Christmas Eve Traditions for Adults: A Cosy Night Worth Looking Forward To

This sounds almost ridiculously simple, but I love it. Choose a moment when the errands stop and Christmas Eve officially begins. For us, it’s around four.

If there are fresh things I still need for our Christmas meals, I'll usually collect them on the morning of 24 December. That’s intentional. I’ve already bought the things that keep, anything I could order ahead has been ordered, and the lists are done. The last fresh groceries come home and then I don’t really want to go anywhere anymore. There is something lovely about closing the front door knowing that the outside part of Christmas is finished.

The clothes get comfier. The lighting gets softer. Drinks appear. It creates a little dividing line between getting ready for Christmas and actually enjoying it.

And don’t save Christmas Eve for 7pm. By the afternoon, we’re already there. We might put a film on. We relax. Christmas can become strangely scheduled - be here at this time, eat then, leave at this time, dress for this, cook that. Christmas Eve doesn’t need any of it. Let the afternoon become part of the evening.

We aren’t dressing for a restaurant. Our plan is essentially to spend the entire evening lounging around at home, so Christmas Eve is a comfortable-clothes occasion. Comfy wins.

Christmas pyjamas or something equally cosy. Thick socks. The sort of clothes that make it very clear you have no intention of unexpectedly going to a restaurant.

If getting dressed up makes Christmas Eve feel special to you, absolutely do that. If your ideal Christmas Eve outfit has an elasticated waistband, I support that too. Some Christmas moments can be elegant. Some can involve champagne and a beautifully laid table. And some should involve thick socks.

This may be my favourite Christmas Eve food tradition. We don’t make a formal multi-course dinner. We make picky bits: French cheeses, salads, good bread, toast and crackers, tapas, little hot fried snacks and whatever else we’ve picked up because it looked good - things I’ve made, things I’ve bought, whatever interesting bits I’ve discovered that year.

Things arrive on the table gradually. You can eat a little, go back for something else, open another drink and keep grazing through the evening. There are candles everywhere and the Christmas lights are on, with no reason for me to disappear into the kitchen every twenty minutes.

It feels indulgent without anybody spending Christmas Eve trapped in the kitchen. The food should support the evening rather than become the evening.

We usually have wine and beer in the house, but I also love the special soft drinks that suddenly appear around the holidays. Fancy bottles. Strange flavours. Limited editions.

Christmas doesn’t have to revolve around alcohol for a drink to feel celebratory. Choose something you wouldn’t normally buy and save it for the evening.

The glass matters too. Use the nice one.

Before the film starts, we usually have music playing. For us, that often means Michael Bublé or Mariah Carey on vinyl.

There’s something wonderfully nostalgic about a record at Christmas. You have to choose it, take it out and turn it over halfway through. It demands just enough participation to become part of the evening.

Christmas Eve is not the evening for practical lighting. The tree is lit. Candles are everywhere. Our bioethanol fireplace is burning. The room is warm and flickering and unapologetically cosy.

Call it nostalgic. Call it slightly excessive. I call it Christmas.

Once the presents and food are finished, we end up properly settled on the sofa. Coffee. Christmas lights. Something comfortable. And a Christmas film.

Christmas Eve is not when I want to concentrate on an experimental three-hour film with subtitles and an ambiguous ending. I want nostalgia. Home Alone. The Santa Clause. The Polar Express. Something familiar enough that missing ten minutes while getting more cheese doesn’t matter.

There are plenty of evenings earlier in December for trying a new release. Christmas Eve deserves something that has already earned its place. A Christmas film doesn’t need to surprise you. Sometimes knowing exactly what happens is the point.

We exchange our Christmas presents on Christmas Eve. When I was very young, presents were Christmas morning. Somewhere along the way, while I was still living with my parents, that changed to Christmas Eve. And it stayed.

Technically, they’re often opened after we’ve eaten. In practice, there’s also a reasonable possibility that I decide I can’t wait that long. That’s the advantage of making your own Christmas traditions. Nobody is going to issue a fine because you opened a present at 6:43 p.m.

Bas and I take turns. Usually he starts and gives me my first present. Then I give him one. Sometimes we’re still eating our picky bits while we exchange them. Sometimes we’ve moved on to coffee. Each present gets its own little moment.

Because I often start buying Bas’s presents as early as September, there’s something especially satisfying about finally watching him open something I’ve been hiding for months. Giving the present is part of getting the present.

This is something I think adults aren’t always very good at.

Don’t immediately start tidying. Don’t put everything away. Don’t move on to the next scheduled activity. Look at what you’ve been given. Try it. Open the book. Smell the perfume. Put something on. Start building it.

Part of the fun of receiving a Christmas present is being allowed to behave slightly like a child about it.

After the picky bits and presents, we’re usually still watching the film. Eventually the crisps appear.

There may or may not be dessert. I’m not particularly interested in making one just because Christmas Eve supposedly requires it. If I’ve found something good at the bakery, lovely. If not, there are snacks. Nobody suffers.

This is the tradition underneath all our other traditions. There are no rules. We don’t need to finish dinner at a particular time. Presents don’t have an official opening ceremony. There isn’t a compulsory dessert. We don’t have to dress up. We can change films halfway through if we want.

There are endless lists of things to do on Christmas Eve. Do all of those things if they genuinely make you happy. But please don’t turn Christmas Eve into a checklist. Our day works because we deliberately don’t put too much into it. You don’t need to fill every hour to make a day feel full.

Christmas Eve is special precisely because we’ve made it ours.

This is how traditions really happen. You don’t necessarily sit down one year and announce: “From this day forward, we shall eat French cheese while listening to Michael Bublé every 24 December.” You simply do something. Then you do it again the following year. And eventually you realise Christmas Eve would feel strange without it.

We often talk about traditions as though they require some important family history. But sometimes you’ve simply done something often enough that one year you realise: Oh. This is what we do. That’s a tradition too. If Christmas would feel slightly wrong without it, it probably already is one.

When you’re little, Christmas Eve is mostly anticipation. As an adult, you’re often the person making it happen. You bought the presents. You put the lights up. You chose the food. You made the house feel like Christmas. Now you get to choose which parts stay.

The magic isn’t gone. You’re just the person holding the matches now.