I put this in the Not Games section as it does not necessarily need to deal with gaming. I am curious what holiday traditions you all have. What special things do you do to celebrate the season.
As mentioned in the Last Played Games thread, one thing my wife and I do is pick 6 games each that we attempt to play during the season. Our 12 Games of Christmas.
This year, I picked Kingdomino, Unmatched, Isle of Skye, Everdell, Hanamikoji, and Disney Villainous: Evil Comes Prepared. She picked Kingdomino, Tokaido, Takenoko, Pandemic: Reign of Cthulhu, Dead of Winter, and Lords of Waterdeep. Since we both picked Kingdomino, she graciously let me pick a replacement, which was Lords of Vegas with the Up expansion.
I break out my Christmas albums to listen to in my car, mostly Bing Crosby, although Pandora has entered the rotation. We have two all-Christmas music stations that start sometime in November (earlier and earlier each year, it seems ), but they play a lot of songs I just don’t care for, so CD’s and Pandora are definitely preferred.
Of course, we decorate our house. Rather sparingly, because our kids are autistic and have a tendency to destroy things. The tree has only been knocked down 5 or 6 times this year. Progress! We also try to watch a bunch of favorite Christmas movies and shows during the days leading up to Christmas.
Christmas Eve, we tend to make a bunch of appetizers for dinner after the kids are in bed and watch Die Hard, one of the ultimate Christmas movies. We then get out all the presents we’ve had stashed away all month and put them under the tree, as once again, kids. No self restraint.
This year, especially after this year of lockdowns and in-home schooling, we’ve been taking the kids on drives around the area to look at Christmas lights. Growing up, there was a neighborhood near me that went all out every year and people came from miles around to drive through it (search “candy cane lane woodland hills” if curious), and I want to have something like that for my kids.
Usually ham for Christmas dinner with a bunch of the fixin’s. If they aren’t up visiting, we often Skype with my parents so they can watch the kids open their presents. Our younger kiddo may actually participate this year, as he actually opened his birthday presents earlier this week. This day is usually when A Muppet Christmas Carol and National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation get played on repeat for festive background entertainment.
Another fun thing we’ve been trying to do the past number of years, but which has only happened twice now, is to get together with our usual gaming couple on New Year’s Eve, kid-free, and just play games for hours. Usually only get three or so in, but compared to our usual kid-filled gaming days, it is glorious.
So how about it? What do you all do to celebrate this time of year?