Christine and Allan, Real Estate Agents
We met at the local church and grew up with all that church life brings - Sunday School, youth group, church camp, and especially the Christmas pageants, where a really big deal was made to have it al rehearsed and perfect.
There was always the Christmas eve midnight service, then the Christmas morning service, then off to pick up Nana at the nursing home, then back to mums for the hot lunch, then off to dad's Aunty May's for dinner.
Boxing Day was worse, with having to do the church charity Christmas lunch for the needy and elderly singles, then the endless cleaning up and finally done late that night.
The whole round was exhausting, too hot and too much food and rush. We never had time to go slow and enjoy the time and the gifts. I never got to see my school friends over Christmas and had to wait until the last week of the vacation before I could escape and catch up with anyone.
When we got married Allan and I decided that we wouldn't do any of it. We figured we had given enough and now it was our time to enjoy Christmas the way we wanted. We told our parents shortly after we married that we wouldn't be doing Christmas their way any more, and we would spend it alone, just the two of us as we wanted to start our own traditions in our own household.
Which is what we did. We buy each other a small gift, and that's it. We don't do anything else at all. No special food, drink or going places. It's so lovely and peaceful. At first it was really weird to not be doing all that stuff but after the first one we realised how peaceful we felt and we decided it would always be that way. Bliss!