What are your plans for Xmas this year?

I'm home alone, it's been like this mostly for the last 9 years. I try to remain up beat, and I'll watch Christmas films and have something nice to eat. But for me this time of year just reminds me that another year has past and that I still don't have anyone in my life. 

That sounds yummy too! I avoud gluten now, but there are gluten free bases you can buy, and I make my own toppings on top of these. 

Sounds yummy. I'm not vegetarian, but do enjoy some meat free meals. We have a Sainsburys thin & crispy vegetable pizza once a week - it has red onions, red & yellow peppers and courgette as a topping and is delicious.

I'll go to my daughter's on Christmas day or Boxing  day,depending if she's working on Christmas day or not. I will get some festive meals from Wiltshire farm foods to have over the festive period. I will get party snacks to have. I'll watch TV.  It'll be a low key Christmas per usual.

I have two cats, Boris aged 6 and Muriel aged 1 and a bit, Boris is a tuxedo cat and looks very smart with his white shirt front and kittens mittens, Muriel is black and white, but more white than black, some of her toes are two tone, black and pink..

No travelling this year, my partner is coming to stay with me. No need to get catsitters either. My partner is a vegetarian, so I will be looking to create dishes that still are satisfyingly Christmassy sans turkey. But I might have a turkey wing with all the trimmings before he comes.

Nut roast ready made can be rather dry, so I concoct something that includes a lot of fruit too, squash, carrot and apple with dried plums and nuts, plus lots of the usual spices. I might make a baked camembert with pears on another day. Wine there is aplenty, I get mine from a company that keeps me supplied with some of Hungary's finest.

There will be some Christmas markets to look at, hoping he will find some decent movies for us to watch too. I already have plenty of new music. 

Hey Sk8r Girl - love the Avril Lavigne reference 

Thankfully this year will be a quiet one with my parents, cat, 2 gerbils, leopard gecko, and corn snake lol.

On Christmas Day itself, usually, I help Mum out with cooking (when she lets me lol). Dad normally does his lovely scrambled eggs on toast for breakfast, followed by main presents (one less this year thanks to my ex finally leaving me lol), chilling out in front of TV (inbetween helping Mum out of course), main dinner at table, followed by more TV time and then tree presents in the evening. 

I've already went out and bought Christmas cards and presents for my friends, family and St John Ambulance (SJA) Units I belong too - me being in charge of one and Dad of the other - and have written out all the cards already - just need to wrap presents etc. I hate shopping - so preferred to do it a couple of weeks ago so I could beat the mad rush later this month.

Been out on SJA duties at a couple of Christmas Light Switch On/Fayre's already over the weekend and got one more on Friday this week. Got SJA Children Christmas Party on the 10th and then the SJA Adult Christmas meal on the 12th/13th (can't remember what day).

Other than that and my work/volunteer role - it looks to be a nice, quiet Christmas period for me.

Mweekie xx

It’ll just be me and my cat again so I probably won’t do any Christmas dinner or anything.

How many cats do you have? I adopted a cat 3 years ago and every Xmas since she loves to climb the tree, keeps knocking the angel off usually. We also have ceiling decs that she will try to jump at off the sofa.

It will be a quiet one this year with no visitors, a bit like a sunday but with presents.

I like having a big family xmas as I like doing all the cooking for it, even if I did sometimes have to lock myself in the kitchen with a bottle of gin.

I like the decorations, but don't do so many now, I have to put the tree up a few days before I dress it to give *** cats enought time to get bored of climbing up it, luckily I no longer have a male dog to pee up it, which he always did.

This year is going to be a strange one for me. I'm currently living and working abroad in Thailand, so this will be my first xmas without being with my family. 

Normally our family tradition is that on xmas eve we always go out and watch a new movie at the Cinema. Usually a Harry Potter/Fantastic Beasts film, or something similarly child friendly and popular. On xmas day itself, it'd usually depend on if anyone else was with us which would vary by year. My mum (who used to be a chronic overworker) would usually cook the Christmas Roast dinner for whomever would be over. A few years back that meant having 15 people at the same table. (Yes, really) But now that she's settled in Scotland, xmas dinner is a much quieter 5-6 people at most. 

After that it'd be xmas movies, and very basic games like Yahtzee or Uno, before we settle in for the night. Boxing Day is usually where the extended family comes over for a larger get-together, but that again is a year-by-year thing. 

To be honest, i'm not sure what to expect. My parents have promised me that they will do video calls with me at some point during the day, but early on i'll be working at the School since Thailand doesn't give people days off on xmas. It does observe it though, and I have been asked along with my colleagues to create some fancy xmas stands and teach about what it means to us here in the West. I've also heard rumours of a Teachers xmas party, but nothing definitive quite yet. 

It'll be a unique experience, and one I am not sure how to feel about yet. Guess we'll see how things go in 3 weeks?

After Halloween, it goes full-on Christmas in most high streets and shopping malls and the only time I ordered anything online was during Covid, as getting online deliveries in my area where I live alone is a real hassle, even though they use couriers - Royal Mail has entered into agreements from decades ago with the local council not to deliver anything larger than a letter to council properties in their area, to stop people from running businesses from home and for the same reason for many decades, they stopped council tenants from having landlines in council properties, none of which makes any sense in our times, when people are practically required to be online 24/7 and where Royal Mail have not moved with the times either - some private companies similar to Amazon Lockers have put up delivery lockers opposite the local ASDA in our area, but I never see them getting used that much and instead I see most people having to do the “walk of shame” up to the Royal Mail sorting/delivery office to collect their parcels - companies should also have a better system when someone is not going to be in to collect their parcel 

In my 23 years living in the U.K., I would very rarely have got the chance to go home to family in Ireland, being in supermarket retailing and in hospitality and even on those years that I did try to do so, across all modes of transport, it was a complete disaster due to last minute delays, disruptions and cancellations of flights, trains, coaches and ferries - this remained the case in the post-Covid era and even extended well into the post-Christmas period (Jan - March) when I could normally get home, but also post-Covid, the costs of all modes of transport has seen fares double, on top of even more last minute uncertainty, making planning any trips home in advance (to obtain cheaper fares) virtually impossible - I’ve had to get used to spending Christmas alone most years and during Covid, connecting with family in Ireland via Zoom from the U.K. - the SailRail (train and ferry) used to be even more reliable than flying, coach & sail via Holyhead to Dublin from Manchester before Covid, but since Covid, partly due to train strikes, this has also become very unreliable 

I don't go into shops during December - I got some bits I needed last Friday, which was bad enough - but most is ordered online. I'll have lunch with some friends I used to work with in December, and the day will be spent with just my partner, nice and quiet.