily enough.

If your turkey's dry, you're not using enough butter and bacon.

Always approach a Turkey in the same way as you would do anal sex.

I was going to comment that this is bold scheduling, then realised you're skipping the quiz this year. Wise.

How is receiving a text message saying "he's gone to work" going to help?

Dare I ask.. what do you do with the bacon?

You tie it to a piece of string and have them swallow it.

string is involved.

I always thought it was Wolfbagging. Every day's a school day.

Learn something new every day.