To think that there was a sort of peak Christmas in the 90s and that really nobody wants the huge event?

Sounds like my Christmases as a kid in the '90s. Which is why we're doing the small, chilled and relaxed Christmas every year.Tbh, today I think we've peaked as it was the best Christmas (in my opinion) ever.

I’m an 80s child too & I do remember much more socialising with family, friends, neighbours, etc than now. And we dressed up for church.

I wouldn't say the 90s were 'peak' Christmas, but the 90s were the last pre-internet Christmases and so came without the exhausting, stifling 'standards' and 'right way of doing things, and comparisons that the internet seems to have imposed. Along with that, less consumerism.

So your Christmas was generally as it had always been: people buying a tin of sweets, a bag or two of nuts, a pack of dates, making a Christmas cake, cooking a roast dinner, buying a bottle or two of their favourite tipple and instead focusing more on actually being together.

No elf on a shelf, Christmas eve boxes, gift/beauty advent calendars, matching pjs, pet advent calendars, celebrity chefs (you either followed your mum's method or delia's), posting your tree on Instagram, buying new decorations every year etc.

Please tell me how to make vegan Yorkies!

Never had the three types of potatoes. Christmas all about roast potatoes with occasional Yorkshire puddings.

1990s was the end of the pre-, internet age. Today we all get so much dopamine from being online we can't be bothered with anything else. However all the additives and palm oil in bought alternativea have meant I've just left things on the shelf which means some things have been simpler.

For me the 90’s/early 00’s was peak Christmas time, I guess I was a kid/teenager so now when we do Christmas we try to recreate some of the feels. I love doing Christmas with my dc, we’ve defo made some new traditions but tbh they both love the old ones that I’ve brought from my childhood. I don’t remember each specific Christmas but I remember every tradition, certain trips, some prezzies, we still have the same food now, the same way. We might have lost some loved ones along the way but we’ve pretty much kept Christmas alive..

I was raised in the nineties and we always had a lovely, chilled Christmas. I read threads every year about how miserable people are, about arguments and fights and tears because dinner was late or someone ate too cheese, or because their gifts weren't perfect and it all sounds insane to me.

Why do people put themselves through it every year? I honestly don't get it.

I imagine “peak Christmas” is whichever decade was the last one we had where we weren’t responsible for making it all happen.

There's a lot of pressure nowadays to conform to what everyone else is doing.

Back in the 80s/90s we had quite a lot of presents and big family dinners but I'm sure that my parents had no clue what was going on inside their peers houses. People also used to leave it a lot later to start Christmas shopping. Now I feel we are bombarded by emails from retailers late October/early November. Friends telling me they've finished all shopping by end of Nov. Black Friday. The Elf!!! Christmas Eve boxes. Booking up to see Santa because it'll get sold out otherwise. Marching pyjamas.
Not to mention endless social media posts about what everyone is up to, how decorated their house is.

I do often think that the phrase "ignorance is bliss" was coined about the pre internet days.

(this is my husband's family - my late mum was the classic Christmas martyr growing up before she became very disabled and passed the baton to me. I loved her Xmas meal but this is much better.)

We do a big family Christmas every year but we divide up the jobs and prep beforehand and everyone (male and female) mucks in with the cooking from early Christmas Eve to Boxing Day. Gifts are mostly edible/consumable and inexpensive. The kids get jobs too. It's really nice and everyone likes to be part of it.

I think it may well be an age thing. To me, older, "peak" Christmas would probably be the 80s. Someone older than me the 70s or even the 60s. Our ideas of "peak" would all be different too. The amount spent at Christmas has increased incredibly across the decades which is another thing. Maybe, hopefully, we're getting to a place where we spend a little less on presents and some of the stuff and nonsense because that would be good for all of us, but I don't know what others do, only what I do.

I think all of our "peaks" happen at a certain stage in our life and we look back at that as the normal when it may only have been that way for a relatively short while. I think it's something that is constantly being tinkered with. Not quite reinvented, but with each little tinkering it becomes more different. I imagine that if someone time travelled from even the 60s to now they'd think that Christmas had gone pure mental.

Take That with 12 number 1s?

As opposed to folk like Matt Cardle who has been forgotten about by New Year. Or LadBaby who is basically a YouTube piss take.

90s Christmas number ones you didn't mention: Queen, Cliff Richard, Whitney Houston.

Nah, not having that.

I was in Morrisons yesterday, a man said to a woman he had been talkin "enjoy tomorrow" her reply was " enjoy it ? what is there for a woman to enjoy about Christmas" Other than watching the children opening presents it's weeks of bloody hard work.

But there was no '90s Christmas' as if it were some universal Dionysiac experience - all families were different and did things differently! I certainly don't remember three types of potatoes!

Christmas #1 was a real thing as opposed to whatever manufactured pop shite comes out from Xfactor that year.

Arh yes, you mean like Take That, Mr Blobby or The Spice Girls - not manufactured shite at all, eh?

I think this is all a case of rose tinted glasses! Probably because we were children or young enough not to be the ones who put allthe work in!

I wouldn't say it's just you but there definitely others going all out. This year I was invited to a formal Christmas Eve ball in a marquee in a garden, with black and gold invitations no less!

Thanks! I’m sure it’s not a universal experience but what you said kind of resonated with me. 90s Christmases just felt different to now…. in some way less pressured but more of an event and definitely more focus on family and traditions. Maybe they were more fun too? Like people didn’t care about it looking good for social media etc.

Maybe we’re also more selfish as a nation? People feel like self care and chill out time is more important than having to do lots of family stuff. I certainly don’t go round seeing lots of people at Christmas like my parents did. It’s kind of sad but then I think the world has changed. Things are so pressured in other ways that now people just want time off to do what they want. So if we are more selfish it’s a result of being time poor. Cost of living has probably hit hard too, hosting is bloody expensive. I’m in my 30s now and I don’t know any women my age who can be arsed with the hosting. Just too busy and tired. We go to parents to keep them happy but when they are no longer here… I think most people will stay home and relax.

There's women that still put up with similar now. It makes me so sad.
Is it ever the blokes doing everything and missing parts to cook food etc? Maybe, but it'll be rarer than rocking horse shit.

Now I have my own young kids, I look back at what my mother did and despair for her. She worked long tiring hours in retail right up til late Xmas eve, spent the night wrapping with no help from dad, then the entire morning slaving away to cook a meal she didn’t even want, for dads family she didn’t even like. Missed all the present opening. I remember shouting out what gifts we’d had through to her in the kitchen. Why on earth she put up with it I don’t know.

90s Christmases were the best for me.

1 of 4 kids, cousins lived round the corner, grandparents visiting with a 5L bottle of orange diluting juice (not really sure why).

East 17 was on the radio, got Mousetrap as a present, a programme on the tele was "miss it and you've missed out" rather than video on demand today. Christmas #1 was a real thing as opposed to whatever manufactured pop shite comes out from Xfactor that year.

I'm very fortunate to be in that sweet spot of being young enough to pick up all new technology but old enough to have had a childhood.

I agree with you OP. I think most people don't want or need this 'perfect' day.

I dare say you’re assuming that your own experiences/feelings are going to apply to everybody else.

I used to get Xmas clothes for everyone. House had to be cleaned throughly , clean sheets on every bed. And remained in those clothes. But after years of struggling to make dinner , host family whilst wearing heels and frocks, I decided no more . As time goes on different dynamics change things . Kids grown, parents passed away .. Down from 12 to 6 . Much more low key.

i agree OP. I think people did bigger celebrations in the 90s… in the sense of having more people over. I remember going to visit lots of relatives and have to drop presents at each (I was born in the 80s so 90s was my childhood). Maybe people didn’t spend as much as they do these days (like buffet food was cheap and simple and not as many sides with Xmas dinner) and we didn’t do experiences like winter wonderland and all that crap, but it was all about having people over and seeing people. I remember early 00s lots of Nigella on tv about food for hosting. It was like that peak of Christmas hosting and having nice food. Now you never see any programmes like that on tv.

i think the the trend is for experiences that people can show off on insta, but i also see lots of people opting for a smaller Christmas, possibly only inviting a few people over and basically chilling out the rest of the time. I know I do this too.

Possibly because people are knackered. Work is tiring, a lot of people work long hours so they get to Christmas and want a break and not hosting 16 people. The country is going to shit as well, which adds to the gloom. Like even driving somewhere to visit people is russian roulette as to whether you’ll get caught in roadworks, an accident or phantom traffic. Just not worth it unless you really have to.