The whole damn Christmas Thing!

The trimmings around Christmas can be dialled either up or down depending the person.What can’t is the religious significance of Christmas to Christians which is obvs at the heart of it.
Yes, Dickens through his stories made a big thing of feasts and fun with large families, and Prince Albert brought German traditions of Christmas with him, fir trees full of candles and candied fruits and so on.

Oh I'm so glad those days are over. My DH found his birth family in 2017 after 60 odd years and we were invited over for a couple of Christmases. That seems to have come to an abrupt halt along with Christmas and Birthday presents. There has been no falling out though. My youngest DD comes before Christmas as they live about 1 1/2 away and work hard all year so like their time just chilling out. My eldest DD usually comes for her dinner then goes off to friends or whatever.
We buy ourselves some treats and plan our meals so we don't have to go queuing up in shops.
I just find it all too much. It's so commercialised to the point of being ridiculous. Adverts on tv in September/October and shopping channels selling a lot of Christmas tat.
I will be glad when it's all over.

Christmas was much more low key when I was a child. Just the five of us for Christmas dinner, having had our gifts earlier. The afternoon was spent watching a film or reading books.
On Boxing day we would visit my aunt for tea. I remember jelly and blancmange featured every year.
This was in the 50s post war years but we had a great time without all the worry about a perfect Christmas that seems to have come about in modern times.

Oh my, I agree, just having arguments about who is staying. So much stress and planning, Christmas I could do without.

Our family meet up more throughout the winter than in the summer.

It starts with DGSs birthdays in autumn - usually an excuse for a big family meal out and then we move into bonfire night - barbecue and fireworks. Christmas - everyone takes their turn - this year it is DDs turn which is always interesting as she is the least domesticated person you are likely to meet, but we all dig in and have a thoroughly jolly time, with games etc.

It carries on through other birthdays until we finish at Easter. So ours stops -ish at Easter/spring because we are all them busy on Holiday, days out etc. Although we do have the odd barbecue or big picnic depending on availability.

Every one is different and everyone is right - if that is what suits.

We are also lucky in as much as we are a family that is pretty laid back with ne’er a cross word.

I adore all things Christmas related 🎄🎄🎄🎄

We are fortunate that we have all but one AC close (three within walking distance)

We take it in turns, this year is the first ever that we are not hosting any days over the Christmas break. Apart from DD and her boys staying over Christmas Eve (we have a real fire and chimney, for Father Christmas to negotiate 😹)

I will still decorate the house inside and out.

I appreciate it’s hard for those who have lost loved ones, the first without my parents were really difficult.

Just do Christmas your way, and I hope you find pleasure in what you decide on 🙋‍♀️

Christmas trees on sale in Waitrose this morning. I will get my smallish pretend one out for Dec 1st. I just have sparkly white lights on it and it's cheerful. More conical than bushy so fits well into a corner. From Tesco about 15 years ago. When I see the price of trees now, I am delighted this one is game for another few years....it could outlive me!!!!!

GG, respectfully, I get it that you love the seaason. Perhaps you are a wonderful host and your family all rub along well together. Nice!

But not everybody has this and Christmas can become such a focus for discontent and stress.

A week ago today one of our garden centres had real trees growing in pots, they were quite expensive.
Lots of adverts on television for food and gifts.
Growing up it was a stocking for me and a few books and a piece of pork for Christmas dinner.
I don’t remember Boxing Day being different to any other day.
Now we as a small family go out to eat, it is not my choice but I go along with it as I am in the minority. It is very expensive but I just accept it as part of the experience and it is the only day we treat as special.
Television and magazines are guilty of building it up and I feel they make many families unhappy because they can’t live up to the glamorous hype.

StripeyGran

GG, respectfully, I get it that you love the seaason. Perhaps you are a wonderful host and your family all rub along well together. Nice!

But not everybody has this and Christmas can become such a focus for discontent and stress.

Did you read my last sentence?

Yes, I did and I wrote a perfectly civil and thoughtful reply.

Please stop having a go at me.

Thanks.

My childhood Christmasses were much like yours, AGAA4, and I found them incredibly boring, especially from the ages 8-13. Yes, the present-giving and receiving sessions were good, but didn’t last long and after that, the day stretched out long and uneventful. In the morning, we had to visit a cousin. There, the grown-ups chatted but left me out. Then a quick visit to an aged aunt before lunch. She was lovely, and at least she tried to include me in the conversation, bless her. I couldn’t have friends round, or visit them, because they were suffering the same fate as me! Home for Christmas dinner (always in the early afternoon) and presents, then the Queen’s speech. After that, we played cards. 😩
Even after I got married, my husband and I were expected to be at one or other of our parents’ houses on the day. Then, in the 60s, you just didn’t say no! It was only when our elder daughter was getting married that she said she wanted her last Christmas as a single woman to be with us and her sister and no-one else that we actually had ‘our’ Christmas. We had a wonderful time, just the four of us. Happy memories were made and it was a poignant end to her childhood. It was then that my husband and I realised that it had taken 23 years for us to have the Christmas we wanted, just us and our girls.
Now, many years later, we have lovely family Christmasses. I have always encouraged the girls to do what they wanted to do, including having the day just for them and their husbands, but, ironically, they always opt to get as many of us together as possible. Several of the family are shift workers so are not always there, but join us when they can for their meal.
This year, we have a new baby in the family. That will make a world of difference!
I hope everyone has a happy, healthy and rewarding day, and that those with health and other problems will have the best time possible 🎄⛄️🍗🥦

StripeyGran I was not having a go at you, what a strange comment 🤷‍♀️

Last Christmas my husband was still in hospital following his stroke. We visited him, took a few gifts and he was asleep in bed surrounded by piles of presents from The Lions Club I believe. We woke him up and helped him open them.
We took a few nibbles for us as he had a Xmas lunch. We had ours on Boxing Day. A very quiet affair but I didn’t mind.

Christmas is hard to cope with because it has become such a big deal these days, starting months beforehand and putting pressure on people to have a perfect Christmas and spend lots of money. It does
need to be dialled back. So many of us now cannot enjoy it in the way we would like. I would just like a quiet time and spend less.
We have all agreed as a family to just do a secret Santa for each other and buy for the GCs from Vinted etc., and have agreed with friends last year not to buy gifts for each other.
Is just so OTT

I feel it's all about expectations & how to achieve or manage them! Also perhaps most importantly, how to let some of them go and accept that not everything has to be the same each year even if it's a 'tradition'.
I love every sparkly inch of Christmas but have 'tweaked' out over the years all the bits that don't bring me joy. So, almost zero socialising, no shopping malls or city Christmas markets and no gratuitous tit for tat gifting.
I find plenty to enjoy in baking, decorating, crafting and
pottering about villages & the countryside.
I think a lot of folk do things they don't really want to at Christmas and feel afraid to 'rock the boat'.

Kcacavachon ... sensible approach to Christmas. To para phrase, find what you like about Christmas and ignore the rest. Simples.
I hope and wish everyone can follow suit, hard though it is for some of us.

I am SO incredibly grateful that my parents are understanding about Christmas.

Hubby is a night security guard and his workplace has a vacation blackout around Christmas, so nobody is allowed to request vacation. This means he has to work some Christmases. I teach nursing, which means that I get Christmas off, but in past years when I was working in direct care there were times I had to work Christmas day.

We have never visited Hubby's family for Christmas because we are in Canada and they live in the UK, and flights are very expensive at that time of year. We usually visit in the spring.

My parents have the attitude of those who can, show up, and for those who can't, that's okay. Two of my siblings would have to fly in for Christmas and that's not always possible. Sometimes people want to visit other family members. We exchange gifts with my parents whenever we can get a chance to see them.

keepcalmandcavachon I agree with expectations and how to manage them

As my darling DiL often says just do you

Just be yourself. Not everyone is religious. And the timing of the Festival predates Christianity.
Let the lights and the sparkle brighten up the dark days. If that suits you.
Zone out the rest.
Christmas was 'big' in Tudor times fell away with Oliver Cromwell, and then came back.
Yes, the Victorian version brought many new customs, and commercialism has ramped it up, perhaps too much.
For us, when Mum died, the tree lit up a dark corner.
That's the worst aspect. The folk who are missing.
✨️

StripeyGran

Yes, I did and I wrote a perfectly civil and thoughtful reply.

Please stop having a go at me.

Thanks.

It didnt look like Gg13 was 'having a go' at anybody.

I do know that just the mention of Christmas can raise the emotions one way or another.
So perhaps this isn't the thread for you Sg?

Magazines stuffed with glossy Christmas double-page spreads have a lot to answer for. A massive family, all scrubbed and polished, crowding round the dinner table with Mum wearing a sparkly cocktail frock, Dad in a dinner jacket accompanied by a massive bow tie, and super-ancient relatives who still have their own teeth and hair are beaming at Dad and waiting for him to start on the turkey.

And the turkey: absolutely huge, almost mahogany brown and so amazingly shiny it looks like it's had a coat of yacht varnish.

And no-one is drunk.

Just like real life, eh?

HelterSkelter1

Christmas trees on sale in Waitrose this morning. I will get my smallish pretend one out for Dec 1st. I just have sparkly white lights on it and it's cheerful. More conical than bushy so fits well into a corner. From Tesco about 15 years ago. When I see the price of trees now, I am delighted this one is game for another few years....it could outlive me!!!!!

Christmas trees for sale already? Wonder what kind of tatty condition they'll be in by the great day?

Nooooooo! Far too early.

This seems to be a thread hopefully garnering support promoting ‘bah humbug’ if possible.
Joy about Christmas criticised already!