Celebrating Christmas with children: how does it work for you?

Dear users, dear designers,
Christmas 2020 may be a little different than usual, but how do you generally celebrate Christmas with children / grandchildren? Do you have traditions?

Hello there!
Normally, our children and grandchildren come to visit us on Boxing Day.
We enjoy a nice meal together, take the dogs for a walk, and then do a Secret Santa exchange and have a nice cup of coffee.
Because of COVID-19, we’ve had to change our plans this year.
My daughter Franziska is coming to visit us on Christmas Eve with her partner Rhiannon, and we’ll be having raclette.
Our son Oliver is coming on Christmas Day with his wife Sabine and our grandson Liam, and we’ll have food from the Greek restaurant followed by coffee and cake
And our son Timo is coming to visit us on Boxing Day with his wife Janina and our granddaughters Lena and Hannah. We’ll have turkey that day, followed by coffee and cake, and in between, we’ll take our three dogs for a walk through the heath.
Unfortunately, everything has to be changed because of COVID-19. So Secret Santa is canceled this year.
We hope things will be better again next year :)
I wish you all the best.
Warm regards,
Monika 

Normally, we spend Christmas Eve with my youngest daughter; on Christmas Day, my oldest daughter comes to us, and on Boxing Day, my middle daughter joins us. But since things will—or rather, must—be different this year, we’ll be staying home alone on Christmas Eve and throughout the holidays. Since I’m a risk patient, I can’t afford to catch something somewhere; I’m too young to risk an early grave just because I didn’t want to stay home—even though I’m *already 69*. I plan to keep making my dear family happy for at least another 20–25 years :-) ;-)

Hi,

we’re usually on vacation for Christmas. We’ve had it booked since last August.
We don’t know if we’ll be allowed to go. We’re assuming we’ll have to cancel the trip.
:-(

We don’t know yet how we’ll spend Christmas.

Best regards, Heike

This will be our second Christmas with our child, so we don’t really have any established traditions yet.

Since my parents are separated, there are three sets of grandparents.
We’ll probably split up Christmas Eve and the two holidays between them.

It’s important to us that we’re at home on Christmas Eve.
We’re not quite sure yet what tradition we’ll introduce for that.
  When we were kids, we always decorated the tree together with my parents.
When he was little, my partner wasn’t allowed in the living room all day and only got to see the tree in the evening.

Of course, each of us wants to continue our own traditions.
But since I’m the one who’ll be decorating the tree anyway, I think I’ll have my way 😊

Who else would like to add something?

Since I have a lot of assignments with families, I’m going to take it very easy this year.
My son is stopping by next week, and we’ll have some Advent coffee.
My partner’s children will come over on Christmas Day since
his daughter’s birthday is also then. The rest of the family gatherings will be without me.
I don’t want to put myself at risk of infection—in my line of work, I deal with sick people.
I prefer it quiet—I’m not really the type who needs all the hustle and bustle.
I stopped giving gifts a long time ago; only the grandchildren get a little something.
I think it’s much more important to spend plenty of time with them throughout the year.

On Christmas Eve, everyone comes to our house. We start with the nativity play at church. I definitely go there with my daughter and grandchild; the others decide from year to year whether they want to come or not.
Our son-in-law cooks the festive meal for all of us. There’s always plenty of delicious food for us to enjoy.

Besides the kids, my in-laws and my cousin join us for the celebration, and it’s always a lovely evening. Thanks to the gifts for my grandson, my kids and I always have something to play with and build, so it’s always exciting and fun. The gifts are always little things—I usually make something homemade for everyone.

As for this year… we hope we’ll be able to celebrate together, though there probably won’t be a nativity play. Since my in-laws aren’t the youngest anymore, we’re not sure if we should take the risk of having a large gathering. We’ll see.