Hey Pandas, What's Your Fun Winter-Time Tradition?

My little sister and I go through the 7 stages of making gingerbread houses.
Stage 1: Determination: We can do this! this will be fun!
Stage 2: Anger: WHY IS EVERYTHING COLLAPSING?? OMG THE FROSTIG ISNT STICKING EVERYTHING. AAAAGH I HAVE TO START ALL OVER.
Stage 3: Frosting: Maybe if we keep adding frosting nothing can go wrong?
Stage 4: Regret: WHY did we add so much frosting now everything is sticky and we've eaten half of it!!
Stage 5: More frosting: Everything is tilting so add more frosting.
Stage 6: Candy!: add candy so it doesn't look like a hot mess
Stage 7: Slowly pick of candy when you think no one is looking but meh, we don't like gingerbread so we'll leave that for someone else.

Mine is quite boring really. On winter nights I get into bed really early (mainly because it means I can switch the heating off early) the cats sit on top of my duvet but under the blanket and we all watch TV together, my older one is just happy to be next to me, or on me, the younger one loves it when I watch ocean documentaries; she gets all excited and bounces up to the TV.

Fairly normal:

I take my students to a Christmas market every year. Just to have some fun and to spread Christmas cheer. My wife and my Bulldog will accompany us.

End of November I put up the Christmas lights on our terrace.

In December my wife and me will do cross country skiing for a day. Used to ski the regular way, but my left knee thought otherwise.

Christmas lunch at my mother's (with my sister) and on New Years Eve they will celebrate at our place.

Good times.

Best part of cold weather is comfort food. The crisp cool weather makes warm savory southern dishes taste so much better. Gumbo, jambalaya, red beans and rice, smoked meats, I could go on and on.

Every year, the second it starts to snow for the first time, I call my neighbor to inform her of this magical moment. I say the same thing every time (well, more like sing, tauntingly) "Iiiit's snooowing! It's snowing. It's snowing! It's snoooowing!" and then hang up. It's childish, I know, but it's one of the only things we disagree on. She hates it, I love it and I think it's a wonderful tradition I've started.

Whenever it hasn't snowed in a while and it starts snowing, I'll text my mom and my friends IT'S SNOWING ❄️ and we'll post pictures of our view of the snow. Oh, by the way... IT'S SNOWING ❄️☺️

I bake christmas cookies while watching "Love Actually". Cheesy I know.

Waiting excitedly for it to snow and being disappointed every year

Eating Raclette cheese.
Spending Chritmas with my family.
The Christmas market lights in the evening.

It’s just a little tradition, but every Christmas Eve my family drives around the neighborhood and look at the Christmas lights and decorations. When we get home, we each open one of the presents before Christmas day. I think we’ve done this since before I was born? Or maybe we started when I was a kid.

I live in the Southern Hemisphere, so Christmas is in our summer. Cue: Santa in beach gear with a cool drink on the beach! Sleigh pulled by roos. Never seen a white Christmas! Anyway, we still have the tinsel and snowy Christmas cards but our winter is six months away, so sometimes people have Christmas in July parties so we get to eat all the heavy winter foods and dress in warm clothes when it's temperature appropriate. Apart from that, I like to snuggle up in a warm bed with a cat and a book in winter.

Parking my pajama clad butt on the couch in front of the fireplace with snacks and cats purring by my side!

Christmas...The Gift.

Started this way too many years ago with one of my kids. Small present wrapped dozens and dozens of times with different layers. Tin foil, paper towels, clear tape, toilet paper, fabric, all manners of Christmas paper. Last years wrapped a few times then put in a plastic Easter egg, more wrapping, a box, then many more wrappings. Always finished off with bows and ribbons.

The newest into the family (children's husbands/wives) are always initiated into the Family with The Gift.

There is always something Really Great in The Gift, but any one, who knows about The Gift, doesn't want to get The Gift. It can sometimes take a good 30+ Minutes. And through all the layers and laughter, when it is all over and opened, everyone had a wonderful time.

Christmas... The Gift.

My favorite winter tradition is celebrating the end of winter. I do this by pounding beer and running through the woods in my underbritches picking fights with the larger animals out here. Mainly fox, because they like to wake me up occasionally.

...it's approaching summer here downunder. That aside, I do like a good bushwalk wearing warm, hugging jumpers

Aside from some of the common things like Christmas, and making a nice ham dinner for said day, the only thing I can really think of is mixing different type of liquor with hot chocolate.

This is gonna sound weird, but hear me out. There's nothing quite as good (as an adult) for a cold winter night as mixing hot chocolate with red wine, or even a shot of vodka.

My family all goes to this chinese restaurant called wing bo. The kids all watch the fish in the fish tank, the adults talk about work, the elderly and the teenagers just roll their eyes and gorge themselves on salt and pepper squid.

Or, we'll all troop over to someones house and have lunch. Kid's will do something stupid involving water, we'll all complain about the heat, my aunt will get drunk, and my cousin won't talk to anyone for the entire meal. Then they all leave, and the hosts complain about how they had to have the family over this year, and how -insert relative here- has to do it next year.

Fun times.

MIL & both SILs did the Black Friday shopping every year. Went with them once. Madness!

We always have Italian food on Christmas eve, usually lasagna or spaghetti.

As kids,we did a christmas play for our parents every christmas eve.

We do stockings in a BIG way. There is always a little nerf type gun, special candy for each person, fun socks, weird stuff, bath stuff etc. Each person gets at least one thing for everyone's stocking. Love the dollar store for this! The stockings are usually overflowing

Baking pies 2 days before Christmas with my mom.

Beer sledding! Put a case of beer at the top of a hill, sled down can in hand. When you finish your beer, voila, instant motivation to trudge back up the hill. Repeat til beer is gone or starts to freeze.

Napping and eating fresh, hot buttered popcorn in front of the television.