The whole damn Christmas Thing!

Daddima

LadyBridgerton

I saw white poinsettias in Waitrose last week and was almost tempted but they wouldn't last til 25th Dec

I’ve got one I was given three years ago ( it was from Lidl), and it’s still going strong, although none of the leaves have changed colour.

I always manage to kill them off sooner or later.

Last year's lasted a bit longer but still gave up after a couple of months.

GrannyGravy13

We have done Christmas in Australia, France and Spain.

Always with the children and family, all different, special in their own way/customs, we still remember them with fondness as do our now AC

Once again I’ll be in the Canary Islands, where Christmas Eve is when the big family dinner takes place. At Mass on Christmas Day. the baby Jesus is kissed by all before being placed in the manger . The gifts mainly come on Three Kings Day on 6th January, when there may be a big parade in big towns when the kings arrive on camels.
I feel most of the Christmas advertising etc is much more low key than here, and definitely doesn’t begin so early.

LadyBridgerton

I saw white poinsettias in Waitrose last week and was almost tempted but they wouldn't last til 25th Dec

I’ve got one I was given three years ago ( it was from Lidl), and it’s still going strong, although none of the leaves have changed colour.

We celebrate the whole Yuletide thing especially the Winter Solstice and coming of the new light. We usually stay in a hotel a week or so before Christmas and enjoy all the late night shopping, hotel Christmas Dinner and Christmas lights in town. We also have a carnival that goes through out streets so that is lovely to watch and a bus that goes along the seafront singing Christmas carol. We have a Christmas market in our local square. Lots to see and do. Really can't be bothered with loads of family as they are so depressing. I want to be entertained at my age not suffer.

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.

Nah humbug, how dare some of us enjoy Xmas when you don’t.

Team lilyflower, I loathe Easter, always have. I don't let people know, I give the Grandchildren money to buy what they want, and I go with the flow. Its personal preference.

As a kid I always hated Easter egg chocolate as well. I never got exited about Easter eggs. I could never get my head around Jesus being crucified, although I know the celebration was that he had risen.
I once had Christmas on my own, daughter was traveling round the world, son in Lancashire with his girlfriend, I loved it, ate what I wanted, Christmas tree up, lights on. Did not tell friends until after Christmas, when they asked did I have a nice Christmas as they all said when I told them, oh you could have come to us. Not what I wanted. I don't like Christmas commercialism, to me it is magical. I love the food, the kids calling me saying thsnkyou gran, the tree the lights. Christmas is what you make it.

StripeyGran

Nobody is curtailing the fun others have. As a person who genuinely suffers from SAD, I do have a struggle.

Added to that memories of my abusive parents tend to surface.

However, as suggested I will focus on something good and put all that to one side, to the best of my ability.

You do your Christmas your way.

I hope you find something that works for you 👍🏻

Surely Gransnet is a place for people to air their feelings safely. The title of the thread shows that someone is not overjoyed by Christmas so those who enjoy Christmas don't have to post.

It isn't "moaning" for those who find Christmas a difficult time of year.

Nobody is curtailing the fun others have. As a person who genuinely suffers from SAD, I do have a struggle.

Added to that memories of my abusive parents tend to surface.

However, as suggested I will focus on something good and put all that to one side, to the best of my ability.

Team Lilyflower here too! I don't partake of all the social side of Christmas but am looking forward to the season for it's simple pleasures, the beautiful music, folktale podcasts and cosy crime mystery books. The high street strung with lights, squirrelling away little treats in a 'Christmas cupboard' and making my home look and smell festive. Quality Street Day, when I take a few boxes of chocs for the library ladies & the cheerful, coffee / charity shop staff who are so kind - simple pleasures all. Going through difficult times make these small things all the more precious.
Kind wishes to everyone x

GG13, I’m very, very happy that people enjoy Christmas.

But…in my case it triggers all sorts and causes me much distress. I have hidden it from everyone for years, although having been asked for my honest opinion, I have given it.

Lilyflower I totally agree with your post.

To be perfectly honest I am rather fed up with thread after thread on GN moaning about something or another.

Wouldn’t it be good for those of us who are happy about the coming season (however we are spending it) to be able to share our happiness and plans without constantly being shot down in flames 🤷‍♀️

BlueBelle

Lilyflower that’s so idealistic.. for you it is obviously wonderful but what if you don’t have a home, or a family or you have illness or death, or trauma around that time What if you have no money or no family to sing around the tree with
Your Pollyanna description is so far from reality for SO many

Even with nothing to cheer about you could probably get through a week but months of jolliness and commercialisation is enough to send peopke mad

Surely what Lily says in her last sentence is that we have the Christmas we want.

As for shops and 'months of jolliness and commercialiation', well that is up to you. Yes, Christmas stuff is in the shops - remember spreading expenditure makes Christmas possible for maany people, but before this weekend we had a month of Halloween, and before that ther was all the excitement of holidays in the shops.

Shops sell stuff, they couldn't exist if they didn't. if you are not in arms objecting to Easter, summer holidays, Halloween, why centre on Christmas?.

I dislike the way that we are only allowed to speak of Christmas if we are moaning about it. the sadder someones story, and I do not lack sympathy for those who will have sad Christmases, the higher rated it is, but the moment someone admits to enjoying Christmas or having a happy Christmas, they are jumped on and criticised.

Well, I am with Lilyflower, I am unashamedly looking forward to a chaotic but happy Christmas in our new home with all the family around and staying at some point.

I choose to work Xmas day, (NHS worker) don't enjoy the season at all. Roll on lighter nights & spring.

I am going away raficha and needed to book early. Usually, I would be with family but I don’t want them to feel they have to invite their aged parent every year when they might want to make other plans.
A Happy Christmas to us all whatever we’re doing!

We have recently acquired 2 kittens and I have realised my Christmas decorations will have to be very limited this year ! They have already attacked a few fairy lights that I have round my fireplace and occasionally light in Winter . Many years ago we used to put chocolate decorations on the tree . The dog used to knock off and eat the ones he could reach . He never suffered any ill effects though. My Christmas Day growing up was just me and my parents and pretty low key as we didn’t have much money and no means of transport to visit family . On Boxing Day family took turns to host. We all crammed into one little house , sitting wherever we could find a space and balancing a buffet on our knee . Such fond memories though.

Lilyflower that’s so idealistic.. for you it is obviously wonderful but what if you don’t have a home, or a family or you have illness or death, or trauma around that time What if you have no money or no family to sing around the tree with
Your Pollyanna description is so far from reality for SO many

Even with nothing to cheer about you could probably get through a week but months of jolliness and commercialisation is enough to send peopke mad

I love Christmas in its purest sense, but despair at the OTT commercialism. Wall to wall carols, Christmas songs, fake jollity, etc., drive me mad.
I also find the giving of presents costing more than one can afford very difficult. Being in debt for months to give ungrateful, demanding, entitled people a lot of “stuff” very sad.
Our Christmas before DG died was modest, re. presents, but we always wen5 to church. It was the meals, the fellowship, where we had the greatest joy.

Christmas gives us something to look forward to in the dark, cold, winter months. It contains light, lovely food, presents, a decorated house, everyone off at the same time so an opportunity to see loved ones, ceremony and traditions, carols and Christmas music, a story with birth at its heart.

Just as we are all responsible for our own happiness, so we are responsible for our own Christmas.

You see to have family around you is lovely ( although you don’t need Christmas for that) but there are so many alone or unhappy ill or poor or hurt and it can be so awful for them
There is a reason there are so many suisides around Christmas

It would be fine if it was just the week of Christmas but it’s months and months and months of expense and being bombarded with jolliness that make it a nightmare for many

I cannot wait for it to be over and I can start to think about Spring

My family are scattered all over the world so for me it’s a nothing, a time to get through every year, a week, to get through I can manage very well, but these months and months of it are way way too much

This year I'll have hosted Christmas for 54 years and do feel a bit over it! Childhood family Christmases were lovely, as for most of us I expect. We moved to New Zealand in 2005 when our elder son lived in Australia with ddil (they are now back in Scotland). Our other son came with us and is now happily living with his partner and 2 dgds an hour or so from us. Christmas is definitely NOT THE SAME!! I can't get used to it being in summer,but I do love it in a different way. It's just so weird! 🤣 They come to us and usually stay for about a week, which is lovely. The dgds are 8 and 5 so still very much loving the holiday time. I'm thinking maybe next year we all go out for lunch though. 🥳

Desdemona

Dickens was an unpleasant fellow and bad to his wife.

And what has that to do with anything? It made me laugh though!

Having said that I'm really looking forward to our celebration, I do think the Christmas lights start too early. I wonder how much electricity would be saved if the lights didn't get switched on until say Dec 1st instead of halfway through November? There are eight towns in Northumberland and we pay our council tax to the county council. I wonder if it would knock a little off the tax bill? It would certainly be environmentally friendly.

Well, horses for courses. I've been overdoing Christmas, whenever I could, for the past 41 years, and shall continue to do so this year and next - when I shall be 70. I've already warned the family that I plan to ease off after New Year's Day 2027!

But meantime, we are expecting 14 people, including 3 very young children, for this coming Christmas Day, and I will push out every single boat and thoroughly enjoy it.

My parents tended to do rather restrained Christmases (not horrible, but a slightly more elaborate Sunday roast rather than the enormous feast I shall be serving next month), and as a child I envied other people who seemed to enjoy rather more lavish celebrations. I promised myself that when I was grown up, Things Would Be Different - and they are!

I think it is sunlikely that jesus was born on 25th Decembe. It is again all to do with symbolism and the importance of the winter solstice when the days start shortening again. So to have Jesus come into the world on the darkest day of the year and grow with the growing light is symbolic.

In Nabatean mythology, the Nabateans were local to Israel and had their centre at Petra, two of their Gods were said to have had their child, who became the main God born during the winter solstice. I am sure there is a synthesis between the solstice stories of these two groups