Our Favourite Christmas Eve Traditions

For moms, all the work and stress that the holidays can bring is over once Christmas Eve comes around. Our work is done. The traditions take over and the magic begins. Here's a peek behind the scenes at Savvy HQ and our own families—we hope you'll enjoy learning about some of our traditions for the night before Christmas. We wish you the very best of the season with your family and friends.

Our traditions vary depending on whether we are visiting family in Ireland or staying home, but always include mass and a drop-in on family and friends. My kids have always loved to watch Santa on the NORAD tracker because they have cousins all over the world (Australia, Ireland, Canada) and we like to know exactly when Santa is visiting each of them. There is always a very carefully handcrafted note to Santa (my favourite part) left with a glass of Guinness and lots of carrots for the reindeer.

We never celebrate Christmas Eve the same way. Sometimes it's just us by the fire and some years we go out. But regardless of what we do, the one thing that's always the same is the food. Once a year, always on December 24, we indulge in copious amounts of tourtiere. Even if we're going to another house, I take it with us. Slathered with ketchup, mustard or chutney, it's a must-eat holiday food we look forward to all year.

Our Christmas Eve tradition is to spend the day doing Christmas things together—baking, listening to Christmas music or sometimes heading to a Christmas activity in the city. Often there are a few last minute presents to wrap, too. In the evening, we always gather with all of our aunts, uncles and cousins who are in town for an extended family feast at my mom's house. Just before bed, we open one present (usually new PJs) and put out cookies and milk for Santa.

Our tradition is to make a special arrangement with Santa to come to our house the weekend before Christmas. We can open all of our presents and have a special day with just the five of us before we travel out west to visit the rest of our extended families on our annual 'Western tour.' It gives us the chance to spend time alone as a family, and enjoy the unadulterated joy of the kids seeing all the gifts under the tree without having to be polite at Grandma and Grandpa's house! We also leave carrots for Rudolph and his friends.

With older kids, our Christmas Eve plan this year is to have family and friends over for a seafood feast, then go to midnight mass and home to open one early present from Santa. The trick will be to stop at just one—but we'll try.

After a game of evening football, we take a walk to look at the beautiful Christmas lights in the area. At home, the kids carefully arrange the carrot for Rudolph and cookies for Santa. After bedtime, we put on the holiday classic Going My Way and put the finishing touches on the presents under the tree.

Our family celebrates Christmas Eve by having a special dinner together (homemade spaghetti served on fine china in the dining room). Once dinner is over, we will watch a Christmas special, set out cookies and milk for Santa and then our daughters, Madeline and Riley, will go to bed. Once they are ‘nestled all snug in their beds,' Dave and I will do some last-minute wrapping, get the gifts all set for the morning madness, then head to bed ourselves.

This year I'm headed to my sister's place to spend time with my nephews. We typically save all the gifts for Christmas morning unless we can find an excuse to open some that night. After they go to bed, we'll likely break into the next day's desserts and resurrect some of our favourite old movies.

We host a huge family dinner for 22 and stay up late playing The Game of Things until it's time for Midnight Mass (sans kids). We are vegetables on Christmas Day and try to sneak in a nap somewhere before another feast with friends. But my favourite holiday tradition is Boxing Day shopping—my sisters and I meet at Holt Renfrew at 7 am, shop all day, go for dim sum and finish it off with a foot massage.

In our family, we celebrate Christmas Eve over Christmas Day. My mom and I spend the afternoon preparing dinner and decorating the table while my dad wraps the gifts he's bought for us at the last minute, always coming up with creative solutions when he runs out of wrapping paper. After dinner we eat some of the cookies we've baked in the weeks leading up to Christmas. We sit around the tree and open presents—our cat loves to hide under the tree skirt and chase the ribbons left out. Christmas Eve is easily my favourite day of the year.

This year, we'll be trying something new for Christmas Eve—the big turkey dinner. Since we spend the holiday season visiting relatives, we don't usually get a chance to savour homemade cranberry sauce and stuffing. Serving the classic feast on December 24 will let us enjoy the traditional Christmas dishes at home, give us plenty of leftovers to take us through Christmas Day and—fingers crossed—will send the kids off into deep dreamland with full tummies (giving us the opportunity to fill the stockings). A new tradition is born!

A Christmas Eve tradition for us involves clam chowder at my aunt's house, followed by singing Christmas carols. We then head home to read The Night Before Christmas, the kids open one present and then they write a note to Santa and leave him cookies and milk (and a carrot for Rudolph!).

This is a new start for us here in Calgary, allowing us to create some brand new traditions. On Christmas Eve, we're hoping to attend an outdoor nativity experience with some hot chocolate before coming home to enjoy The Polar Express and a nice meal. We love to read The Night Before Christmas as the bedtime story and will probably be trying to coax our four year old to actually fall asleep so Santa can do his thing.

For me, the holidays mean a long break home with family that only really happens once a year. On Christmas Eve, my mom, dad, younger brother and I usually enjoy a nice family meal and a classic Christmas movie, like Miracle on 34th Street or a silly one like Elf. When we were younger, the stockings would be put out for Santa and we'd lay awake listening for him on the roof. My mom would always be in the kitchen making a batch of her holiday Nuts N' Bolts.

Our night before Christmas tradition involves a fun dinner with the extended family and then we head back home where the kids exchange the gifts they've made and 'bought' for each other (clarification: they picked them out and their mom paid the bill). This is one of my favourite moments—the sweet sibling exchange. Then we leave treats for Santa and his four-footed friends and tuck the kids in bed with lovingly whispered warnings that anyone who gets up before 6:30 am forfeits all gifts for a lump of coal. (Kidding. Sort of.) Merry Christmas!

Christmas Eve is always a quiet occasion for the five of us at home. We usually order in Chinese food, watch Christmas movies, hang the stockings, open the last window on the advent calendar and leave out homemade cookies for Santa and carrots for the reindeer. All of the real craziness (ahem, magic) happens once the kids head off to bed!