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Christmas decor you just don't like?

367 replies

WhiteRosesAndThistles · 23/09/2025 20:20

It's obviously all down to* *personal taste but..... which items of Christmas decor leave you feeling colder than the weather outside?
For me it's the Disney baubles/figurine things that hang on the tree! Putting a little red hat on Bambi doesn't make him festive, even worse when it's the whole collection and it looks like something that belongs in a nursery!
Thinking about it most Disney films seem to be set in the summer so maybe that's why they seem so wrong on a Christmas tree🤔
I did go through a phase of everything being silver/black and white (should give the Disney lovers something to cringe at on my behalf! ) but over the last few years I have added a bit more colour, obviously in a very tasteful almost still neutral way...
This thread is hopefully lighthearted, I am taking the piss out of myself and do not feel I need hate mail from the 'Disney Christmas Decoration Foundation'🤣

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MousseMousse · 24/09/2025 00:43

Jimmyneutronsforehead · 24/09/2025 00:40

Eating my kids forgotten about Christmas advent calendar chocolates are the only thing keeping the seasonal depression away. If anything there should be less pictures and more chocolates.

I'd rather have a bag of minstels. It's not even good chocolate in advent calendars - it always tastes old!

JFDIYOLO · 24/09/2025 00:45

Hates from my seventies childhood:
Multi coloured lights
Fake (tinsel) tree
Paper chains
Those fold-out paper balls that hang from the ceiling

Now:
Blue lights - yes, it DOES look very emergency services
Anything flashing
Tinsel
Competitive house decorations like a sleigh on the roof, inflatables, massive light displays, animatronics or anything loud
Elf on the fecking shelf
And Christmas Eve boxes can get out, too

What I do like ...

Real greenery; fir, holly, ivy around the house and a wreath on the front door. Old pagan ways.

Candles and firelight

Real Christmas tree with tiny warm white lights and glass/acrylic tree decorations that look like icicles and snowflakes

Buxusmortus · 24/09/2025 00:49

MousseMousse · 24/09/2025 00:29

Chocolate advent calendars.

They should all just be a picture behind a door and everyone should be excited to compare what they got over breakfast.

Yes indeed. Sent me right back to childhood. With 3 siblings we really were excited to compare. It was a simpler, less materialistic time.
No one could have dreamed of the concept of a chocolate advent calendar, or the recent absolutely ridiculous trend of adults having beauty advent calendars. Got an email from John lewis saying theirs was shortly going on sale at the bargain price of £235.

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Jimmyneutronsforehead · 24/09/2025 00:52

MousseMousse · 24/09/2025 00:43

I'd rather have a bag of minstels. It's not even good chocolate in advent calendars - it always tastes old!

It does always taste old to be fair.

I really hate those gift advent calendars though. Those that are super niche to a brand, cost an arm and a leg and are either filled with things you dont want or need or things that you already have because you're loyal to a brand.

And while we're on the topic of advent calendars I bloody hate lego advent calendars with a passion. Tacky, seasonal so don't even get played with 11 months of the year, and kids always get bored building it a few days in so you end up sat like a mug drinking a glass of wine, watching I'm a celeb and trying to find Christmas spidermans stupid hat, that is mysteriously hid in another days silly little packet.

AmadeustheAlpaca · 24/09/2025 00:53

Well I'm going to be thoroughly miserable. I don't really like Santa Claus figures. Don't detest them, just think there's something slightly creepy about Santa. All that sneaking around houses late at night, something a bit unwholesome going on.
Also dislike real trees. Feel so sad that a lovely tree was chopped down for a few weeks of decorating. I know lots of trees end up becoming wood chip/furniture/whatever but I hate to see a tree chopped down pointlessly.
Any sort of white lights are boring. All Christmas lights should be cheerful and multicoloured.
Christmas elves are creepy and sinister and I hate Elf on the Shelf. Nutcrackers are a definite no and the Grinch is beyond awful.

SoonBeGotchaDay · 24/09/2025 00:56

Focusispower · 23/09/2025 20:49

Yep. I knew there would be one person already who feels the same way as I do about tinsel. I do love some nostalgic naff 80s Christmas tat, but not tinsel!

Tinsel has a vile smell like nothing else on earth, If I was blindfolded in July and someone wafted that stuff near me, I’d know immediately what is was! Strange feel to it, too. Why is it still around?
We are not allowed it in our works decorations “ in case someone swallows it” What???
Have they smelt it?

FoxtrotOscarKindaDay · 24/09/2025 01:02

CremeEggsForBreakfast · 23/09/2025 20:58

Oh! Wait! This. This I hate. And people keep sending photos of it to me because I normally love dinosaurs

Just the photo of that gave me sensory chills. Plus it looks creepy.

Always thought I was weird for not being able to tolerate tinsel.

Gonk and Elf too. Glad I'm not alone hating these.

Also hate pet Christmas costumes.

sesquipedalian · 24/09/2025 01:13

@ RavenPie -
I so agree about the flashing lights. The house opposite ours has them - sometimes I have to close the curtains early just because I can’t stand looking at them. They’re very intrusive! They also have an inflatable reindeer and snowman that seem to deflate slowly over the Christmas period!

aintnospringchicken · 24/09/2025 01:17

I don’t like these wooden nutcracker dolls/figures.The ones dressed like soldiers and baring their teeth.

MousseMousse · 24/09/2025 01:54

Jimmyneutronsforehead · 24/09/2025 00:52

It does always taste old to be fair.

I really hate those gift advent calendars though. Those that are super niche to a brand, cost an arm and a leg and are either filled with things you dont want or need or things that you already have because you're loyal to a brand.

And while we're on the topic of advent calendars I bloody hate lego advent calendars with a passion. Tacky, seasonal so don't even get played with 11 months of the year, and kids always get bored building it a few days in so you end up sat like a mug drinking a glass of wine, watching I'm a celeb and trying to find Christmas spidermans stupid hat, that is mysteriously hid in another days silly little packet.

See, I talk sense 😁

Advent calendars you fill yourself are fine - with a sweet, gift or note. Then at least each door contains something nice!

MarxistMags · 24/09/2025 02:02

All of it ! Bah, humbug 🙄

GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER · 24/09/2025 02:20

Re Advent calendars, I only like the old fashioned ones with little pictures. Probably because we never had them as kids - we were deprived children!

Dontsayyouloveme · 24/09/2025 02:35

Tinsel on Xmas trees 🤮

IJWMM · 24/09/2025 02:35

I’m mostly ambivalent, whatever floats your boat in your own house. Feeling a bit sad, got two new cats this year and no way are they ready to be exposed to a tree this year!

The one thing I don’t like, mentioned a fair bit, are the external blue lights. Flipping hate them - not attractive, and I find them really distracting when driving at night.

ChewbaccasMrs · 24/09/2025 02:58

Nutcrackers,I know lots of people love them,but they freak me the hell out,no idea why they just do. That and random items that have nothing to do with Christmas baubles shaped like mustard pots,lobsters,French fries ect I just don't get it and their always ridiculously priced as well.

RawBloomers · 24/09/2025 03:07

CremeEggsForBreakfast · 23/09/2025 20:58

Oh! Wait! This. This I hate. And people keep sending photos of it to me because I normally love dinosaurs

OMG!

Timeforabitofpeace · 24/09/2025 03:34

Needtosoundoffandbreathe · 23/09/2025 20:27

Anything blue and cool white lights. Not remotely festive.

Me too. Hate them.

Timeforabitofpeace · 24/09/2025 03:41

Also flashing lights. We have that setting but I always skim past it because flashing lights are horrible to look at. My decs srent massively coordinated in any case, because I always used to buy one or two a year with the dc. They’ve mounted up.

PlayingDevilsAdvocateisinteresting · 24/09/2025 04:35

Outdoor inflatables, and if they do them, indoor inflatables too - they all look far too cartoonist, and like cheap tat...

I am also no longer so keen on a tree with too much stuff on it - I am a pensioner now, but when my children were little I used to love giving them a 'busy' tree, but never so full of 'stuff' that you couldn't see the (real) Christmas Tree under it 🎄

PlayingDevilsAdvocateisinteresting · 24/09/2025 05:12

Oh, something I love, which the majority of Mumsnetters posting about them here seem to hate, are blue Christmas lights. I particularly like the icicle types ones hanging on the edge of a roof, on either a slow flashing cycle, or still. I dislike any really fast flashing lights as they make me feel dizzy and ill. I think the reason that I like either the blue lights, or white lights, so much is because I love the look of snow and ice, especially at Christmas, and those lights remind me my childhood Christmases, where really did get white Christmases quite often!

I remember being about 11, and coming outside after attending Midnight Mass (CoE as it happens) with my parents and maternal grandparents, and it was snowing - fat, white, gentle and wonderful snowflakes ❤️ and I have never forgotten that sight, and the gentle, warm, safe, happiness I felt on that very early Christmas morning.

I also love taking my Grand Children to visit houses that have gone over the top with their outdoor decorations. There is a great one in Bristol, and in Rothwell, near Leeds, there is an amazing street where most of the houses have outdoor Christmas lights, and most of them look amazing - when you turn the corner into that street for the very first time, they just look completely magical. They are, of course, still very good on subsequent visits.

Thanks to all of you who make the effort, and pay the electricity bills, you give so much annual pleasure to so many children, both young, and old, including ones like me in my late 60's!

PlayingDevilsAdvocateisinteresting · 24/09/2025 05:21

Jimmyneutronsforehead · 24/09/2025 00:52

It does always taste old to be fair.

I really hate those gift advent calendars though. Those that are super niche to a brand, cost an arm and a leg and are either filled with things you dont want or need or things that you already have because you're loyal to a brand.

And while we're on the topic of advent calendars I bloody hate lego advent calendars with a passion. Tacky, seasonal so don't even get played with 11 months of the year, and kids always get bored building it a few days in so you end up sat like a mug drinking a glass of wine, watching I'm a celeb and trying to find Christmas spidermans stupid hat, that is mysteriously hid in another days silly little packet.

You have presumably not had a Lindt Advent Calendar, as I have never tasted a bad one! However as the family buyer of Advent Calendars - one each per person, including toddlers - the Lindt Calenders on their own, cost about £150/160 all together 🤭

Billybagpuss · 24/09/2025 05:42

Andnowshesapreschooler · 23/09/2025 20:34

What the actual F is a gonk? How is it Christmast? I feel like it's just appeared over the last few years.

I had a gonk as a gift in around 1975 def not new, not Christmassy either though

Billybagpuss · 24/09/2025 05:48

BeMellowAquaSquid · 23/09/2025 21:32

Those poxy giant door bows

Oh god these remind me of a picture I drew in primary school when we were studying the plague in London, ‘bring out your dead’ they used to put a Red Cross on the door of infected houses.

Yamamm · 24/09/2025 06:05

My friend once bought a grey Christmas tree when the UK was at peak grey. She said it was silver but it wasn’t shiny so it was grey. GREY. With all the tree decorations matching and from two big boxes of navy and white and silver baubles. Probably all in landfill now.

I love to see how colour trends change. Going by my last trip to Next, sage green is slowly dying and terracotta is sneaking back. Christmas needs to stay red, green and gold for sustainability reasons!

Conniebygaslight · 24/09/2025 06:33

KateKontent · 23/09/2025 20:35

I'm not really a fan of those big bow things people sometimes put on their doors.

Me neither! And those plastic topiary balls people hang outside (not Christmas) are bloody awful too.

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