Was everything “fabulous” for you?

Well., my Dd and grandson had flu and were quite poorly.
They still are.
Nevertheless, we felt obliged to go and visit as wanted to exchange presents.
We were not bothered about Xmas dinner, but ended up having a nice buffet.
I hoped and prayed we wouldn’t catch the lurgy. And so far,so good.
I did suggest Dd get a Flu jab sometime ago, but it fell on deaf ears.

Aveline

It is fabulous being part of a family Christmas and I'm sorry if usedtobeblonde objects to that terminology. It's just a word!

I totally agree it is absolutely fabulous, wonderful and perfect to spend a relaxed day with family, have wonderful food cooked to perfection by someone else and then to relax with a few drinks in the afternoon chatting with the family who you don't see too often. Having a wonderful supper with everything you normally would not dream of eating after a large lunch, but because you are together having a absolutely perfect time you overindulge in it all and can honestly say you had a wonderful time to everyone who asks. I did and don't mind telling anyone who will listen. It is conversation is it not? I am sure no one is boasting for the sake of it. It probably did feel wonderful in the moment.

Don't compare yourself to fabulous people who can tell you fabulous lies about their fabulous lives.

Where everything is Absolutely Fabulous.

Mostly a load of BS anyway

Mojack26

No,don't give a stuff...🤣

😥

My Christmas was good, my eldest son remarked, crikey mum, nobody has fallen out with anyone, that’s a first for us lot!!

We're all under pressure for everything to be perfect. Anyone who is on their own tends to feel or to be made to feel "second best".
I lived alone for the best part of twenty years and I know what it feels like.
I wish there were different ways of celebrating so that no-one feels " left out".
Happy Xmas and New Year Everyone

No,don't give a stuff...🤣

Usedtobeblonde

As the O P, this is my next to last post on this thread.
I am off in half an hour to see the friend whose remarks started it all off.
We are going to watch the DVD of Downton Abbey, the Finale.
I haven’t watched it since the second series but my friend loves it and asked for it as part of her Christmas present so we have arranged the afternoon together to view it.
I may or may not come back to report how it went😉

Is she descended from the Crawleys?

When you come back I can tell you in minute detail about the Christmas Day I ended up in A&E (that was an eye-opener, I can tell you), the one where the DC got chickenpox, various other disastrous Christmases past. I could keep you entertained for hours.

I haven’t read the whole thread but I can’t imagine any of my friends or family actually boasting about the Christmas they had, or the amazing holiday they’d been on. They would just describe it in the usual moderate language, uninfluenced by any imagined pressure from the media to ‘big themselves up’.
Personally I have learned to value and be grateful for simple things and the company of my children, grandchildren and friends is quite enough for me. I have no idea if I sound boastful if I reply ‘We had a fabulous time, thank you’ in response to the question ‘how was your Christmas’ but if I do, I really don’t care.

Oh I don’t want to mislead, it was part of her Christmas present from her D.
I bought her perfume though.

Usedtobeblonde
Enjoy! If you’re doing it as part of a Christmas present thats really kind if you so it will be even better if you enjoy it too.
Happy New Year!

As the O P, this is my next to last post on this thread.
I am off in half an hour to see the friend whose remarks started it all off.
We are going to watch the DVD of Downton Abbey, the Finale.
I haven’t watched it since the second series but my friend loves it and asked for it as part of her Christmas present so we have arranged the afternoon together to view it.
I may or may not come back to report how it went😉

Unless it was a real disaster - like my friend who was rushed into A&E with an infected gall bladder and obstructed bile duct - don’t you just usually say or expect “lovely thank you, and you?”
Or if you are at the point of lying down in a darkened room, maybe “exhausting” but rather like “How are you?”- nobody really want chapter and verse.
Plus I’d rather think people had a lovely Christmas than a misery fest so I don’t interpret it as boasting.
But considering the effort that goes into it, especially by “Mum” they’d jolly well better describe it as “fabulous”. *or they’re hosting next year 🤣🤣

Christmas can be a very challenging time emotionally.

merlotgran

I think I’d rather have a boasting RR than the annual misery fest I get from one of DH’s rellies. Getting an update on serious health issues is understandable but I am not interested in the next door neighbour’s bunions or the demise of the postman’s auntie. 😩

Hear hear merlotgran.

Son who is no cook cooked our Christmas dinner and it was fabulous of him to do that for 9 people but the meal wasn’t fabulous, it was a good Sunday roast for picky eaters. The rest of the Christmas was noisy. That’s an honest review from here and with luck it will be the same next year. Though I must buy sharper carving knives for next time. They old ones caused a bit of frowning

I think I’d rather have a boasting RR than the annual misery fest I get from one of DH’s rellies. Getting an update on serious health issues is understandable but I am not interested in the next door neighbour’s bunions or the demise of the postman’s auntie. 😩

Most of my Christmas days have simply been 'just lovely thanks.' No dramas, no huge arguments or hissy -foot stamping!
Yet, some have been terrible! My Mother would be stressy and attack the roast with her new electric caving knife like a demon!
My Father would try to interfere and so the battle of the parents would begin! Once everyone just flounced -off (stormed!)
I remember being left alone with my old dog Sally & being perfectly content,; now that was a 'Lovely Christmas.'

I love round robins. They have a notoriety for people writing boasting letters. All I can say is that in that case get yourself a different family and new friends. I dropped the only person who sent me that sort of RR. Mine are mainly to family and friends, who now live at some distance. My father was one of 11 and it helps all us first cousins to keep in contact and close.

Many of us have had career moves and other events that lead our frieds and familyto be scattered and it does help family and friendship unity. We have just moved house and I am now living close to two cousins, whose life I know about and we will be meeting up. It was the same in our last location, a cousin moved there some years later and we became really good friends, I hadn't seen her for years, but both of us were still part of a larger family.

Well, postmen used to be called Robins in Victorian times but probably the Christmas newsletters started when home computers and printers arrived on the scene.

Who started the tradition of Round Robins?

I doesn't have to be 'publicly successful'. What matters is how people feel about the Christmas they've had.

Yes Stillness
It’s a combination of the need to post extravagantly and the obligation to read the posts.
Do you think it would be any better if nobody posted anything? Or if they posted a long moan about the exhaustion that follows the preparation, consuming and clearing up?

CabbageWars13

Thank goodness for Karma.

An acquaintance emailed me with the detail, by detail, by detail account of "the best Christmas evah!"

She only ever makes contact when she's boasting about something.

But she was due at St Pancras yesterday teatime to get the Eurostar for a "divine Parisien New Year celebration!"

Strange that she hasn't rung or emailed yet.......

Schadenfreude is unpleasant at the best of times but worse at the time of year when having something to boast about can be well deserved.

I’ve just spent Christmas with an in law who has such amazing style, she even makes wearing a paper hat look trendy and glam! I’m not overweight but standing next to her I feel like a cart horse. She can waltz into a charity shop and pluck anything she fancies from the rail and look as though she has stepped out of the pages of Vogue.
Am I envious? You betcha!

And then I remember she has cancer!
Don’t take everything at face value.

Maybe the question posted by the OP has been overlooked due to the need to communicate personal experiences.
To answer your question, yes, personally, I do think the media play a huge part in ‘bigging up’ expectations and to me, that’s down to £££.. It feels a bit like lambs to the slaughter…in order to have the best Christmas yet, we must do more, be more, and of course, spend more. I do feel it’s got out of hand and puts pressure on people who have been almost brainwashed for at least six weeks to work towards having the most wonderful Christmas. I feel for those that can’t see what’s happening but then it’s possibly a reflection of a lot else in life at the moment. Whatever you do, it isn’t publicly deemed successful unless it reaches some sort of extreme. Rant over….it is just my opinion.