Will you be on an airplane? A train? Asleep? Not celebrating because you're not a Christian/Catholic? At the beach? Joining the Mile High Club? What?

As for me, I'll probably wake up late and spend all day at home playing with all of my presents.

You?

most likely getting piss-drunk off congac being shot from a water gun while watching "how the grinch stole christmas" over and over.


Or go spend all day at the theater.

Will be flying DFW-SFO-HKG on AA / CX .  

"Would you like a window or an aisle?"

"Oh, it's too bad you have to work on Christmas."

"Well, maybe if people like you didn't decide to travel today I wouldn't have to work. Now, was that a window or an aisle?"

LH423

I'll probably be at the supermarket finishing up on my christmas shopping.  

I'll be on an airplane. But I'll be fixing it, not enjoying a ride on it.

Watching the Heat and Lakers square off of course. 

Just can't get enough of the Kobe-Shaq bitch fest. For once it will be on the court though...


LY744.

[Edited 2004-12-22 04:51:03]

Within the 24-hour clock day:

Working....sleeping....some dinner/mild ( no alcohol ) festivities...a brief nap...working.

Pretty much mirroring UAL Bagsmasher's musings.

Opening presents with the family, having christmas dinner, hanging out with my girlfriend, relaxing, and probably getting into a fight with everyone as the night progresses and the alcohol flows.

Work, eat, sleep, ring my girlfriend....

Jan

church, studying for the GRE, working on graduate school applications.

Opposite of most on this thread, my Christmas day plans involve getting royally smashed. We've had all these Christmas parties, cater-outs and big dining events in house. Christmas Day I have almost nothing planned. I'm going to go crazy, 3 weeks of nothing but work, no days off, Christmas'll be a good day off. I'm throwing my traditional Seattle seafood extravaganza, I'm expecting about 10-12 people, but I ordered in 4 bottles of absinthe from Prague, in addition to everything else, should be a great time.

Probably be up early, go for a ride up the coast on my bike (I'm on holiday in Cape Town) then going for a buffet lunch at Maestro's on the Beach restaurant on Woodbridge Island. This is our 3rd Christmas lunch at this restaurant and as you can see from the pic (taken from our table last year) there will be no snow in sight!


After that lunch I'll be in no mood to move  

Sleeping, presents, food, avoiding relatives

In the great Brit tradition of Christmas, I shall probably be eating myself into a coma. I expect the day to go something like this

06:00 UTC: Small niece jumps on bed "Uncle Jonny, Uncle Jonny - it's Christmas !" No shit, Sherlock. "Let's go and see if Father Christmas has been !". Screams from sister's room "DAISY GO BACK TO BED !". Too late.
06:01-06:30 UTC: Opening stockings
06:30-07:30 UTC: Playing with gag gifts in stocking and reading everyones funny Christmas Books eg. Xenophobes Guide to etc.
07:30-08:30 UTC: Breakfast and trying to stop small niece o'd-ing on chocolate from stocking
08:30-09:00 UTC: Clear breakfast and duct tape by now totally overstimulated small niece to sofa. Hide chocolate
09:00-11:00 UTC: Presents ! Distribute HUGE pile of presents into smaller individual piles, all piles tiny except for HUGE pile for small niece, who btw has escaped from duct tape and is running around the house at 200 mph yelling "Can I open them yet ?". All take turns opening presents, then wait another half hour while small niece finishes opening hers
11:01 UTC: Room now looks like Hallmark exploded, waist deep in wrapping paper shreds and 400 cubic metres of Barbie packaging (P.S. WHY OH WHY is necessary to glue, tape and WIRE the goddamn doll into the packaging, necessitating Houdini-like escapology skills to extract anorexic hydrocarbon bimbo from box ?)
11:02-14:00 UTC: Play with Christmas presents with small niece, using expensive technical education to build things out of Lego, construct Barbie combination Beauty Salon/TGV/S&M Dungeon etc. Intermittent instructions barked from kitchen by mad flour-coated sister "PEEL SPROUTS !" "ROLL BACON" "TAKE OUT TRASH" "DONT FEED THAT CHILD ANY MORE CHOCOLATE !" "WHO DRANK ALL THE BL**DY MILK ?!"
14:00-15:30 UTC: Lunch viz delicious but crippling mounds of Turkey, Roast pots, 2 kinds of stuffing, peas, carrots, sprouts (obligatory), gravy, cranberry sauce etc etc etc. All prepared in a babbling whirlwind of panic but always superb (unless the turkey catches fire, which has happened in the past. Regular or Extra Crispy ?). Halfway through, crackers and party poppers, so second helpings liberally seasoned with gunpowder residue, gravy-soaked paper streamers and small choking-hazards cunningly disguised as poker dice or small plastic soliders with parachutes. After a discreet interval punctuated by cries of alarm from the kitchen ("OH BL**DY HELL THE BOWL'S MELTED" "MATCHES, STEVE - QUICK !" "PUT IT OUT, THE DISHCLOTH'S ON FIRE !", followed by a muffled boom and flickering glow rather like in "Empire or the Sun" when Christian Bale sees the Hiroshima bomb going off over the horizon, and in comes THE PUDDING ablaze in a sea of flaming cooking brandy like a post-invasion Kuwaiti oil-field. Ahhhh, ooohhh, quick take a photo before it goes out !
15:30-17:00 UTC - Post-prandial torpor, even hyperactive small niece temporarily slowed by vast ingestion of hormone-laced giant turkey. Bloated stillness punctured by groans of indigestion and cries of pain as people tread on bits of Lego or Barbie shoes. More reading of Christmas funny books. In the course of the afternoon some more energetic bright spark will suggest a brisk walk, to be silenced by a chorus of groans.
17:00 UTC - Tea and Christmas cake. Everyone protests "Oh I'm too full" but manages to consume reasonable size chunks of brandy-soaked carbohydrate covered in marzipan, royal icing and decorated by small niece with plastic holly, snowmen, reindeers, Father Christmas, elves and Lego people to the point where it looks like a small but determined snow-covered Countryside Alliance protest
17:00-18:30 UTC - Small niece parked in front of DVD recieved for Christmas, hopefully something Disney and calming. Discreet digestive vin-chaud or brandy for grown ups.

3 words.

Microsoft Flight Simulator 

Merry Christmas!!!

I'm a US student studying in London (at King's College) for the next 3 years.

This Christmas will be my first ever away from my US home--my first Christmas in England! I'll miss all my family and friends though.

This Christmas weekend I've been invited to stay with a host family in Camborne, Cornwall (this was arranged by HostUK.org, an organisation that links international students with host families for weekends or holidays).

All I know about my hosts is that they are both retired teachers with a grown daughter, and they have 2 pianos (as a pianist, I'm excited to try them out) as well as numerous other musical instruments. This will be the first time I've ever seen the "moors" as described in the Bronte and Jane Austen novels I studied in my US high school years.

SmithAir747

That's how I'm spending my first Christmas overseas.

First I'll probably be joining my mom & her boyfriends family for a walk (I think we'll have 4-5 dogs to walk) in the morning, following the food-fest the previos night. Then I'll be driving me, my sister, my dad & his boyfriend to Southern Denmark for a christmas lunch/dinner, which is always good fun - not to mention enormous amounts of food!

Midnight mass at the Cathedrale after a big Christmas Eve dinner and too much fougasses. Wake up at 5am to the sounds of two hyperactive 3 year olds. Eat breakfast and then head up to Moneghetti to spend the day with the in-laws. yay.

QFF

One word...sleep! Nothing much actually...its gonna be hot as hell here in ADL..so yeah..maybe go to the beach..gotta watch out for that shark though  

Hey Smithair747 - I'm a King's graduate! What subject are you studying? Are you based at the Strand campus?  

Working for United Airlines on cold snowy ramp.

Alex.

I'll spend mine at home with my family and my girlfriend!

Opening presents and eating way too much, then in the eveniong we play games and just enjoy each others company!

SmithAir747, I hope you adhere to your duties as an american in England and try to hook up with the older daughter!   Hehe, have fun!

Chris

Opening presents and watching the home page for snow.

Regards
JetBlast @ BWI  

I'll probably be playing Flight Simulator or watching TV. I'm Jewish, so Christmas is meaningless to me, but to those of you who do celebrate it, I wish you a very Merry Christmas.

Marc

I usually celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve, since I am German. So Christmas Day, probably sleeping.

Will be our first real empty-nest Christmas. We will have daughter and her family on Christmas Eve, but son and his will be with inlaws family for the last Christmas in the home his wife grew up in. It will also be my first Christmas at home in many years except for last Christmas when I thought I was dying. Kind of a tradition for me to spend Christmas in the emergency room.

Clean up wrapping paper. Finish dishes. Go to movie?

It will be nice to begin to unwind.

Hopefully I'll find myself in someone's bed, at least in the morning. Still working on the details... hehehe.

The family has had a tradition for 20+ years now to fly a turkey down to India from somewhere in the world every Christmas. This year the 22lb behemoth arrived from Houston and I will wake up at oh-dark-thirty on Xmas morning to help my dad put it in the oven (it will be pre-stuffed the previous night using my secret apple-bacon stuffing recipe).

Later in the morning, I will make my annual pilgrimage to St. Anne's church to renew myself as an outstanding Catholic (outstanding = go to church but stand outside). After listening to the parish priest regurgitate the same Xmas sermon he has used as long as I can remember, it's time to drive around to distribute the Xmas sweets to near and dear ones.

Back home to the now-cooked turkey and preparations for the horde of family that will descend on us for lunch, although I think the guest list this year has only 18 attending. After lunch, I put on an awful Santa Claus hat and hand out the gifts to the kids.

Dinner is always at the neighbours house and for the 13th consecutive year, I will be playing Santa Claus. They have a rather professional-looking Santa outfit for me and although I have vetoed all plans for me to climb down off the roof after a near-mishap in 1994, I invariably wind up trying some stunt that I regret later. By the time everyone is done eating, drinking and making merry its well past midnight and I just thank my lucky stars that I live close enough to just stumble home after a hectic day!

Response to Ryanb741:

I'm based at the Guy's campus, studying biomedical sciences (division: Anatomy, Cell & Human Biology).

My objective is to get into the field of genetic research into rare congenital craniofacial deformity syndromes, such as Treacher Collins syndrome (the one I was born with). My personal life with such anomalies is driving me toward this goal.

What did you study at King's?

SmithAir747

Working on a mine site in the Northern Territory Australia, helping my staff set up the dinning room and cook a 5 course dinner for 230 miners who are all pissed that they are here .Then its all over to the bar to wait for Santa(Yes even 6'13" miners want to sit on santa's knee) Its actually the mine manager who gives everybody a present form the company I think this years is a Pewter beer stien. Inbetween all this I have to catch up via phone with family in Adelaide Perth Brisbane and Singapore, thank god my company pays my phone bill.

Merry Christmas all

We Germans celebrate Christmas at Christmas Eve. I will do the same like I did the previous 26 years before, all family members will meet in my parents house to have dinner together, then everyone will get his presents and afterwards we will sit together until late in the night to chat and to have a few drinks.

On the 25th I will sleep until afternoon, then I will pick up my girlfriend from her parents house and we will have a nice dinner together in the evening.

Patrick

Getting up around 5am to cook a 30 lb turkey!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  

This year I am having the family dinner -- around 19 people and my son is here from Vancouver....so it is going to be the best Christmas in a long time!!! Christmas to me has always been about sharing time with my family and just to be thankful for what I have..... 


Phyllis  

Working a double, my regular 10 hour shift then an eight hour shift. Someone has to make sure those planes stay in the air since there are some who will be flying. It should be a fairly slow day so I will take an assortment of DVD's to watch, take a break from the movies to kick out the planes or do tows off the gates, ect...

Workin serving all those tourists that just had to go skiing on christmas day. Then they all claim how bad it must be to have to work on xmas instead of spending it with the family. Why can't they just buy the stupid lift ticket and get on the lift? Oh well. Too bad its not time and a half.

Dinker

That sounds like a great Christmas Phyllis, Reminds me of our Christmases, I know its going to be a cold one here in Canada but we as Canadians make the best of it. I myself will be waking up at 8AM. I am going to be going into the Fire Station YEAAAAA, I have work to do there, but after I will have dinner at my uncles huge home and then I might go to the movies after. I am undecided at this moment.

I forgot I am going to watch the Miami Los Angeles game


Shaq v. Kobe

Cooking a $85 prime rib!!!!
and watching the NFL and drinking holiday cheer!!!

"We Germans celebrate Christmas at Christmas Eve"

The same here. Mexicans celebrate Christmas the night BEFORE Christmas  
So I will attend Midnight Mass, have a big dinner with the family and spend the rest of the night drinking my merry way. On Christmas I will wake up way too late, just like the rest of the country, to go for the "recalentado" (a wise tradition if you ask me, the family get together again to finish with the leftovers of the Christmas dinner).

Prolly be passed out somewhere... From having had too much fun Christmas Eve!

Christmas Day will be at my brother's crowded apartment in Loveland, CO with him, his wife, 4 kids. My wigged out Mother will be there not sure what to do. Hopefully the weather will be nice enough to get the kids outside to blow off some steam. My sister-in-law will put together a down home midwest meal loaded with carbs and few fresh green vegetables or fresh fruit (I'm a spoiled Californian). At least 2 of my 3 sisters will be there. One sister is dealing with her 22-year old son in jail awaiting trial on 10 felony counts of possession and distribution of cocaine (Christmas Eve is his birthday) so she will be a mess. My youngest sister is depressed because as a broke college student working very hard on her PhD is unable to buy presents for the kids (like they won't have enough). My 3rd sister, the alcoholic, was arrested last week on her 3rd DUI, so it is unlikely she will make the drive down from Wyoming. If she is there, she will be loaded most of the time. I will be unable to drink very much as it is a 50 mile drive between Loveland and the hotel I'm staying at in Denver. It will be cold, and I will be wishing I were back here in California enjoying Christmas with my friends.

Don't feel bad for me, I just gave in to the guilt that I haven't been home for Christmas in a long time. I love the kids and will enjoy playing with them. Maybe we'll get to have a snowball fight and get away from the dysfunctional adults.

What I am looking forward to is the flight, I'm taking one day for myself and flying LAX to IAD and then back to DEN all in United First. No one can get to me there!

Seriously - Merry Christmas everyone! I will make the best of mine.



[Edited 2004-12-24 00:50:11]

Be landing in EZE after an AA 777 flight MIA-EZE. And just relaxing in the hotel most likely.

Let's see....driving down to Sarasota, FL, tomorrow, to spend it with the semi-girlfriend and her family (her dad's a FedEx DC-10 Capt)....probably gonna drink with her and the family tomorrow, swap flying stories with her dad, then probably slip off into bed with her a time or two while we're there. Wake up, exchange gifts, drink and be merry...and that bout does it 

Sure beats being with the folks lol.

DeltaGuy

AirxLiban: Good luck on the GRE and applying to grad. school. I'm right there with you...I'm retaking the GMAT in about 3 weeks, and assuming I do well enough this time, it's on to biz. school applications, hopefully Seattle U. for my MBA, though Seattle Pacific U. would be perfectly fine as well.

Andz: Wow...that place looks great! I'd love to go down to CPT one day. Enjoy the warm weather! I was in Melbourne 17 years ago for Christmas, it was like 85 degrees! For any Northern Hemisphere natives, you must spend at least one Christmas in the Southern Hemisphere...just for the vastly different weather!

Andersjt: I feel for you, buddy...wow. Hope all goes relatively well and that things work out for your sisters and their respective situations. Well, at least no one can bitch and moan to you that you didn't go home for Christmas this year. Sounds like the kids will be your savior this year. Enjoy your flights in UA First! I am envious...should get a 777 on one or both of those legs I would think.  

As for me, the festivities start tomorrow. I have to drop in to work for about 30-45 minutes as the banks are open, and I manage the cash. Basically, I have to reconcile everything, and I'm done. Work for me is in downtown Seattle, and on my way south to Oregon.

After work, it's on to my folks' place near Oregon City, Oregon, about 25 miles SE of PDX. The latest plan is that just the four of us, Mom&Dad, myself and Sharon my sister will be together tomorrow. If he can get it, my Dad is going to pick up fresh, live dungeness crab for us for dinner tomorrow night! I love crab!

Tomorrow night (12/24) we'll probably have some holiday drinks and open our family gifts.

Christmas morning I'll open my stocking, to reveal the annual contents: an orange, shampoo, an Oregon lottery ticket worth nothing, a Hard Rock Cafe shot glass from somewhere (I collect those) probably some candy, and that's about it.

Breakfast. Big deal.

Saturday should be interesting. Normally, we have maybe 5-6 people total for Christmas festivities, this year we'll have 10 in all, which will include:

Mom
Dad
Me
Sharon (my sister)
Sharon's boyfriend Joe
Joe's parents Patricia & Ray
Joe's brother Mike
my Grandparents

We're having salmon for dinner, as that will most likely make everyone the happiest/least likely to bitch and moan. Joe's Mom Pat is making pies. Not sure what else we're having.

I'm somewhat nervous this year about the holidays, as I don't like big crowds, especially at family time. Here's my prediction:

Mom - she'll point out how much weight I've gained, criticize my choice of attire for the day, find something else to bitch about, and then tell me to get out of the kitchen after taking the desserts to the table.  

Dad - he'll tell me all about his most recent trip to the rifle range, and the bullets he uses nowadays. Even more, he'll tell me how he made the bullets, how much powder he puts in each one and why, and how that affects the ballistic performance. After he exhausts that subject, he'll then move on to computers and tell me something I already knew, and once he's done with me, he'll talk to my Grandpa about the good 'ol days working at United and how things will never be the same and that I should be grateful for the job I have and to stop complaining about it, even though he has no idea what I do everyday and why I'm burned out.

Sharon - I see Sharon maybe once per year now. She'll spend maybe 5-10 minutes talking to me before she goes back to being with Joe and talking his brother Mike and their parents. Oh yeah, she'll criticize me too on my weight and choice of attire for the day, before moving on.

Joe - Joe's a great guy who's a great match for Sharon, and they went to high school together. I'm perfectly fine if they decide to marry. But, he's in the Airforce based in Lompoc, CA, and then he's off to UK to do an assignment there. How long they stay together beyond next year or early '06 remains to be seen. Still, Joe's really an interesting guy that most people find very laid back and easy to talk with. As always, I'm looking forward to seeing Joe again.

Mike - I've never met Mike, but I'm interested in talking with him. He spent 7 years living in Berlin and studying, and loves Germany like I do. So, he and I will probably spend a lot of time talking about our beloved Deutschland and comparing notes. Probably a highlight of the day for me. Oh yeah, my Dad has German beer this year, another plus.

Pat & Ray: Joe's parents. I've met them once or twice now, can't say I really like them. Ray is negative and always moans about how things have really gone downhill for our country and there's no turning back. My time conversing him will be kept to a mininum. His wife Pat is an annoying busybody, and I will avoid interacting with her at all possible costs.

Grandparents: I get along with them, and look forward to seeing them. They've always believed in me and taken an interest in me, a lot more so than my sister. My Grandma will complain that Sharon never calls them, and then go on to talk about how things in England when she was young were so great (during the Depression and WWII, mind you) and that we're ungrateful and don't care about anything anymore. My grandfather will ask me how much I weigh now, how work is going, and then move on to talk about United Airlines with my Dad.

Sooooo.....yeah. Sure, I'll have another German beer, thanks!

Normally I like the holidays, but compared with younger years, it's really lost a lot of its luster.    

It is a relief to read that others are going to have a trying Holiday just like I am going to have as well. Though since this year has been such a hassle leading up to the Holidays, we have all ready decided that next year we are taking a trip as not to have this experience next year.