The flip side of this discussion and something that's been on my mind is how to develop some Christmas/holiday traditions for my husband and me that are separate and apart from what share with our respective parents. At the risk of further complicating the season, I don't want our holidays to be defined solely by what we do with our respective families. There are some challenges to that in that (1) DH's parents live 2 1/2 hours away and are not festive, celebratory people and (2) my parents live nearby and while they are a bit more festive, they (or at least my mom) is also slightly nuts. Our visits with both sets of parents tend to be short and constrained. As it currently stands, we spend alternating holidays with them. So, we went to Kentucky for Thanksgiving (drove there on Thursday and returned after dinner on Friday) and will be in town for Christmas. Next year, it will presumably be the reverse.

Thanksgiving ended up being kind of a wash. We came back early enough from Kentucky to do a bit of our own thing, including putting up the Christmas tree. For Christmas, we'll likely end up at my parents for dinner but will have the bulk of the day for ourselves. I'd like to make a nice dinner Christmas Eve and then do our gift exchange Christmas morning. If we're lucky, maybe we'll be able to get outside for a bit. We're not big on parties, so New Year's Eve is usually spent at home. I intend to do a repeat performance of last year's meal: coq au vin. Yum, yum. Champagne is in order as well.

Anyway, I'm curious as to what the rest of you have done to develop your own Christmas traditions distinct from your family of origin. I'd note that we don't have, nor do we intend to have, kids--unless you count our cats (which we do).