I celebrate the solstice, not least because I suffer from SAD most winters (this year it turned into full on depression for a variety of reasons still being explored), and that's the turning point for the days getting longer again!
Most years, the yeti and I see relatives over the Christmas period, and what we do follows our family traditions.
Christmas Eve we usually go to my parents, eat mince pies, drink sherry, and play games. Just after midnight we tease my mum that it's now Christmas Day and so we can open our presents. Sometimes in a bid to turn tables she goes along with it, right up until we get the first present from under the tree.
Christmas Day we wake late (or arrive late morning if we haven't gone up on Christmas eve. If we drive up Christmas Day we play a game of counting all the broken down cars on the way - there is usually an awful lot more than any other time of year, and a lot less traffic on the roads!). After breakfast we open presents from under the tree - my Dad will get one, and we wait til that person has opened it, then he gets another and so on. Part of the fun is directing him to pick certain parcels. Then Christmas dinner - turkey and all the trimmings for most of the family, and just the trimmings for me. Mum and I go for a walk afterwards to look at the lights on people's houses, and walk off the food. Dad and the yeti sleep it off. They say they are going to play computer games, or pool or something, but they're always asleep when we get back! If we're hungry, we have a light snack later.
Boxing Day morning we open the tree presents, then head over to the yeti's mum and sister, where we shove all our presents at each other, including those for the hyperactive nieces, and open everything all at once. We've tried to impose some order - the yeti prefers my family's way of doing it one at a time, but it's never worked. Once we've been there long enough to be sociable, we head over to the yeti's dad, and unwind over chestnuts roasted on a real fire, and a walk around the area, looking at all the lights and decorations in people's houses (well, if they don't put nets up and leave the curtains open, what do they expect!)
Most of us are either not at all religious, or not especially so (my mum is possibly the most religious of the lot of us, but it's a personal thing for her), so it is purely a secular celebration for us all.
This year, we may be running away again for a few days
