Sounds like a great plan, Dianne.

A Christmas centerpiece arrangement for your dinner table would be all you'd need. And makes a great take home gift for your daughter or her friend.

Have a wonderful trip by the way.

This is a great thread and has me thinking different this year. Last year my 3 grown kids had a huge fallout. Still do. I suffered through the holidays terribly. Not this year. I've a renewed attitude.
I hate cooking since I've gotten older, don't need all the baked goodies anyway. I've always hated sending out cards so this year, I'll eliminate them. I only really write a note to a few anyway. With email and cell phones now, it might be nicer to spend the money on a call to them. I know I'd enjoy that better.
As far as gifts go, I've already informed my kids to not give us gifts this year. We don't really NEED anything. I've asked them to give to charity if they feel the need to give. Or better yet, give of their time to someone in need.
I have 7 grandchildren and will buy for them. I enjoy that.
You all had such good replies and seem to be a caring group. I've just joined today and think I'm going to like it here. Thanks for letting me vent.
Julie

Hey Songbird, this might not be an idea that will work for you but I am going to throw it out there anyway...what if you invited everyone over earlier, hand each person an slip of paper (you could roll them up with ribbon or something) with an item they are responsible to prepare, you could put several children on one item maybe, or they could pick slips of paper with item on it out of a hat or something, anyway then you become the supervisor and just give everyone pointers (you don't actually prepare anything, let them do it). At first they may not like it but once they get into it, it will be a meal and family time to remember. It works for our family.

mellody, I love covered dish dinners. It's fun to enjoy the recipes of others. Then I ask for the recipes! So much fun.

bichon, what do any of us NEED? Urg. I really wish I could get away with buying less for Christmas. It's so hard though because Christams was always huge in my husband's and my childhood homes. Now I'm afraid we've passed it on to another generation.

We have always kept Christmas simple and stress free.

From the begining, we only allowed our children to ask for two presents. One from Santa, and one from mom and dad. They had to really decide what they wanted. WE then would decide what else they needed or what WE wanted to give them beyond their two wishes.

We have traveled only once during Christmas, and it was a huge disappointment. To me it is MY family time, and I protect it dearly.

We have an "older" friend who does not have family - who comes and spends Christmas eve and Christmas with us. We've adopted her, so she is like family. Her birthday is actually on Christmas day. lol She is the most wonderful person - non-assuming, non-judgemental, helpful, and just a joy to have in our home.

The only thing that I dislike about Christmas is that I loooveee to give gifts, and often money is still tight around the holidays. If I could wave a magic wand around Novemeber, 5,000 would appear in my bank account, and I would be able to buy thoughtful, personalized gifts for everyone I know and love! (that would include all the boomer, of course!)

My family gets new Christmas "jammies" christmas eve, and we give them an ornamat every year that somehow represents the year. I tried a couple of years back to stop the "jammie" tradition, and my daughter had a fit. At 14 she still wanted to continue the tradition. How funny!

I make one type of Cookies that my children love - they are peanutbutter with a choc. hidden inside. They are scrumptious!

Anywho..that's my take on Christmas. I keep it simple.

danita

Danita, your Christmas sounds so lovely. Christmas was always such a special time in our house...we were all convinced that Mom was the reincarnation of Santa Claus, not just at Christmas but all year round. But her Christmases were phenomenal all the way around.

That was one of the most difficult losses when Dad and Mom died. Our Christmases. They'll never be the same. But our house became the new Christmas central, not just for my family, but for hubby's family as well. It wasn't an honour I particularly wanted, being so introverted and easily stressed. But it is what it is, and now we have double the family sitting at the table that we had when Mom and Dad were alive! In fact, it's become so big that we have to have a second Christmas on the 27th for my brother and two nieces.

So we've spent the last four Christmases trying to create our own special celebrations, taking what we most loved from Mom's traditions and combining them with what we want Christmas to be (i.e., less gift-oriented), plus trying to incorporate some of the traditions on hubby's French side (which are completely different from my family's!) What ends up happening every year, despite my best efforts to gentle it down, is that the 25th is an overwhelmingly hectic mish-mash of traditions that don't always blend well, while the 27th is a much gentler, more enjoyable second chance to celebrate!

It hasn't been easy, and I admit that what used to be such a cherished family celebration has turned into a day that I dread. But I keep persevering, trying to relax and make it the day that I want it to be - while not disappointing the varied assortment of house and dinner guests. It helps to remember that we have that second Christmas on the 27th...I always enjoy that one more and consider that to be my REAL Christmas now.

For years, Christmas was the most stressful time of the year for our family. My m-i-l always had unreasonable expectations of a picture-book family Christmas. WHen this never seemed to happen -- NOTHING ever lives up to her expectations -- she did her level best to make everyone else miserable. For years we suffered through the family squbbles and some really ugly scenes.

Two years ago I said, "Enough already." So my husband and son and I packed up and went to visit my daughter in NY, our excuse being that she couldn't come home because of her work schedule. It was the best holiday we'd had in years, although admittedly a little strange. On Christmas morning we had a late breakfast at what seemed to be the only diner open on Long Island. Then we went to the movies, because the kids wanted to do that. Our dinner was take-out Chinese, because the kids had planned to cook for us but forgot to go food shopping. Oh, well, that was what they said, anyway.

We had such a good time we decided to do it again the next year. Unfortunately, we spent that Christmas running between my husband's hospital bed and my mother's. We could only celebrate after we knew both of them were going to be all right, which wasn't until long after the holidays were over.

This year, God willing, the 4 of us will be together in NY again. Chuck's family accepts this, although I don't think they have a clue why we don't want to be with them.

As for cards, I send some. But I've cut way back. We have a couple of Christmas parties we go to every year that we really enjoy.

For years the holidays were one of the biggest stressors in my life. It feels wonderful that they no longer are.

In my family of origin, we were very cut off from other people because of my father's alcoholism. Outsiders were not allowed in because they might find out the truth - heaven forbid! Thanksgiving has turned out to the my day to host the family and I also include all my close friends. I mainly want to be inclusive of others and have a time when I can cook for days and treat them a wonderful meal. My Thanksgiving dinner is either the Sunday before or after the traditional day. That way everyone can come and not have to go anywhere else that day. Due to divorce, my son's family has to go to 4 different places to celebrate.


Daisygirl

We generally go to Thanksgiving at my Mom's. This year my kids are coming in from NY, and my brother and his wife and youngest son will be flying in from CA, picking up their eldest son who's in college in MA and joining us for dinner. Mom's been cooking, baking and freezing for weeks now. There's going to be enough food to feed an army.

This will be the first Thanksgiving in 4 years that nobody has been seriously ill and all of us will be together. We have so much to be thankful for we won't know where to start.

I can't wait!

We are going on a cruise Thanksgiving week -- just the two of us, and no cooking. My son and his girlfriend are going to cook a turkey together for the first time. Our families are (at least) 1,000 miles away and a holiday spent with them is a rare thing. We prefer to visit them when it is NOT the holidays, and everyone has more time to visit instead of being preoccupied with entertaining and gift giving. For Christmas, we send each household a package of locally made goodies from wherever we are living. This year it will be jams and jellies from a local farm/country store, which were a big hit last year.