Why are more families not like us?

[wingingmywaythroughlife]

As a child, my parents refused to visit any relatives on Christmas Day whilst my brother and I were young enough to believe in Santa. Anyone wanting to see us would visit, to allow us to play with our toys. Growing older, we would do a quick 30min-ish per household visit on Christmas Day to see the kids of extended family, before going back to DPs for the afternoon/evening. Now I have my own DC, DPs come to me, for same reason they wouldn't take my brother and I out of the house on Christmas Day, and Christmas Dinner is served up in mine, allowing for anyone who wants to visit in the day. Is this not normal???

There is no “usual” or “normal”. For some people, Christmas isn’t all about the kids’ presents and kids playing with toys. In my family, the focus is on spending time with people, whoever’s house we are in.

We do it your way. I hated leaving my presents to go somewhere else for hours on Christmas Day.

When I was a little girl I sometimes got to go to my aunt's house with my dad at Christmas. My aunt would hold quite big parties, with a long table, everyone in hats, a big bird ceremoniously carved, pulling crackers, then presumably copious amounts to drink as everyone would get very merry and play silly party games. The older generation would be parked in armchairs watching and making funny comments. I have very fond memories of that. No idea what presents I got! I'd have loved to offer my children something similar if my family had been able to visit.

@3WildOnes

My children don’t feel like they are being dragged around. They absolutely love spending the day with all of their extended family. All of the cousins (and second cousins) spend the day running around playing together. My children prefer playing with their cousins than with toys. There are usually around 15-25 of us together for the day. I love it too but I understand other people prefer a quieter Christmas.

Same here - for us it’s not Christmas unless there are at least 3 generations and an extra plank added to the table. As kids we would stay over with our cousins on Christmas Eve and open our stockings together, go off to church taking one toy each to be blessed, and return to a late lunch of turkey and all the trimmings and a flaming Christmas pud with silver charms inside. Then Grandpa would fall asleep on the sofa while reading his new book, and kids would be chucked out into the garden, whatever the weather, to let off steam.

A generation on and, though my grandparents are no longer with us, little else has changed. The silver charms for the Christmas pudding are looking a bit the worse for wear, but the second cousins will lark around together as we did (though will probably skip church). Nobody feels “dragged” to Christmas - the kids can’t wait.

As a child, we would do presents at home and then go to my grandparents' house and do more presents and then have lunch there and return home early evening. I think this was primarily because it meant my mum could avoid my dad (I think he would come for lunch but not the whole day), she couldn't cook (never cooked a roast lunch in her life, I don't think), and no one really drank as far as I can remember (maybe grandpa and dad having a couple beers), so driving home was a non-issue. They also lived about 15 minutes away.

As adults, dh and I have never lived near either of our families and certainly in dh's family (mine don't live in the UK), it's a very jolly holiday with lots of drinks. So sometimes we host and sometimes we go to another family member, but it's always for a night or two because we don't want to drive home. More often now, we host as we are NC with some family members, so usually the ones we do like come to us (they don't especially like the NC family members either!). All family is at least 1.5 hours away, some up to 5 hours away, so they stay for a few days.

Frankly, I don't love hosting. I would love it if family were closer and they came for lunch/spent the night, left Boxing Day. But we don't see them often and because of the distance, they usually come for 4-5 nights. I could do without houseguests on my leave time when I'd like to just relax, but anyway. We'd not see them much at all otherwise.

We live too far from our families for this to work.

As children DSis and I alternated Christmas with our mum or dad. Some years we would go with my mum to grandparents, or with my dad to an aunt's. Those were the best christmases TBH. I love being around loads of people with all the kids together, that's my absolute favourite thing.

It's fine being at home with the kids too but having visitors or someone to visit breaks up the day and makes it more of an event.

Love not going anywhere on Christmas Day.

Used to go visit DM or bring her to my house for the day, but since she passed away we always spend it at home now.

DH is cooking this year so looking forward to a day with both DS’, enjoying their company.

MN has a higher than average number of introverts IIRC so perhaps that is why the discrepancy?

It’s normal too for my family, my husband didn’t used to open presents though in the morning- I think they woke up and went somewhere for dinner and did them after.
I think that’s utterly miserable lol. First thing in the morning for presents and then they get all day to play with stuff and enjoy their dinner and then wind down.

@wingingmywaythroughlife

Fully appreciate that we are lucky to live close to family (1hr drive tops), but given that that the majority of posts seem to hate visiting/having visitors for days, just wondered what everyone else does for the 25th 😊 there is obviously no right or wrong, everyone does what suits them!

I get your point about 'Why do it if you don't enjoy it?' You've got to remember, though, that people who are happy with Christmas arrangements rarely come to MN to say so. The people you hear from are the stressed/upset ones, so it's a skewed view.

I would have been gutted to have had to spend Christmas with only my parents and sibs. I loved playing with my cousins, and adored my grandmother. I wasn't some saintly non-materialistic child - I was as into my toys as any other kid - but I just took them with me. Part of the fun of Christmas is showing off your new stuff, and forcing uncles who would rather be dozing by the fire to play with you.

I'd be really sad if my nieces and nephews didn't come to my Mum's when they were small, as Christmas would have been very lonely otherwise, just me and her, or eventually id be on my own. Christmas isn't just for making children happy; they can also learn to think about other people too. As a child, I didn't like when my parents invited various waifs and strays for dinner, but now that I'm single and childless, I see why they did and appreciate that I learned at that age that it was worth putting up with a bit of discomfort for someone else, and it didn't actually hurt me - I still have many happy memories of Christmas.

@SaltedCaramelHC

I'd be really sad if my nieces and nephews didn't come to my Mum's when they were small, as Christmas would have been very lonely otherwise, just me and her, or eventually id be on my own. Christmas isn't just for making children happy; they can also learn to think about other people too. As a child, I didn't like when my parents invited various waifs and strays for dinner, but now that I'm single and childless, I see why they did and appreciate that I learned at that age that it was worth putting up with a bit of discomfort for someone else, and it didn't actually hurt me - I still have many happy memories of Christmas.

Why couldn't you go to your nieces and nephews? Why do they have to come out your mum's? It's not the other people at Christmas that I take issue with but forcing my kids to leave their home and toys.

@SaltedCaramelHC

I'd be really sad if my nieces and nephews didn't come to my Mum's when they were small, as Christmas would have been very lonely otherwise, just me and her, or eventually id be on my own. Christmas isn't just for making children happy; they can also learn to think about other people too. As a child, I didn't like when my parents invited various waifs and strays for dinner, but now that I'm single and childless, I see why they did and appreciate that I learned at that age that it was worth putting up with a bit of discomfort for someone else, and it didn't actually hurt me - I still have many happy memories of Christmas.

Good post.

Christmas isn't just for children. It's for everyone.

Is it really the end of the world if children can't play with all their new toys for a few hours? Surely Christmas should be about more than just presents?

forcing my kids to leave their home and toys

This thread is really demonstrating how the MN belief that it is a massive imposition to visit someone or be visited by them is transmitted from generation to generation. I wonder how many MNetters' DC find this insistence on shutting out everyone except parents and siblings suffocating?

MNetters always seem to assume that DC are happiest within the immediate family. I think there are an awful lot of kids for whom this isn't true at all. You can love your parents/siblings, but still benefit enormously from contact with other relatives.

When I was a child everyone we opened presents and had breakfast at home, then went to my grandparents and had a big meal with my mother's siblings and their children. They lived on a farm and had plenty of space for everyone at the table and even to sleep over if we wanted. Cousins that lived far away would come to visit for a few days. The parents always played bridge, watched football, worked a puzzle, etc and the kids played with Lincoln logs, monopoly, our christmas presents, ran around outside with Grandpa feeding the ducks. It was wonderful and I would not change a thing. Our family structure is different now but if I had children I would work to recreate what I had as a child.

Want to say that's what my Christmases were and are like. If you enjoy a big family Christmas have it. But I don't understand why people spend every year on motorways visiting people especially if they don't like them.

The idea of spending hours listening to older relations talk when I wanted to play with my toys was something my parents never inflicted on us. Neither did they force us to kiss anyone we didn't want to or pretend our neighbours were Uncle Bert and Auntie Pat.

Christmas at home and some phone calls work and now we have Zoom. If someone is going to be lonely I invite them to stay or go to their house and we all stay put.

Forcing the kids to leave their home and toys deary me 😂

its very normal to me and i had the same growing up .only difference is now on christmas morning dd and i go to my mums as dd likes to have the day there. you only have to read some of the christmas threads to see the misery endured having to drag out to family you'd rather not bother with

This is what happened when I was a child. We went to my grans a couple of days after Christmas for tea but otherwise we stayed at home with out presents and nice food.

To me this would be telling children that their presents are more important. I think seeing family or friends is important at Christmas and doesn't stop children being able to play with toys etc. I think all families just do different things.

That's what was normal for us growing up (except having people visit, we didn't have family nearby so they would come on Boxing Day instead and stay the night after), same for us as well, we stay home, family welcome to visit us if they want to but they usually don't, we all tend to have quite separate Christmases and meet after.

Growing up we always stayed with my gran (several hours drive away) because otherwise she'd have often been on her own.
Now sometimes we stay with my parents, sometimes with dh's parents, sometimes we're on our own at home, and sometimes we have one of the sets of parents to stay. We like the variety.

But what I do notice is if we talk about Christmases past, then what the dc (teens and adults now) say is "oh yes, that's the Christmas when we were at Granny's and Grandpa wore the tea cosy on his head."

And for my memories it's similar. I remember the one where the cousins stayed and we hate sitting on the sofa all of a squash because there wasn't space for everyone (great fun when you're 3yo!). The one where the Christmas pudding fire spilt onto the table cloth, and uncle lit his cigar from it... and that sort of thing.

None of us have ever said, "that's the Christmas I got X present."

I have few memories of presents on Christmas day. One was where I got two copies of the same book, so I swapped one for Little Women, which my cousin had already. The other was when my little dbro got a present from "Santa" which was something I had begged my parents for ages, and I had to hide my disappointment and hurt.

So no, I don't think your Christmas is wrong, but equally well I don't think everyone should do it. It's an individual taste.

Normal for us. Never had anyone over on Christmas Day. MIL usually pops in dressed in some eccentric Mrs Claus Esque costume in the morning with presents but that’s it. We visit other relatives before or after Christmas. Works well for us, no plans to change it.

Erm, because family is more important than toys. Mine love going to nanny and grandad, benefits me and hubby as we get waited on and don’t have to cook (MIL prefers doing it herself). Then the kids have 364 other days to play with the stuff they got for Xmas