Lonely this Christmas

WhatdidI do

Maybe this is about more than Christmas? Where are you in all this? Your work must provide you with that spark, company, challenges a sense of purpose and achievement.

I know it's hard graft but can you find a bit of something just for you,away from family and work and the pub. It seems you a have a nice relationship with the GC, you can have that for the other 364 days of the year.

It seems a very old fashioned set up where man are propping up a bar all day long.

Try not to fret about Christmas, its months away.

I would be secretly relieved not to have to plan and cook for a large number of people - its exhausting! Maybe your family think its about time YOU had a break from it all and are doing you a favour!

Look on the positive side - it is rwally just a roast dinner surrounded by commercialism and a pile of unwanted gifts!
Indulge yourself - buy food and treats that YOU enjoy, watch what YOU want to watch on the TV and spend the day doing what YOU want to do.

Enjoy YOUR day! 😊

Desdemona

Got any spare cash?

If so book yourself into a hotel that offers great Christmas food, take books etc to read and let hubby dearest cook his own dinner!

Are you trying to get them to divorce?? What a stupid suggestion.

Years ago, my husband and I and our two young daughters were expected to spend Christmas with either his parents or mine. No point arguing. If we did, that brought on sulks (my mother) and ‘collapsing’ (his mother) on the two occasions we tried it. So we gave in (looking back, we regretted that, but we were very young then). So, on Boxing Day, we would go to the parents we hadn’t spent Christmas Day with. We alternated this each year. So we were never allowed to spend Christmas on our own. My mother-in-law and my Dad hated each other, so we were never able to combine it all into one day together either. I didn’t like Christmas much!
This went on for years, then our elder daughter got engaged and was due to get married in May. We wanted to give her the best last ‘at home’ Christmas we could, so we asked her what she wanted to do. She immediately said she wanted to spend the day with us at our house, just us and her younger sister. No visiting and no visitors. Telling the parents was difficult. It didn’t go down well, but they all loved our daughter so it wasn’t too hard to persuade them to do as she asked. We had a wonderful day, just us and our two daughters and we all treasured it. Our future son-in-law happily did the same with his parents. It was the first time in 24 years we had been ‘allowed’ to have Christmas with just us. I have never forgiven both sets of parents for preventing us doing that before.
Obviously, we brought our daughter up to have more backbone than we did. On her first Christmas after getting married, she and her lovely husband said they wanted to spend it alone, but would be happy to get together on Boxing Day. We did that and everyone was happy (except the grandparents of course!). My husband and I visited both sets of parents but refused to stay for food. They didn’t like it, but tough! We just wished we had been stronger from the start.
Funnily enough, our daughters have had complete freedom to do what they want at Christmas, and, guess what? Most years they choose to spend Christmas Day with us!

The first thing I notice about the Christmas arrangements is that none of the adult children consider hosting Christmas in their own homes; all are going to in-laws, theirs or somebody else's, who will do all the work.
I sense a desperation among them to have a different Christmas. They have dutifully spent Christmas with you for twenty years and not unreasonably they feel like a change, but they have altered arrangements without any consideration as to how you will fare.
Your divorced daughter with the grandchildren receives the lion's share of the blame. Come on, it is all three together who have disrupted your Christmas.

There are other issues. You don't seem to have a good relationship with your husband; you live in a village but won't have anything to do with it, (why?); you claim to have no friends, and only work brings you pleasure. Yet you are apparently facing retirement, so you have to give that some thought.
But first, tell your husband about Christmas Day and see what his response is. Proceed from there.

I’m utterly astonished that you’ve tolerated your DH spending Christmas and Boxing Day at the pub! Does this mean he drinks to excess?

Nothing wrong with social drinking at all but as you feel you’ve been excluded from also going it seems there is a little more to this.

I would examine your entire married life and not worry about two days a year, look at whether you’re entirely comfortable with your life!

As for Christmas, if you have the funds, book into a hotel or go on a mini cruise

I say stuff Christmas and the turkey with it if it has become a great looming menace that is coming at you as soon as the fireworks die down - or even for some in August!
Make or buy the foods and trimmings you like or just ignore it altogether.
It is but one overhyped day imo and is the cause of as much upset, disappointment and genuine misery and bad feeling as it has provided good tiding of great joy.
Personally I want to zoom to the NewYear .

For us it is a Christmas season, that starts on Christmas Eve and goes on to the New Year. it is a chance for the family to get together for up to a week.

over the years it has flexed and adapted and is just now adaptingto the youngest generation reaching adulthood and going to university. We have also moved house this year.

Christmas is whatever you want to make it. Ignore it completely, or go overboard, just do not sactimoniously Scrooge like, or pity those who do not want a real knees-up.