Celebrating an early Christmas Day, I have decided, is always a good idea and after last weekend I think it should be done every year. Now, before you think that me and my family have completely lost it, we haven’t!
My sister has got a job as a ski instructor and so is leaving on the 14th November to go to Canada. All going well (not in a mean well, she has to pass a course) she will stay out there till next May and so will miss Christmas! How distressing is that? Therefore, we thought so she doesn’t miss out we should all celebrate an early Christmas Day and so we did.
We will of course still be celebrating Christmas again on 25th December but we wanted to celebrate altogether as a family too. See, more than one Christmas is a great idea!
The day itself:
We started the day much like we would the ‘actual’ day, minus the visit from Father Christmas. He’s still busy getting ready! For breakfast I had pancakes with bacon and maple syrup and my family had croissants. The Christmas dinner waiting to be cooked in the kitchen.
Of course, we didn’t go all out with the tree so instead Eloise’s little tree and Frostie the Snowman had to take up the job of guarding the presents until they were ready for us to unwrap.
Tinsel covered the fireplace, lights lit up the bottom and chocolates were put out in a bowl, like they always are. I even made sure I put on my Elf slipper socks and Elf hat too! We all dressed up too!
Christmas Dinner / Festive Food:
One of the best bits, am I right? Mum and Dad definitely pulled out all the stops for Christmas dinner. We had all the trimmings and more, crackers to pull, fizz to drink and Christmas pudding napkins to stop us making a mess! As always, like everyone is after a huge roast we left the table cradling our food babies and had to make sure we waited a few hours before finding something more for dessert!
That was also extremely yummy, melt in the middle chocolate puddings with ice cream for me and Eloise and Christmas pudding and custard for Mum and Dad. Benjamin, bizarrely, didn’t have one!
We ended the evening with mince pies, yule log, mini Christmas cakes and Lebkuchen because you can never eat too much food on Christmas.
Presents:
As Eloise was going away we had to exchange our Christmas gifts with her before she goes. We gave her our presents and she opened those which she will be unable to take away with her. Don’t worry, she still has several she can open on the 25th December. She gave us our presents (we didn’t open them) and our Secret Santa took place! We wanted to all be able to open something on the day so thought, what’s a better way!
We all picked names out of a hat and after the second draw we had someone other than ourselves!
Now, the funny thing is about this is we all sort of knew who each other had. Eloise told me as needed help with her gift, I told Mum as needed help with mine and Benjamin, well, he accidentally let slip that he had me! He tried to deny it by saying ‘No, no I have Dad! I have Dad’, but… I knew he was lying as I had Dad! It still makes us laugh!
I am extremely happy with my ‘Secret’ Santa gift as I received two cake tins and some silicone cupcake cases so yes, that means some more baking posts will be coming your way! To have a peek at the rest of my baking posts, click here.
Festive Fun:
I don’t know about you but we try and play at least one game on Christmas all together as a family and that didn’t change regardless of the date of our Christmas Day. Mum purchased two games, ‘Yule Duel’ and ‘Festive Draw It’ and we had lots of fun and laughs playing the games. I think the favourite was the drawing game and the ‘What am I?’ game where we desperately yelled out all sorts of things trying to guess the right answer.
I’m writing this post after we have just finished watching the final Harry Potter film, ‘Harry Potter and the Dealthy Hallows, Part Two’, all of us full of food and Christmas merriment. What a better way to spend an evening, eh?
I had a truly wonderful early Christmas Day and I promise you, my family and I are not crazy! Eloise leaves tomorrow which will be weird but it was really nice to celebrate early but of course we will celebrate Christmas as normal on the 25th and we will most likely phone or Skype her to say hello too!
I hope you have enjoyed reading how we celebrated too!
This is such a cute idea, I think we could all do with more than Christmas a year! I love why secret santas go a bit wrong makes it all the more fun! Glad you had a wonderful day x
We definitely can, it was such a lovely way to celebrate and has made us all feel VERY festive which isn’t a bad thing at all! Haha, it was very funny and I think it was funnier as we all tried so hard not to tell each other and that completely failed! Thank you for your lovely comment! x
I love this post, I actually just started putting up my Christmas decorations this weekend. What’s your favorite part of the holidays?
Thank you! Oh my goodness, no way! That’s so exciting! Definitely spending time with all my family as I don’t get to do that all the time because I’m away from home for university – what about you? x
Absolutely love this, I’m jealous, I want an early Christmas Day! Sounds like you had a lovely day, super cute! Fingers crossed she passes her course! x
Hehe, thank you! It was a really lovely day! Awh thank you, really hope she does even though it’ll be weird not seeing her for so long! x
This is a great idea. We all have a family member or friend who won’t be around for Christmas, so why not do an early one? I’m so excited because my first Christmas party of the season is December 1st!
http://www.voguefauxreal.com
Thank you! Exactly, why should they miss out on the celebrations and I think everyone could do with one to get into the festive spirit and for to just cheer people up in general! Ooooh that is exciting – only a few weeks to go!
I love this idea. What a lovely thing to do before your sister went away. I hope she has a lovely time, it’s an amazing experience and a great memory for her to take away with her.
Nina x
http://justnina.co.uk
Thank you! I’m so jealous haha, she’ll have an absolutely amazing time and she’s never been to Canada to ski so certainly a new and exciting experience! x
This is such a cute idea!! It’s nice to read a Christmas themed post it’s really getting me in the mood!
Yayy, that’s such a nice thing to hear! You can never start celebrating too early!
This has got me excited for Christmas! I need to start planning everything. Only 6 weeks to go
It’s scarily soon isn’t it! Normally I’m a bit anti Christmas pre-birthday as it’s exactly 4 weeks before so can be a bit annoying having it mashed into one kinda thing but super excited for both this year! Have you started shopping?
Aw, this is such a sweet idea! Now I’m feeling mega festive and don’t think I can wait until December 25th… gonna go sooo slow!! x
6 weeks to go! It’ll probably go sooner than we think and we’ll all be running around in a mad dash panic trying to organise everything in time! x
I loved this post, it was a really sweet thing to do for your sister! Sounds like you all had a great day too. We do a similar thing for my fiancé as we’re long distance, he’ll come visit early in December for a weekend and we’ll all celebrate together then, it’s so much fun. 😊 Good luck to your sister, hope she does well!
We had such a perfect day, I’ve my parents to thank for pulling out all the stops to make it so lovely! Ah that sounds absolutely perfect, it’s so nice to be able to share the day with someone special if they aren’t there on the ‘official’ date! Christmas doesn’t have to be on one specific day anyway, it’s all about how you spend it and share it with loved ones! Thank you lovely, means a lot! x
This is such a lovely post Imogen! It sounds like you had such a special day and yum that Christmas dinner looks amazinggg! Melt in the middle chocolate puddings sound like the best dessert ever. He he, your Secret Santa made me laugh as it reminded me of my family. We do something similar and have “early Christmas” a week or so before the day so the whole family can spend it together. Each year we do Secret Santa but as none of us can keep it a secret it is not much of a surprise, ha ha! Thanks for sharing your festive day and all the best to Eloise with her skiing instructor course! <3 xx
Bexa | http://www.hellobexa.com
Wow Bexa, thank you for an amazing comment as usual! x We had the best day and the roast was absolutely delicious, definitely didn’t expect the Christmas breakfast either so that was a lovely surprise! Ah that’s so lovely, it’s nice to be able to do it with everyone included isn’t it? It was so funny, I thought we’d be a little better at keeping it a secret! Whoops! Thank you, I’ll pass it on to her! xx
Wow, a ski instructor! That sounds amazing! Those Mr Kipling Christmas Slices sound amazing 🙂 xxx
It’s a pretty cool job, if you pardon the pun! They are amazing, you have to try them! xxx
Sounds like you had such a fun day, totally cool getting to have 2 Christmasses too! Such a lovely thing to do for your sister. x
We really did, I know it’s so fun isn’t it? She really enjoyed it so glad we did it! x
Love this Imogen! I think having 2 Christmas days is a fantastic idea and should be introduced worldwide!
We need to implement this everywhere RIGHT NOW! 😀 x
Aww this was so fun to read! Thanks for sharing about how your family celebrates Christmas. And all the food you had is getting me hyped up for Christmas now!!!
Layna
http://www.beautybeyondtwenty.com
It’s so close now, definitely hyped up for Christmas! x
This looks like you had so much fun Imogen and what a sweet celebration to have with your sister. It’s 100% got me into the festive mood I can’t wait for Christmas!!
It’s so close isn’t it? It was such a fun day! 😀 x
I love that you were able to share a Christmas day with your sister before she left. That’s funny about the secret santa. And you are right, having two Christmas’ is a great idea.
I couldn’t stop laughing, keep laughing at it now! It was such a good day and two Christmas’s needs to happen every year haha!
What a wonderful idea, and lucky sister off for a winter season too. We have a Yule Christmas day and then the traditional Christmas day x
I know, I’m so jealous! What’s a Yule Christmas Day? If that’s two Christmas’s I like your style! x
Yule is the winter solstice on the 21st, a pagan Christmas day, so yep 2 days to celebrate
Ohh I didn’t realise that, that sounds lovely! Hope you have some fabulous celebrations! x
Awww thank you.
You too 😘😘😘😘
This is such a sweet idea! I love it x
Thank you, was a really good day! x
That’s so sweet of you all to celebrate early, I’m actually doing something similar as I’m having a Christmas day on the 15th December as my brother and his fiance are going up to Hull for actual Christmas! What a great job though, good luck to her!!
Chloe xx
http://www.chloechats.com
Oh that sounds lovely, I hope you have an amazing day together! It’s really nice to celebrate all as a family even if it is early! Thank you, she’s only got two weeks left of her course now – it’s gone so quick! x
This sounds lovely and what a great way to spend time together before your sister leaves. Early Christmases should be more of a thing! Especially when you won’t see friends or family over the holiday period. I’m glad you all had a great day.
Thank you so much, let’s get them enforced worldwide – early Christmas for everyone! 😀
Best of luck to your sister, I hope she passes the exam because this seems like it will be such an exciting adventure!
Thank you so much, fingers crossed – she’s only got two weeks left now! x
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Christmas is one of those holidays that should be celebrated every month! 😉 Glad you got to spend your early Christmas with your whole family.
I couldn’t agree more! Thanks lovely! x