CF holiday plans?

I know this time of year can be great for some people, and stressful for others. I hope everyone finds time to do things they find fun and meaningful with people they love.

I plan on hanging out with my spouse and family of choice a lot. I'm on winter break. Sleeping in, making fancier stuff for dinner since I have time, making holiday treats (and sending the extra to work with the spouse so I'm not stuck with 'em), playing video games, reading, all that good stuff. The only time I might be around minors is my friends' teenagers, and since they've actually been raised properly they're good kids to hang with.

Christmas day itself will be spent with my husband. We're going to make a nice breakfast, exchange presents, and have a friend over for Chinese food for dinner. It's become a tradition the past few years.

What plans do you guys have?

We go to OHs parents, they live around the corner and he's an only child, so no bratty nieces or nephews to contend with - just 2 furbabies who want lots of hugs.

It'll be a bit of a sad one though because his granddad died recently, but it will be a chill day regardless, with presents, good food and good company - that's just how I like it ^_^

For me, it's very surreal that it's Christmas already. With my new job, I only get weekends off, so Christmas this year is meh. This is going to be my first year of not celebrating it.

DH's niece and her newlywed wife have been hosting for a few years now. Plan on hanging for a few hours and drinking some boxed wine with a few who also imbibe. Taking also some kielbasi and brie which will mostly be consumed by me, the brie that is. Hope to get a game of CAH going in the kitchen. Gifting (quietly) my SIL a Wicca gift of a mortar and pescil (it is her holiday, yule, after all, and she really needs a new one after throwing away her one that had bad vibes) but everyone else gets trail mix. Boring mix because wasabi peas are too exotic for their palates.

Dh is now unapologetically atheist but I'm more of a soft A, agnostic, so we are trying to get away from the material things. Just want to be in their presence, no presents needed for us. But they won't listen. Sigh.

Will get home early and I will spend the rest of my night paying for mixing wine and brie, curled in a ball and farting up a storm.

May watch some DVDs while we snuggle the cats.

Will update how this goes afterwards. FIL is catholic and DH is tired of his subdued annoyance. MIL is a pisser of an Episcopalian who will probably shit herself laughing if we play CAH.

I tried to put together a meal with friends who also don't celebrate, but everyone had plans to go out of town, while my travel plans fell through. So I will just work, or read, and maybe do a bit of baking if I feel like it because Christmas is the time of year where you can push your sweets on others instead of having to eat them yourself.

I'm working and getting both overtime and holiday pay. Good times!

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Aesirson
I'm working and getting both overtime and holiday pay. Good times!

Same here, though in some ways I hate to perpetrate the stereotype of, "well she doesn't have kids, what ELSE would she be doing on Xmas?". Hate that crap. I actually normally take the holiday off every year, since I have a lot of seniority within my company, but this year I'm working to build back up my savings after a nice beach vacation in late November, so the extra pay was too good to pass up.

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"Yes, fellow readers, nothing says 'devoted father of a special needs kid' quite like drinking, snorting cocaine, and then taking the boat out for a spin."
- Tiquer

Since our house flooded, we're not in the spirit this year. We'll probably work a little in our house and hit the buffet at the casino. We have a neighbor who flooded and stayed with her kids and something happened to drive a rift between them so she doesn't want to spend time with them this year so she might join us.

We went there for Thanksgiving and it was pretty good. Just doesn't feel like Christmas this year.

Doing our traditional rent a house in the country and drink/play boardgames/watch sports with friends this year.

Staying home on the 24th and 25th baking snacks and other stuff for the vacation and New Year's party we throw in the house. Plus the traditional weekend plans of grocery shopping and watching football. Also working on meal planning with the rest of the roommates.

I'm chilling out for the weekend. I have Christmas Week off (benefits of public education, you get holidays off with pay), and Hubby and I will sleep in, cook a delicious meal for Christmas and just relax. We are not exchanging gifts, because we both work long hours and haven't really had time to do the Giftmas thing, which is OK by me. I don't need lots of stuff to validate my relationship with him anyways.

My sibling and their spouse is coming up next week at the afternoon/early evening. I told them to leave their adult kids at home

It's actually not that bad anymore with the sibling. We're all older,we like to eat, drink, and shoot the breeze. Plus, the kids are all adults and working, and I don't see any spawn happening in the future. Unlike other people, my sibling actually parented the kids, and used the neighbors at their place as an example of how NOT to be. The nieces and nephews are not breeding at all.

We're going to an insanely expensive restaurant for New Years Eve. It's ranked one of the best in this region. I'll put on the fancy dress, the bling and the mink coat and we'll shoot the light fantastic to usher in 2017. That, and lots of champagne

Other than that, things will be rather quiet on the other days.
'

I'm going to be playing with my torch during my two weeks off as well as going through boxes, cleaning the shed and building an overhanging shelf for light stuff that needs to be stored. I was fortunate enough to spend a week at a bead camp last week and I can't wait to really fight pulling stringer and millefiori (I have not yet begun to fight!) . The comments I got on going were delicious. Yes it was nice to go without worrying about brats!

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"It is better not to look like what you are; it is better to look like a bourgeois woman because then all the doors are open for you and then you can just go and make hell." - Marjane Satrapi

I was born Jewish but have been an atheist for the last 40 years (I am 53). So, Christmas has never meant much of anything to me. It's just a day where nearly everything is closed except for places in areas which have large non-Christian populations. A few years ago at Xmas, my LF (who is Christian but not religious) and I went to a kosher eatery in an Orthodox Jewish area and it was pretty crowded. Maybe we go this year now that Xmas isn't falling on a Friday or Saturday night. My LF is off Monday the 26th, Friday the 30th, and Monday January 2nd. I am retired so every day is a day off. We have an Applebees gift card which we can use for a free meal, too. And some gift cards for movies if we can find any worth seeing.

Working until 7pm Christmas Eve and then on Boxing Day, off to Hong Kong with my better half.

Christmas Day will be just my Better Half and me. Normally we'd go south to see my siblings and their kids in Illinois, but we are moving to southern Wisconsin on Dec.30. Movers are coming in and packing our stuff (except musical instruments and cats) on the 28th, driving it south on the 29th. So this year it'll be fairly quiet before all the chaos. We already have a small ham for Christmas dinner, and BH is an excellent cook! Church on Christmas Eve which will be my last musical performance there--obviously not CF, but them's the breaks. No kyds to deal with here at home!

I expect Christmas to be pretty damn depressing for me this year, so I'm going to be expending a lot of energy trying not to bring everyone else down. We'll spend a minimal amount of time with all my siblings at a brother's house, bug out when the massive number of uncontrolled kids start opening gifts (and getting REALLY loud), and reconvene at my sister's house where it will be sis, Mr. kittehpeoples, my best friend, and best friend's really cool and well-behaved teen daughter.

kittehpeoples I hope everything works out and you and OH get to enjoy the holidays.

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"It is better not to look like what you are; it is better to look like a bourgeois woman because then all the doors are open for you and then you can just go and make hell." - Marjane Satrapi

I'm just going to work, then make dinner when I get home...nice and peaceful!

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Dr Who Christmas Special. And stuffing my face.

I am a Christian but I don't celebrate Christmas. Though I plan on making boozy poke cake for new years to take to my good job, and sometime celebrating the new year with my friends with a gift exchange and more boozy pole cake because I find baking really satisfying. I like seeing people happy with something I made, and I feel like I accomplish something, even though technically it is still a leisure activity and not a chore

Lock him up or put him down.
Stolen from Shiny.

I actually get Christmas off this year (and then the next three days after that). I'll be chilling at home watching Die Hard, Bad Santa, and the Doctor Who Christmas special and making a prime rib dinner for the fam.

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addiea raine, thank you. We'll be doing our best.

Mr. M6 and I are going to be spending Christmas with my CL aunt and uncle. There won't be any loaves at her house until Boxing Day, but Christmas for us will be blessedly relaxing. We're spending the night and returning home after Boxing Day brunch. There will only be one kid there, so it will be tolerable.

I am not much for buying into Xmas, but I have a stocking for my aunt and uncle with some goodies because they are putting the whole thing together.

I wouldn't have cried a tear, though, if they had alternate plans. I would have been just as happy if we would be able to spend the Holidays by ourselves, making a roast or drinking a bottle of rum with eggnog.

I'll spend the days visiting an aquarium, take some photos, watch a bunch of movies I've saved and read a bunch of books. A little baking too. Also drinking some new beer that I discovered at a Christmas party (not normally a beer drinker). I'll light some frankincense and myrrh on the 25th.

On call for air ambulance job.

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