As promised, I’m back with a second round of Would You Rather (the Christmas Edition). Is this Festive Central or what?
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While I love a range of food at Christmas, if I was forced to choose, it would be sweets. Don’t get me wrong – I would miss turkey. But give up my Twizzlers? Give up Cinnamon Coffee Cake? GIVE UP UNBAKED CHERRY CHEESECAKE? Perish the thought.
Consider me Captain of the Sweet Team.
Loading ...This question came from Melissa. I’m definitely a turkey gal at heart and feel like ham is more of an American tradition over holidays (in Canada, most people I know have turkey at both Thanksgiving AND Christmas). But we have a seafood casserole a few days before Christmas (with leftovers of it again on Christmas Eve)…and I do love ham. But turkey is tradition!
Loading ...I’m an introvert at heart, so my preference – especially if I am hosting – will always and forever be just immediate family (which includes grandparents). If someone else is hosting, a larger group is tolerable, but still not ideal. I find the chaos overwhelming and it’s hard to carve out downtime.
Loading ...I prefer it when everyone opens gifts one at a time. We tend to take turns for the first while and then the kids get a bit antsy. I try to distract them by having them select and deliver gifts from under the tree. This works for a bit but at some point, they just start doing their own thing.
Many gifts take me several minutes or more to wrap and label (not to mention the hours and hours of thinking/shopping/buying/hiding) so I want to extend the opening experience for as long as possible to feel like I got more return on my investment. Unwrapping can all be “over” in an incredibly short period if we don’t find ways to savour and prolong the fun.
I also get a lot of joy out of seeing what other people receive; I usually look forward to watching others more than I anticipate opening my own gifts!
Loading ...I was a married adult with a child before I realized some people did not wrap every single stocking stuffer. My mind was blown and devastated the year we visited someone who did not wrap stocking stuffers. Just dumping out a stocking and seeing everything tumble out unwrapped took about 5 seconds and bummed me out.
My parents didn’t have much money when I was growing up so all our stocking stuffers were wrapped in plastic bags (yup – the ones from the grocery store; it was the 80s and 90s), taped with masking tape on which my mom would write the first initial of the recipient. And she wrapped everything. Every single member of our family got bars of soap, toothpaste, and toothbrushes – stacks of things we would all take right back to the stash in the bathroom after opening it up. But it made Christmas feel abundant and luxurious, even though not many things were technically “exciting.” For me, the wrapping of stocking stuffers added to that excitement 100-fold.
Most years I have wrapped stocking stuffers in regular Christmas wrap, but this year I’ve been using brown craft paper or recycled brown paper bags. I just write the person’s name on the brown paper with Sharpie – no label needed! But every single stocking stuffer is wrapped…this is a hill I will die on like my toilet paper stance.
(It’s over by the way. You should all know this about me by now.) And it’s a major tangent but check out this article in Inc: Yes, People Who Hang Toilet Paper Rolls This Way Often Do Make More Money
The punchline: “Those who roll over (leaving the loose end away from the wall): Like being in charge, like organization and order, and are likely to overachieve…Interestingly, some roll overs feel so strongly about how toilet paper should be hung that they will flip a roll at a roll under’s house.” Guilty as charged to the last bit. A friend who knows how I feel purposefully switched the TP at my house to UNDER. (Hi Elaine.) The article continues: “assertive (roll over) people are more likely to be in leadership roles and to have a take-charge attitude. Those hanging the roll ‘under’ are more likely to be submissive. Submissive people tend to be more agreeable, flexible and empathetic.” Oh and folks that roll over, tend to MAKE MORE MONEY. Correlation/causation, I know, but if you’re looking for a raise next year and currently roll under, maybe think about switching things up to the correct orientation of OVER.
Getting back to Christmas…
Loading ...Secret Santa or the cookie exchange. I suppose if I walked away with my coveted item in a White Elephant exchange I’d be happy. But I find the whole experience of swapping out gifts quite frustrating. That said, some gag gifts at White Elephant exchanges can make it all seem worthwhile. I remember one year friends of ours attended a White Elephant party. The husband bought a cheap frame at the DollarStore and replaced the placeholder image with a giant picture…of himself. It became the funny gag gift of the evening that was getting traded around like mad; at the end of the night, he shocked everyone when he revealed – to the reluctant winner – that he had hidden a gift card inside the back of the frame. Genius!
Loading ...No question – home! We had a few very bad experiences with treacherous winter travel around Christmas. Plus, I prefer being in my own space, waking up in my own bed, and not lugging gifts and gear. I do think if we didn’t have kids at home I’d be relatively neutral about going elsewhere as long as we didn’t have to drive through snow. When A and L were younger – and we lived in a teeny apartment that was not at all conducive to hosting company – we often did travel at some point over the holidays. But home is definitely where my heart is. Having my parents living down the street again this winter is the best of both worlds. No overnight company (well, my father-in-law is also visiting for Christmas but he’s the perfect house guest!) and we all have our own space – but we’re able to effortlessly spend time together.
Loading ...I know I made up this question, but it is tough. I think I’d have to go with not knowing. I’m a sucker for surprises and I think it would bum me out to know everything under the tree.
Loading ...Definitely late! I would hate to be finished with presents and such before Christmas. Several times when the kids were little we visited my parents before Christmas (so we could be back home for Christmas Day). I much preferred the years where we visited them after Christmas (we would arrive at their house on Christmas Day, but we pretended it was “Christmas Eve” for the sake of all our favourite Christmas Eve traditions – most of which involved food).
Loading ...We have friends who always wrapped all the gifts for their kids on Christmas Eve. They’d set up a huge assembly line of items and wrapping materials in their bedroom and stay up into the wee hours of the night getting it done. I prefer wrapping gifts in small batches, spread throughout December. After an hour of wrapping, I don’t find it fun anymore. I leave things quasi-set up for weeks in our laundry room, so it’s not much of a hassle to start/stop. And this way it feels more enjoyable, instead of an arduous chore. Plus, I like to be in bed asleep by 10 pm on Christmas Eve, so staying up late to wrap holds little to no appeal! Aren’t I just a party animal…
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I love, love, love tradition. But I do enjoy trying new things (within reason) and appreciate some of the changes we’ve made over the years to modify existing traditions. But who am I trying to kid? I’m caption of the cheer squad for Team Tradition.
Your turn. Are you all about tradition – location, food, gifts? Or do you like to spread your wings and fly (maybe letting an airplane do the heavy lifting on the whole flight thing)? Are you Team Sweet or Savoury? Do you wrap your stocking stuffers?
Header photo by Krzysztof Hepner on Unsplash
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Shelly
I do not like travelling in bad winter weather so that has made me prefer home. We are hosting 19 for Christmas dinner but I prefer small gatherings. I find the larger ones overwhelming. Normally I’m hardcore, you can only make one choice in would you rather, and only two choices but for Christmas I’m sweet and savoury. There is just too many good foods to pick one side.
I say wrap all month, but how many gifts do I have wrapped so far? Zero. I’m behind but have Friday off while the kids are at school so there will be wrapping.
And team over of course!
Elisabeth
I think it would be different if we lived in a more temperate climate, but one year we had six legs to our Christmas journey and the roads were DANGEROUSLY horrible for every single leg.
Nineteen. Ooff. That’s a lot.
Happy wrapping on Friday (our school finished yesterday).
And chalk one up for the good guys with another Team Over vote <3
Kyria @ Travel Spot
For stockings, we actually do a mix of both, but you did not have that option, so I picked wrapped. We mostly wrap things that are a little bigger, like soap or a book or socks, but don’t wrap the small things like chapstick. We also get a mandarin at the bottom every year so that you know you are at the bottom and it would just be weird to dump everything out and have it be in the wrong order!! Who does that!?
Elisabeth
That makes sense – to wrap some but not all. We wrap EVERYTHING. Like I don’t know if ever in the history of my life (the one year we were at someone else’s house for Christmas) have I not had every stocking stuffer wrapped. But it does get tedious.
Love the mandarin. How cute <3
Lindsay
We wrap our stocking stuffers! (And, try to be wrapped in the weeks before Christmas Eve, even if that hasn’t been the case for a few years here and there…) My family loves their traditions and we try to keep with the ones that make sense each year while adding in a new thing here and there (like this year where I’m adding on a new dessert and my daughter got to go out and buy presents on a budget for us with no guidance or vetoing). For savory vs. sweet, I feel like I am right in the middle – I NEED BOTH!!
Elisabeth
Fair enough – the whole thing about Christmas is you get both (where I feel like birthday’s, Valentine’s etc tend to be focussed primarily on the sweets aspect of the food).
Love the budget shopping; it’s really fun for kids to have that autonomy, and they can come up with some pretty brilliant and well thought out decisions.
Jenny
Hmm, some of these questions were TRICKY. I needed a third option for the stocking stuffer one- I wrap some of the stocking stuffers but not all of them. While I’m wrapping the bigger presents I save little scraps of paper for the stocking presents- how many scraps I have usually dictates how many of the stocking presents get wrapped.
I see from your toilet paper example that I’m apparently “submissive” and poor! Maybe I’ll have to try it over and see if my life changes.
Elisabeth
This makes sense – to only wrap what your scraps will cover. We are definitely a wrap everything type of home, but I don’t mind the idea of a mix. Some things are such a nuisance to wrap…
Well, I suspect nothing will change with altering your TP habits, but it would make my heart swell to know you’d joined Team Over. It puzzles me to no end that some people put it on the opposite way. Why? How? It doesn’t work as well!!!!
NGS
The only time I have been at my home on Christmas Day was in 2020 because of the pandemic. I loved it so much. But I also really like spending time with my family, so I guess I have to just learn to deal with it. Travel is going to happen.
We don’t have stockings. There’s no place to hang them. But my mom definitely used to wrap them.
I’m like Jenny and I think some of these need more options! I love traditions for the most part, with one new experience a year.
Elisabeth
One new experience a year sounds like a good pace for me!
Beckett @ Birchwood Pie
I’m all about savory foods on Thanksgiving and New Years, but on Christmas I want sweets! Also it’s the one time of the year that I don’t want to travel. We wrap stocking stuffers, but not very elaborately.
WAIT HOLD THE PHONE PEOPLE WHO HANG THEIR TP THE CORRECT WAY MAKE MORE $$$$??????? THAT’S WHY I GOT THE BIG RAISE!!!!!!
Elisabeth
Clearly, this is 100% the reason you got a raise – hahaha.
Lisa's Yarns
I don’t wrap any of our santa gifts including stockings! I learned from other moms that you don’t need to have the santa gifts wrapped and I was happy to give up that wrapping job! I know it can be anticlimatic but so it goes! The boys are getting candy in their stockings and then Paul is getting a little brain teaser game so they don’t get all that much in the stocking.
We are having ham for Christmas dinner. I let Phil pick as I’m kind of indifferent. The best part of a ham is the leftovers and especially the ham bone. We usually make a great soup with the ham bone. But I know there are STRONG feelings about ham!
Elisabeth
Our kids have NEVER believed in Santa, so I don’t have that added “wrinkle” – a few times it has made me sad because the magic is, well, magical, but also…100x easier without that pressure.
ccr in MA
When I was a kid, our “stocking” gifts went into boxes instead of our actual stockings–Mom got fed up with trying to find things small enough to go in the stockings, which were often more expensive, so she switched over and goodie boxes it was (like, the size of a sweater box–we’re not talking huge boxes). I’m pretty sure she didn’t wrap everything in the boxes, though. I’ll have to ask her what she remembers. The only specific thing I remember always being in mine was Callard and Bowser butterscotch–it was so good! I wish they still made that.
Elisabeth
Goodie boxes are where we end up, too. Our stockings aren’t big enough to hold things like colouring books etc, so everyone gets a stocking with a few things and then a pile beside the stocking!
Melissa
I’m really surprised, given most of your readers are northern hemisphere that seafood is featured so highly as a preference. It’s fairly popular in Australia because of the hot weather, but I’m turkey all the way (we also have ham). Christmas is the only time we have turkey and I’m not giving it up!
We wrap all our presents here, but the kids used to have sacks that the Santa presents went in and no stockings.
On the travel, every second year we have lunch with my parents at Pt Lonsdale which is fine but I hate having to drive back to Melbourne in the afternoon for Hubby’s celebration. The 2019 Christmas he was so over it he said no more but then the pandemic came and his mum is getting more frail and who knows how many Christmas’s we’ll have.
Elisabeth
I love turkey at Christmas, too! No desire to skip it, that’s for sure.
It is hard with aging parents; striking the right balance of wanting to spend as much time with them as possible with also recognizing too much travel over the holidays can take a lot of fun out of the experience <3
ShropshireLass
Definitely Team Over, and absolutely will tinker with the loo roll at others’ houses to correct.
We are generally a very traditional British family, so full turkey roast on the Big Day, with roast potatoes, roast parsnips, stuffing and pigs in blankets. We are, controversially, Team Yorkshire Pudding too (purists would only have this with beef). All followed by Christmas Pudding (covered in brandy and set on fire) and a chocolate log. Elderly relatives might ask for a mince pie to follow. We pull a cracker at the start of the meal, put on our paper hats, and share the cheesy jokes. Baked ham and mashed potato is for Boxing Day!
All presents are wrapped, except the mandarin orange and chocolate coins, and get put in the stocking. This is where it gets a bit weird. My parents always gave us a nylon stocking (technically a pair of tights cut in half) which we left by the fireplace, and when we woke up it was at the foot of the bed. We would then drag this long, thin, KNOBBLY, stocking back down the stairs, lumpetty thump, to be opened first thing in front of the fire. It was SO exciting to feel all the bumps and lumps. I thought this was completely normal until I was an adult! We do the same with our children and although now they are teenagers they concede it is a bit bonkers, and nobody else does it, they won’t change to any other way.
Elisabeth
There is a right way and a wrong way and we are just making sure everyone knows the truth – ha!
Your Christmas dinner sounds AMAZING. We have British friends and anytime they came over for dinner at Christmas they would bring crackers; they love their flimsy hats <3
I LOVE the nylon stocking image. How fun and it would be way easier to cram things in!!!
Joy
Team over 100%! This is definitely a hill to die on.
We have roast beef and yorkshire pudding for Christmas and pork pies for Christmas Eve. As much as I would miss the sweets, I can’t imagine Christmas without the savory food.
I used to wrap every single stocking stuffer but when my boys all hit adulthood, I called it quits and stopped wrapping most of them. This year, everyone getting is getting a chocolate orange and a real orange ( except my husband who doesn’t care for candy and is gettinga gorgeous wedge of gouda cheese). I bought everyone one big gift and one book to simplify and be able to get them something really great while staying in budget.
Elisabeth
Yes, Joy. You’re right. This IS a hill worth dying on.
Roast beef + Yorkshire Pudding sounds incredible.
We often give our daughter cheese for her birthday/Christmas. She LOVES cheese and it’s pricey. Why not give a consumable that isn’t candy, right?! I should get her a cheese advent calendar one year…