Oh, I share the wrath at Aldi!! You're hardly back from your summer holiday and there's already gingerbread and chocolate advent calendars...I ask you!
I usually prepare the calendars for the children myself and hang them up at the stairs. On Christmas eve we go to the church but it's not a traditional service we attend but a big and long nativity play from the kids youth choir. It's really big with about 80 children and adolescents participating and a couple of songs that really get you all teary eyed... After that we assemble at our house and have a glass of champagne and after that we enter the living room with the Christmas tree ( real candles only! Bee's wax!), sing a couple of carols and play the piano, after that we exchange gifts. Traditional dinner is fondue, hubby mixes the most delightful sauces to go with the meat... The day after we occupy ourselves with the gifts and sometimes its a Christmas goose for dinner, the filling with apples and chestnuts....
The 26th is also quite informal, everybody needs a rest then. This year we went for a coffee to my in-laws, as they don't really travel anymore.