Christmas is for the kids

Why? I'm nearly 60, I have 20 year old dc's, and my dad is 90 and we still go full out buying presents for each other! We love it 😀

We work really hard in the run up to Yule and Xmas. It's a time to snug up under blankets, light candles and eat lots of food! We have cut back since Covid to just us 4 as I'm disabledand thing have changed. Now a) we simply can't afford to do the full house of 12-16 people who all have different dietary needs and none lift a finger or contribute anything and b) I physically can't cook for a week solid.
My dc have said how much they love it now, not on "show", choose our own food preferences, cut back on presents and able to just relax and be ourselves.

It's for the Kids BUT not for GP who think that children need to be carted from house to house because it revolves around them. In that case I think kids needs and wants come first, nothing stopping Gp's going ahead and still celebrating it.

I know there is always a lot on here about intergenerational tensions at Christmas, and I think we’ve all had irritations flare up at times, but for a lot of families it is the one time that there are big family gatherings and they can bring a lot of joy too.

I regularly go carol singing at local residential homes and there is something incredibly moving about seeing elderly people, especially those with dementia, connect with music they’ve been familiar with all their lives. Christmas is a touchpoint.

If you have kids, yeah, Christmas should be for them, but it is also for everyone.

Christmas being for kids means adults who love them spending time and a bit of fuss on them. That's not a burden, it's a joy.

It means not doing things like hoofing kids into long car journeys when they've just opened their presents because two sets of grandparents MUST be seen on the day and WON'T travel to them. Etc.

I say this as an adult who went to Lapland by herself and had a whale of a time - if there are kids in the picture, you do Christmas to their schedule.

Christmas is whatever you want it to be, or nothing, depending on your opinion of it and relationship to it.

Some people don't have children, or indeed any family at all.

Christmas is for everyone!

I hate this kind of sentimental attitude. My children are adults now and of course we made it magical for them when they were young - and they appreciated/still appreciate that. But it's for everyone to enjoy.

I particularly hate the idea that single or childless people should be automatically expected to work at Christmas to allow parents to be with their children. Those people have just as much right to a Christmas as anyone else - and of course, they will have aging parents and other family to consider.

My kids are now technically adults but I get the same pleasure from choosing gifts, decorating the house and eating the food. It may have been more 'fun' when I was a kid and not doing all the work, but I still love it.
It's different with young kids at the present opening part, but otherwise is it? As long as there is a few of you it may be less frantic but is it less joyful? I still love the lights, the tv shows/movies, the dream of maybe this year it will be white. It's still magical to me.

I'm 35 with no kids and I love Christmas.

Admittedly the Christmas activities aimed at children seem ballachingly dull (Santa's grotto and the like), but 1-2 months of parties, Christmas food, mulled wine and presents? Yes please.

I love Christmas, but struggle to escape being rota'd to work it due to the sharp-elbowed "it's for the kiiiiiiiiiiids" types I work with.

It's definitely not just for kids! I had my first one off last year in years and had a lovely chilled out time. I get really depressed in winter and Christmas is just a great distraction for me.

I'm a practicing Christian so for me, Christmas is literally for everyone!

I love celebrating with family and making it special for DC but I also cherish having a get together with my old uni friends at this time of year - lots of them are LBGT/child-free and we sometimes do a secret Santa even though we are in our 40s and just enjoy having an afternoon or evening together in a cosy pub or at someone's house.

For me Christmas is a season.

My kids are 14+ now so no longer in the santa stage. However there are plenty of things we do to enjoy the season either with each other or with friends

• Iceskating
• Local light trail
• Christmas shopping
• Christmas at a national trust house
• christmas themed escape room
• Christmas films
• Wreath making
• Christmas drinks/meal out

The actual xmas this year is just the 5 of us. We will still have stockings but there will be less presents as kids toys take up a lot of space although DD is getting a double bed for christmas!
As no guests I will scale back on the variety of food as dont need to cater for a variety of people but have nice food including a full christmas dinner as its my favourite.
We will play board games, watch Xmas specials and films and a few drinks!

Christmas is for everyone but I think gift giving between adults becomes a burdensome and unsatisfying quid pro quo arrangement.

Oh, and in our home, Christmas is for everyone. Everyone here gets a stocking, presents under the tree, and we all argue about what the Christmas menu should be all year!

(The person that came up with the bright idea of a trio of desserts should be wheeled out and shot. I'm looking in the mirror as I type this.)

Adults have had their time. Let the kids enjoy it. Well at least you’re saying “Adults have had their time”. Usually it’s “Old people have had their time and should never be allowed any fun ever again”.

There’s a big gap between “roaming around various family members homes visiting people the children don’t know” and staying at home just you and DC. Unless you don’t have any relatives that you see apart from Christmas.

I've been thinking about this a fair bit. And I'm remembering my very old (and in one case, very doolally) grandparents and great aunts and uncles. . . and thinking about how much joy they got out of being surrounded by family, familiar, special occasion meals and treats, gifts to unwrap (how much talc and hand cream can one body use?!), familiar carols. . .

I've always been very focussed on the kids, hard nosedly so. But I guess, I'm getting a new appreciation of just how much it must have meant to the elders, who, lets face it, didn't have a whole lot of joy in their lives.

I can tell you who it WASN'T for. The poor bloody women and girls running around like chooks with their heads cut off doing all the sodding work to make the 'magic' happen!

I had a bit of a lighthearted argument with a family friend about this. His argument was that Christmas is for kids not adults (he hates Christmas and is generally miserable). As a childfree person, I asked him if this meant I shouldn’t be allowed to have fun or receive a gift. He said I shouldn’t get any gifts because adults shouldn’t have gifts at Christmas.
We had to agree to disagree!

I love Christmas because it’s my only week off of the year. I enjoy family time, chilling out and just the general feel of it.
Why shouldn’t I enjoy it just because I don’t have children?

If you're religious then that's different but otherwise, yeah, Christmas is mostly about the kids.

I'm as festive as they come: I actually worked in Lapland with a holiday company one Christmas in my early 20's and have since been back to visit Lapland at Christmas twice (once with kids, once without). It's probably my favourite time of the year personally as an adult with all the festivities and Christmas markets, get togethers, cozy nights etc but there's absolutely nothing beats the magic of kids and Christmas.

I was 37 before I had a child so had many years childfree and i have always felt like this. Of course adults can thoroughly enjoy it and have the best time but it's never going to be as special for them as it is for kids.

I loved it as a child and the magic started to fade a bit as an adult. It definitely came back full force when my SD came into my life and playing Santa is so much more fun that waiting for him! Christmas is for everyone but children are at the centre of it imo.

Even if I wasn’t a Christian, I would not regard Christmas as ‘for children’. We have one DC, now a uni student. I did enjoy the childhood excitement of presents from Father Christmas and so on, but the things I love about it - secular and non secular - don’t just feel ‘about kids’. On some levels even raising it to be for kids is hard on those without. We had 16 years of marriage before we had our DC so lots of experience of doing stuff as adults.

No, you do whatever makes you happy. I just don’t wanted to be bombarded with constant Christmas for weeks on end.

It should be banned!
Christmas crap in the shops in September
People tying themselves in knots/stressing/breaking down about who is hosting/visiting/staying/how much to spend on presents
People going into debt to buy 'christmas' boxes of sweets, etc, that are cheaper to buy as single items/make sure there is 'enough' food, most of which will be binned
People going into debt to buy presents for kids because they don't have the courage to tell them that 'no, we cannot afford x,y,x, even if Elsie next door has one'
People on MN stressing about dealing with toxic in-laws who 'have to be invited' (no, they do not)

There are no children in my immediate or extended family. We still enjoy getting together, eating and giving each other presents. According to the attitude of some posters, this shouldn't be allowed 😒 should we all just sit quietly in our respective homes until it's over?

I loved Christmas as a kid and I love it even more as an adult. We are child free and have the best time! We've already planned our Christmas menu for the full week, special meals and trips out, Christmas film schedule and we can't wait to put our decorations up!

I feel so sorry for people who say it's for kids. It must be awful to be so miserable in life.

Surely it can be enjoyable for everyone but we find joy in different things at different ages? My children love the presents of course and still pretending to believe in Father Christmas but they also love the regular things we do - panto, light show, Christmas Eve excitement, seeing friends and family.

I get a lot of pleasure out of their excitement. But also I love the lights, how pretty our house is when decorated, the music (I love singing carols and we’re lucky to be able to go to an amazing cathedral locally on Christmas Eve - all the busyness and stress of prep melts when Once in Royal David’s City starts with the candle in the dark), the family time and the relaxation. It’s the only time we have together as a family all year of sustained togetherness.

I am also really grateful for it as I had several years of none of this owing to family breakdown. I value it now immensely and am always aware that it can be the most miserable time for the year for some people.