AIBU by people's reactions.

If anyone thinks realistically the Christmas is something exclusively celebrated as a religious occasion, then they are highly deluded and must be very distant from society. The huge majority of people know Christmas is celebrated for many reasons other than religious.

The word Christmas literally means Christ's Mass, a religious service celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ. Christians celebrate the birth and the rest of us use it as an excuse for an extended party.

You say that Jesus is just the latest excuse for the mid December festivities, which is what I said. The census that required Joseph and Mary to travel to Bethlehem is thought to have taken place after the autumn harvest around September time. The 25th December was chosen as there was a pagan festival around the Winter Solstice to celebrate Saturn, the Roman god of agriculture, and the early Christians wanted to convert the pagans so effectively hijacked that. It is from there that traditions such as hanging wreaths and the giving of presents come. Christmas is essentially a mish-mash of various other things.

Oh my god, you are so rude to ask this! Cringing for you!

I'm disagreeing that Christmas is a celebration for Christians and there's no reason for non-Christians to celebrate it. It's a secular celebration and always has been, under different names and with various symbology, I agree that it's currently a strange mixture of Pagan traditions dressed up as Christian in a very unconvincing way.

I would argue there's never been a "whole idea" as you put it. It's cold, dark and gloomy, everyone wants to be cheered up, that's pretty much it. I'm glad we've progressed to it being more of a family occasion than just everyone getting absolutely sloshed on mead to be honest. I don't love the commercialisation but that's society in general, not just Christmas.

I have no idea what you mean in response to my post. I don't know if you are agreeing or disagreeing. Please clarify.

"Christmas" is a Northern Hemisphere tradition going back millennia under various names, and all of them are basically just an excuse for a knees up during the darkest, most miserable time of the year. "Jesus" is just the latest excuse, not the other way around!

Just the one post then. That thread must have really put you off!

I think Secret Santa is common among extended families where there is no young children or the family group is very large. It's also common not to buy presents for adults.

It's extremely unusual to only buy your own small child one token gift and take them on a nice summer holiday instead, and for grandparents not to buy anything for grandchildren. Do you really know any families where this is the case?

YABVU & have crossed over into CF territory.

I hope you realise that now after reading all the comments on the thread.

So you want your kids to miss out on having presents so you can go and sun yourself in Spain for two weeks a year? How selfish and cheeky - holidays are a luxury and your children certainly should not be missing out, pay for your own blummin holiday, I suppose the youngest gets £0 then if they are young enough for a free child place? I'd laugh in your Face if you were my family

Fucking hell, what a horror.

Oh yes I didn't read it properly, no one asks for the money to be added to a holiday fund instead! Omg 🤣 My user name is accurate 😳 I thought OP was just saying no more gifts, sorry for being stupid! 🙈

How grabby can people get? Too bloody right I wouldn’t be buying you anymore presents. Plus I’d rather set fire to my dosh than pay for your holiday.

I may have misunderstood the OP. I do know loads of people who either do Secret Santa (one gift per person) or don't do gifts at all. I'm about to pull it with my own family, we only do gifts for the children, but my neices and nephews are all growing up and it's making it hard to pick gifts (I don't want to do money because there's no thought in that), so I'm going to suggest we stop. My DC is only 3 so technically will miss out, but I'm not bothered. My cousins also stopped doing gifts with their other sides of the family for the kids years ago and now they'll do an experience together instead.

You are being v v unreasonable :( Pay for a holiday you can afford yourselves and let them and others enjoy Xmas presents.

I’d bet good money you don’t know anyone doing this, never mind loads 😂

I think this is a great idea and know loads of people doing this. But YABU re MIL, of course she wants to get her grand kids gifts. We don't do presents for adults usually but I'll still get for my neices and nephews because I want to

Your poor kids 🥹

@Lampslights lol, I’m not pretending Xmas is only for Christian’s , but that’s the whole point of it (celebrating Jesus so Yh - we are ok 😂) I don’t believe in celebrating something for the sake of it … and I hope my children grow up not following the crowd, doing things just because others do, Muslims do not celebrate Xmas and I’m sure their children are fine?! I do not see the point never have never will plus they do not care about presents we spent last year in Geneva and had the best time ever thank you ❤️

Most of us get a job to do the duties of the job, not to concern ourselves with the personal circumstances of our colleagues. How magical Christmas is for DC isn't something for their parents colleagues to care about.

Besides what if you had a team where all the nurses had young children?

Wow with the pretending only Christians celebrate Xmas now and using it as a way to not give to your own kids.

This can’t be serious. Pay for your own holiday. Not ask for your kids Xmas present money to fund it.😱

I think YABU, gifts given to your children are for them, holidays are for you to pay for.

On another point I’m not a Christian but we love fairly lights and santa and all that stuff so we do it to join in. No-one in my family is a Christian and we all do it. We also lived in the M.E for a time and knew muslim families who liked a xmas tree too, I remember a kid in IKEA moaning at his mum “but we aren’t even Christian’s!” His mum was like “because it’s FUN, we are going to have FUN”. Nothing wrong with a bit of cheer, winter if often a bit gloomy and it brightens everything up for a bit.

You should be paying for your (very small) children's holidays. I can't believe you will sacrifice on their behalf, the magic of Christmas and the excitement of seeing their faces opening their presents.
That's without the enjoyment of family members being able to buy them presents.
If it's TRUE, and you have a healthy income, then there is no need for this at all.

I'm not Christian either so don't celebrate Christmas. For those who are, the whole idea of Christmas and what it is supposed to represent has been lost amongst all the extreme commercialisation and for those of us who aren't, why bother. I agree birthdays of real people are far more important than the supposed birthday of someone who may or may not have existed. If this was a real person who was born at the time of the census then the actual birthday would have been around the middle of what is now September as that is when it happened. Christmas has just attached itself to a pagan festival to encourage non-believers to convert. It was, clearly, a very successful marketing ploy.

I remember several years ago, in the early 2000s, a girl at work was delighted when we got a bonus of £500 because that would pay for all the little extra presents. £500 worth of extras!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That is just bonkers, who knows what she spent on main presents. That is over £1000 in today's money. Our entire Christmas wouldn't have cost that much.

If you are Christian and encourage your children to be, then I agree it is a bit mean to deprive them of presents when they are so young. The only fair thing to do is to let them enjoy Christmas while they are young and let them make up their own minds when they are old enough to make an informed choice.

I have lovely memories of family Christmases with my parents and grandparents when I was very young, but I think it was more about being off school for a fortnight and spending time with grandparents who we only saw a few times a year because we lived several hundred miles apart.