I guess it's not really all that 'normal' to be wrapping presents at 3pm on Christmas Day afternoon, but that's what I've been doing. Partially because I've been procrastinating at it, but I've been *able* to procrastinate because our Christmas celebration isn't until this evening.
Chez Stutters is celebrating with H's parents this year, on the understanding that next year we really will be going to M's parents. It's been a while since she's had Christmas with her family, so she's more than due, but somehow this year it all worked out as an H-family year.
H's family have always celebrated Christmas Eve, in the Scandanavian/Minnesotan tradition, but over the years it has proven increasingly difficult to fit family celebrations around church services, especially as so-called 'Midnight Mass' keeps creeping earlier and earlier. (Last night we started at 8pm, and the sky was still (barely) light when we finished.)
So a few years ago, we decided to shift Christmas Eve to Christmas Day night, particularly because two of the five (at the time) members of the family are non-church-going. Now it's three of the six, and so the Christmas Eve Night works okay, except that it pushes all the Christmas waiting by a whole extra day. And M could be characterised as ... somewhat impatient when it comes to things Christmassy.
But - we're working on how to meld our family traditions, and how to create new ones. It has taken H's mother 40 years to get vaguely used to Christmas in summer: H will eventually get used to having (some of the) presents on Christmas morning, and the vital importance of Boxing Day movies. (Hobbit tomorrow morning, yay!)
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