How do you celebrate Christmas Eve? What do you usually do?
In my family Christmas Eve was usually the big family Christmas. My grandparents hosted at their place, and then their three children (my mom, aunt and uncle) would show with their respective spouses and then the six grandchildren including myself. In recent years there has also been the addition of some great-grandchildren as well as several of my cousins have had children.
My grandmother would give her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren a set amount of money each year with a few rules on how to spend it - no food, no gas, and no gifts for other people. But beyond that we were free to spend it as we saw fit, the only other stipulation being that we wrapped it up and saved it for Christmas Eve with the family.
So we'd all gather up, draw numbers out of one of my grandfather's hats and open our gifts to reveal what we got. And of course all of this was proceeded by a big dinner, my uncle making eggnog, and a bunch of hanging out.
Basically what this allowed for was Christmas day instead to be spent with respective smaller branches of the family. My uncle and his wife would go off with their two kids, my aunt and her three kids and their three kids, and then me, my mom and my grandmother most of the time, with a few other family members stopping by to say hello and drop off gifts and such.