I’ve never spent Christmas Day anywhere but at a relative’s home. I understand that a restaurant appeals to some people, but it has never come up for our family gatherings and I’ve been happy with that.
This year, my in laws are due to host it (it swaps between two houses usually) but for health reasons they are less able to do so. So we were going to host it but we have some space issues (plus quite a few things on our plate) and my partner suggested we hire the local hall instead.
I’m torn between the two options and would love to hear other people’s opinions please…
Home
- convenient & can’t forget anything
- need to do lots of tidying etc
- places for babies to sleep (especially mine!)
Hall
- have to pay to hire it
- have to pack stuff (cutlery, tablecloths, decorations, etc)
- lots of space (indoors and out) & parking
- multiple toilets
- will have to clean everything up that night – including taking rubbish with us
- no dishwasher
Either way, I’ll have to do lots of cooking and kids will need supervision outside.
Has anybody hosted Christmas but in another venue? How did it go?
An interesting question, Bron. Our family has always shared Christmas in one of our homes so I’m afraid I can’t give you a comparison from personal experience.
Does the hall not provide crockery and cutlery to save you taking that along?
Maybe you could get rolls of paper instead of tablecloths – saves washing later for one thing! But decorate with pencils instead of tinsel and let people have fun drawing on the paper during the party. You never know – some of the paper could even work as wrapping paper next year if you recycle it.
Paper tablecloths sounds like fun!
We’ve hosted Christmas and it was a disaster in that I spent weeks stressing about cleaning the house and then we had some breakages – comes from having nice things and not being used to kids in the house I geuss.
So I’d seriously consider the hall option!
Well I have kids so childproofing isn’t such a problem – dishes on the day are at risk obviously, but I can wear that.
The hall has a limited supply of cutlery and crockery so we’d ahve to take most along ourselves.
Thanks for the replies, though.
I’m trying to get a better idea of how many people are coming to help make my decision, but more ideas are welcome!
Oh, and I do like the paper tablecloth idea, too – especially after looking at prices for cloth yesterday!