Having spent last years Christmas in Lausanne (and finding it exceedingly boring). My husband and I'd planned on renting a chalet with some of our friends over Christmas this year.
My husbands employers decided that they wanted us to move to the US and in order to encourage the move requested that we move there for 3 months.

We cancelled our Christmas plans in Switzerland and made plans for my husband and I to travel the M1 in California over the Christmas break.

It now turns out that the inept HR department wrongly assumed that we could travel under the visa waver program and that we need to apply for an L1 visa.
So our plans for travel to the US have been cancelled until the new year and our friends have made alternate plans.

We now don't know what to do for the 9 days my husband has off over Christmas. We don't want to spend it in Lausanne and it is now much to expensive to travel to Australia for such a short time.

What plans do you have for Christmas?
What would you suggest/ where would you go?

My girlfriends sister,soon to be sisters husband and the baby are coming over to us for a few days.

I'm not that mad about the Christmas period (bah humbug, i know )in general but its nice to have them over.

Why not stay in Switzerland, many lovely places to spend Christmas, look up " Wengen " or " Seelisberg" ..

Nice area, loads of small and affordable hotels and great views over the mountains ( wengen) and the lake ( seelisberg)

Manor in our French part started to distribute a magazine (free) specialized in their food, I think it is actually called Manor Food, I think you can pick it up in the groceries part and Manora resto. It advertizes a few places in CH, beautiful chalets and little BBs, smaller cozy hotels with their holidays exquisite menus. If I could chose what to do on xmas or have somebody to surprise me with a place to stay, I'd definitely want to be there.

After this turbulent year Slammer needs to do something stupid. Plan "A" is to take a bus up to Hammerfest and bask under the Aurora borealis.

As first X-mas in CH... I'm bound to invite my parents here and show all the beauties of this country.

Christmas Eve we're spending here with the in-laws and then flying
to family in Athens on Christmas day at a very reasonable rate(being
Christmas day)..there we'll have a delicious Greek Christmas dinner..and
Athens is great over the festive season and in winter.

My plan is to go to Zugspitze (Garmisch-Partenkirchen) and rekindle the moment when my experienced snowboarder-friends abandoned me, after giving me a twenty-minute lesson on how to board, six years ago.
I shall stand on that mountain basking in the glory that I, unlike my friends, am free of changing nappies and free from waiting for the other half to give birth.
Hopefully, the scene will be picture-perfect with lots of snow and I'll video message them via mobile, as I traverse like a pro down the pistes.

Why not rent a chalet near a piste? Some chalet complexes have an open-air spa if you're into that kind of thing.
Have you been to Saint Cergue? Apparently they do dog sledging and if you're a skier there is the opportunity to ski at night.

Anyway, whatever you do have a great time!

For the first time since i have a family, the plan is to have christmas in our home just the 4 of us and not away on a beautiful holidays in South East Asia or at my parents in Lyon. My in laws in Germany are too old now and driving 7 hours up there is not appealing to us. Plus here in Canton Bern, the holidays will start on dec 24th so I don't see how we could drive to France or Germany to be at our relatives the same evening. I've never had to work on that day either as a student or teacher, I don't understand why kids have to go to school until christmas eve! Anyways, all I want this year is a real christmas tree and stay inside until June.

Hopefully go back home. Christmas without family its just not Christmas

Same here, back to the family in Sweden.

Hiking up some extreme mountain trail, happy in the knowledge that no one else is usually out that day. Just like last year - right TT?

As every years I do NOTHING.

Through choice?

like last year, we'll be staying in lausanne and hubby's family coming to visit. it's a great gig as his mama takes over the kitchen ( she's an incredible cook who travels around france giving cooking classes) and we play games and drink lot's of wine. i'd find a cheap b and b not far, if i was you.

but if you find you two in lausanne and bored, you can drop me a line and come by for some good food and games. christmas, after all, is fun with others and sharing it is the best part...

Last Christmas winter hike was epic (believe me, I am not exaggerating, what we did there was harder than some proper mountaineering I have done this year ) and I absolutely enjoyed it.

This Christmas I will be on a family* rock climbing trip to Badami/Hampi and with some old friends who are now pros in the game

*I have serious doubts about the missus "enjoying" it though, but anyway, being the first and only person anywhere in and around my family to be doing this kind of sport, I plan to initiate any willing cousins and kids to the sport... mighty proud of it and excited, and so is my son

Assasin - Fancy doing the hike over my direction?

We have the in-laws over for the weekend - but I fancy escaping in the middle of the day either hiking, snowboarding, sledging or something else in the snow!

Spend it with family, running around and keeping everybody happy, then the next day I usually like to book a flight to any unknown not-yet-visited city and spending a few days discovering

Not really a choice, at least over the last years-

This year, well, don't care to have fun. Just a good meal and bed.

Friends are visiting us from both home and the UK this year, which is great because flights are just insanely expensive during this period back home, and I was starting to feel like Billy-no-mates. Planning a cook-out, monopoly and lots of wine on Xmas eve and drag ourselves out of bed on Xmas morning with our hangovers to go on a hike.

Niranjan and Assassin, any recommendations for hiking in the Zürich area would be appreciated. Be gentle though - its their first time, and oh, shorty-4-legs will be tagging along too.

Alas this year we will be having a very quiet family day. But I can recommend Salzburg as a Christmas destination.
We spent a week there last year and it was truly fabulous. The Christmas markets and lights were incredible and the kids loved the horse and carriage ride around the altstadt. For me though, the highlight was visiting the Silent Night Chapel on Christmas Eve. It had a real magical feel.

Enjoy the time together whatever you do.