What's your favorite thing about christmas time?

Egg nog and gravy covered meals.

Boxing Day, time to relax & properly enjoy everything.

I love that everyone is in good mood and they expect the best from upcoming days.

The best part of the holidays for me is the scent of pine and getting together with my family and friends. Also on the list, is a walk in the woods when it is snowing.

Nutcracker Suite.

Favorite Christmas songs.

Husband off from work. Vacation.

Local Christmas parades.

@JLeslie Sounds like a great Christmas!! :)

My favorite thing about Christmas is the anticipation of it after Thanksgiving… and of course the old songs.

My least favorite thing is how early retailers start promoting it.

Christmas Carols.

I love it all—decorating, shopping, wrapping packages, the “traditional” music, the food. For me, the best part is the general sense that we’re all going to relax a little bit the last week or so of the year. Not much is expected of anyone. The juxtaposition of that “quiet time” against the backdrop of the bustle of the holidays is magic to me.

@Pooh54 Yes and no. I don’t really celebrate Christmas. Those things are also like having chocolate on easter and the welcome of springtime (when I lived up north). Growing up Christmas day was the boringest day of the year, and in some ways it still is. Christmas time has it’s positives and negatives.

The 50% off sales afterwards. My birthday is 4 days after Christmas and I love going on a little shopping trip for my birthday.

I can handle a week or so of the music.

Other than that, my favorite thing is getting two days off from work (Christmas and New Year).

I’m always glad when Christmas is over.

When it’s over. No more ceaseless onslaught of Christmas music at every store, supermarket, restaurant, or other public place.

Being with my boyfriend, eating lots of good food, drinking and presents under the tree. Shutting the world out, being cosy in the room, cuddling up. My birthday is exactly a week after Christmas, I don’t enjoy that day so much.

My sister’s Christmas Cookies

I like the lead up to it, matching good gifts for each family member, then the scenery and the lights. As long as it’s tasteful. Then on Christmas Day we all get together and socialize over a nice meal for a few hours. Then presents. The little ones are so much fun to watch as they play with the wrapping and boxes, and then the present. I hook them all on books from an early age too. After I get to go home and collapse.

I love the general spirit of it. Particularly the weeks leading up to Christmas. And, of course, the food is always yummy.

I really dislike Christmas shopping though.

I prefer the lead up to Christmas than the actual day usually! People are friendlier, there is a happy atmosphere wherever you go. I also like treating myself to certain foods that I don’t tend to get the rest of the year.

@Adirondackwannabe You enjoy the gift giving part for the adults? I’m always surprised when people really like that part. The kids I completely understand. They are so cute when they are very little and open the presents.

I love the Christmas Cookies too. The frosted ones that get soft and yummy. (Can’t tell I’m a big kid could you)

@JLeslie Well, I loved the gift giving for the kids, but the kids grew up so I had to adapt. It’s a bit of a challenge to mix their interests with the right gift but when I hit it right it shows on their face.

It used to be being a family.

Meh..I’m pretty holiday neutral these days. I do enjoy being with my daughter and always have a festive little get together, but I haven’t put up a tree in years and don’t go for all the hype and consumerism.

Mmmmmm… Christmas cookies.

I celebrate the birth of Christ and reflect on how my religion has positively affected my life.
We enjoy time with friends and family, catching up, playing board games, having some wine.
The cold irritates me, but I love drinking hot cocoa and watching the snow fall.

Shopping, commercialism and all that mean absolutely nothing to me, and I prefer to skip presents all together when possible.

The day after. Christmas isn’t fun to me anymore. It is stressful and costs me money.

I love Thanksgiving though. It is the only holiday I approach with any amount of enthusiasm.

I find Christmas incredibly stressful, right up to the morning of the day itself. Then I reward myself with wonderful food, a bottle of wine and (hopefully) a good book that someone gave me as a present.

Watching old Christmas movies, shopping in decorated stores in the neighbourhood, having the scent of a tree in the house.

All the pretty decorations.

I don’t really do anything on Christmas, but what I like best are the decorations, and the Christmas songs. There still seems to be a kid inside me who finds Christmas trees and lights all over houses so magical, and I like a lot of Christmas songs, especially the more ’‘epic’’ ones.

Speaking of which, gotta thank @Kardamom for introducing me to Celtic Women. :)

Watching A Charlie Brown Christmas and How The Grinch Stole Christmas and Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer

Bringing out all of the Christmas Ornaments

Visiting a Christmas Tree Lot

Seeing the Christmas Lights

Seeing Vintage Christmas Decorations and fake snow in Southern California.

Listening to Christmas Music

Smelling gingerbread, pine trees, turkey roasting, cold fresh air, and fireplace smoke.

Going ice skating, for a walk in the woods in the snow, driving around town looking at the lights and decorations, window shopping at the mall.

Going to Christmas parties with friends and family.

Eating great food and drink including sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes and gravy, cranberry sauce, pecan pie, pumpkin pie, rum cake, eggnog and apple cider.

Making goodies for the neighbors like these Chocolate Haystack Cookies

Getting a new pair of pajamas.

Going ice skating.

Going to Disneyland

More Christmas Music

Foil Christmas Wrapping Paper

Vintage Christmas Cards

Jingle Bells

Hand Bell Choirs

More Christmas Music

Sleigh Rides

Christmas Aprons

Vintage Christmas Tablecloths

Poinsettias

Chris Botti’s Silent Night

Jackie Evancho

This Book

Christmas Kisses

Pine Cone Elves

Glittered Pine Cones

Frosted Christmas Cookies

Drinking hot chocolate from a Santa Clause Mug

Gingerbread Men

Making Fudge

Icicle Decorations

Bubble Lights

The Nighmare Before Christmas

Other than that, I’m not particularly enthusiastic about it one way or the other ~

Food. Cookies, mostly. And hot chocolate. And roasted marshmallows. And candy canes. Damn, I’ll never be able to maintain my weight through the holiday season.

People just seem to be happier during the holidays.

Seeing Christmas lights and decorations.

Cold weather. It rarely gets below freezing here, so it’s cold enough to wear cute winter clothes and light up the fireplace at night, but not cold enough to be miserable.

We’re broke so we won’t be giving or receiving gifts and we won’t even have a Christmas tree, so it probably won’t feel very exciting on Christmas Day.

@Kardamom Marshmallow – that’s cheater’s fudge! May I recommend something like this or this or this?

@glacial You are right, ha ha! That’s the kind we always made when I was a kid, but I should try out one of the more authentic recipes that you suggested.

I am so jonesing for fudge right now!

@Kardamom I know… I decided earlier in the year that I would try to recreate my mom’s old recipes, which are lost to time. I didn’t quite get there, but now that you mention it in connection to Christmas, I think I’ll take it up again when it starts to get snowy. :)

I just found this nifty recipe for Gingerbread Cake that I’d like to try.

That looks delish – let me know how it turns out!

Winter Warmers and Christmas ales.

There are so many things that I have decide to do in this holidays like shopping, outing, Christmas decorating. I like to decorate christmas tree at my home and planning to enjoy it something in different manner this year with my family and friends.

Its the only time when I meet my all friends, family members & relatives. There we spend lots of time together.

Decorating the Christmas Tree. Listening to Christmas music and watching Christmas movies. I’m making ornaments this year and making a gingerbread house. I’m excited! :)

@Valerie111 If you can believe it, I’ve never made gingerbread men before. I plan to change that situation this year! I’m having a craving for one right now.

@Kardamom I’ve actually never made a gingerbread man before either. I made a gingerbread house a couple of years ago and it came out awful. It’s hard but I’m trying again this year! You have an amazing Christmas list above, btw. I love Christmas too. :)

@Valerie111 I have made gingerbread cake, but not the men or the houses, it sounds like so much fun, yet at the same time, rather daunting. One of my friends just posted an awesome Halloween themed gingerbread house that she and her daughter made. It had these way cool marshmallow eyeballs in the windows.

Christmas is da bomb!