What does a WORKING class Christmas look like

[KateBain]

Inspired by the thread about middle class Christmases...

My middle class Christmas looks very similar to my working class Christmas growing up apart from we wear barbours on the beach.

For what? Having a sense of humour? Odd you’d report this but not OPs obviously goady thread.

Lager aside, that is basically our Christmas. I thought I was middle class! Clearly not 🤣

@FrightfullyFreezy
Pretty much spot on for me except
Dad disappears to the pub as soon as Mum starts cooking and doesn't come back til chucking out time.
Mum cooks with a liberal dose of schooners of sherry to hand ( Emva Cream)
Dad returns in time for the Queen's Speech
Eating begins!

Kids open their (massive pile of high value) presents when they get up (4AM) and none of this 'stocking at 10.34, two gifts (boring wooden organic shite) after church and one more when grandmama arrives'

I really don't get this! We can't afford to go to excess. There is always enough and everyone is happy but never piles of presents. We are factory workers, lorry drivers and so on, so certainly working class.

Why did this make me cry ! It just sounds so simple but so lovely

You don’t get sarcasm do you?

It might have changed now but working class Christmases were big and excessive (and often on the never-never) because that was the only time you got anything. Mum saved up through the Christmas Club and paid every week to Kay's Catalogue so we'd have some big things to unwrap. We didn't get anything else all year.

I was WC now MC and my kids get everything they want year round.

We woke up to carrier bags full of presents on the end of our beds, couldn't afford stockings.

I’m guessing you’d have had to see the middle class version of this thread to see the funny side of this one. * lighthearted

• I put lighthearted so you can see I was being lighthearted.

This sounds much more fun than my middle-class Christmas (though both my parents were very formal and probably more upper middle class).

Though I'm not sure I could handle lager for breakfast, but yea and chocolate sounds fab and more my style these days.

My childhood Christmas was melon starter (served like a hotel would) then smoked salmon. No presents opened until after the Queens speech. Then we had to use scissors so not to ruin the wrapping paper and list the presents as they were opened so we could write thank you letters.

I have 4 siblings so it wasn't completely dull and the food and decorations were out of this world wonderful, but my parents were serious fun sponges!

I thought B&H was a chocolate brand. It is not…

Our Christmases weren't like that when I was a child in the 80s. My parents were early twenties when I was born so my dad was working hard to pay the mortgage, he was very careful with money. We didn't have a lot, I was given my second birthday present early as I had nothing age appropriate to play with.

They'd have been MN'ers if it existed back then, then.

Bucks fizz and bacon sandwiches for the adult's breakfast in my childhood family home, champagne or sherry with dinner and Bailey's for on an evening when all the Grandparents had left.

My parents didn't go in to debt for presents. We still made our present lists entirely out of the Argos catalogue though complete with code numbers for convenience.

😂

Yes, this. I’m low income & though nothing is bought on credit, I do splash out at Christmas more than any other time of the year. No big holidays, birthday parties in the park with homemade cakes, simpler life and cutting costs generally putting it all aside so at Christmas we can indulge. My DD always gets the Santa present she writes to ask for (helped by her being a reasonable child!). I do a stocking full of lovely treats, every one something special, I even do one for myself because I don’t get things the rest of the year- makeup, perfume, chocolate, nice pens and things. We get the food we really want instead of the cheap versions of everything, and anything we want too, though less so this year because costs rose so much. I do the tesco Christmas saver so putting away bits regularly means we can eat well over the whole school holidays, things we don’t normally get like fancy crisps and different kinds of cheese. Everything feels warm and indulgent at Christmas and we save for it the rest of the year to have this period where we don’t count pennies over anything.

Presents were opened to the sound of Now That's What I Call Christmas. All the wrapping paper chaos was quickly tidied away, the house was pristine again within minutes.

Huge piles of presents shared on social media with the caption "Santa's just been, can't wait to see the kids faces!!!" Moments later videos of the kids opening the presents with parents shrieking in the background...

What a nasty thread.

Reported for being hilarious 😂😂😂

I agree, I'm WC and this thread is full of stereotypes that aren't true for the majority of WC people I know.

The mc & umc always get slated on here....

Lots (seriously, lots!) of family. Lots of laughter. Lots of chaos but those were the days. So much fun! TV on in the background but nobody ever watched it. Only my grandma would watch the Queens speech. Christmas day was all randomly put together but it was absolutely wonderful. As a kid, I would always be allowed some Bailey's or Bucks Fizz. The house was always completely trashed but just before home time myself and cousins would be summoned as the clean up crew and we'd all giggle as we were herded by outwardly scary (but really sweet) uncles.

Christmas is still kind of like this, but definitely more sedate. I love a bit of chaos for my DC, makes it fun! We never really had the pile of presents though.