Christmas - why don’t I get the magic of it?

[ZeroMagic]

Have been meaning to write this post for years.

I just don’t get Christmas at all. Can somebody please explain the point of it? I’m not religious - haven’t got kids. Why would I put a tree up in my house? It’s nuts 🤷🏼‍♀️.

There’s just DH & me. We don’t live near family, but we get on very well with them & they come to stay with us throughout the year. I love having them here but I don’t feel the need to be with them on this particular day. Why would I?

Growing up I remember Christmas very fondly. Nice presents, stockings, lunch etc. But it feels entirely false & utterly pointless for me to put up decorations & recreate that. Anyway I haven’t actually got any decorations - never have had.

DH is possibly even less Christmassy than me.

Talking to pals yesterday (all of whom are well into Christmas) they seem to be having a great time but for me it’s just a normal week. Seeing video of their houses full of baubles & tinsel had me thinking WTAF? Why are you doing this? I know if I’d asked they would say because it’s Christmas. That doesn’t answer anything though does it?

I don’t want to sound joyless & miserable because I’m definitely not. I’m retired, comfortable financially, happy with DH. I’ve got a lovely life that I wouldn’t change but a teeny tiny part of me wonders if I’m missing out by not getting it?

We celebrate birthdays which to me feels much more appropriate. Why would I celebrate Jesus’ birthday if I’m not religious?

I’m not criticising those who are into Christmas - just trying to understand why you are. Particularly if you haven’t got kids & aren’t religious.

Early 60’s - not ND - two grown up DSC.

I’m not religious. For me, Christmas is a mid winter festival, as it was intended to be. Some light and fun in the middle of a long, dark winter. It might be arbitrary but so what? Many things are. It’s just a bit of fun.

The tree thing has a lot of roots in different cultures. As people have said a lot of it is about bringing greenery in to the house at a dark and bare time of the year. It also has links in the UK to wassailing where communities would decorate and bless fruit trees in winter to ward off evil spirits and try and ensure a good harvest the next year.

Christmas isn't magical but it is surely not hard to understand why we have a festival of light, renewal aand feasting in mid winter?

if you do nothing different, you will feel no different.
Have you been to any event with religious or Christmas music? Like the Messiah or carols?
Have you been to a Christmas theatre show?
You have not decorated
Have you got any special food?
Have you arranged to see friends?
Have you given to charity?
Have you spent time buying any gifts that you are looking forward to others receiving?
Have you been to a Christmas market?

it’s not some magic - we all make our own Christmas by our actions and intentions

You simply choose not to

100% with you OP. I don’t understand it either. Every Christmas I had as a child was horrendous. I don’t have fond memories of anything related to Christmas. I find it all very triggering.

I agree you're being disingenuous. You're acting like there's some sort of magical inner feeling that compulses the majority of people to celebrate Christmas that you somehow are exempt from.

But Christmas isn't homogenous. Everyone will have a slightly different way of celebrating it. For all the people that go all out commercialised and focus on presents and activities there's someone who enjoys having a week off work to get stoned and watch the twinkly lights, and another family who go to church and volunteer.

its just a selection of activities and traditions that people choose and mix and match from because they like doing them, none of which are particularly weird in and of themselves.

Why is bringing a tree into your house weirder than having flowers and plants in it any other time of the year?

Why is using tinsel or fairy lights weirder than painting your ceiling or buying live laugh love stuff or whatever else people use to decorate?

Seeing family- you like doing this normally so surely it makes sense to do it over Christmas when most people have some time off?

Eating, drinking, shopping, seeing family, giving presents, watching films....it's not like any of this is stuff people don't do the rest of the year as well!

Besides when you dig into it a lot of things humans do aren't strictly logical.

Supporting a sports team and letting which random overpaid stranger kicked/threw a ball best that week affect your own life and emotions

Caring and talking about the lives of celebrities you've never met

Let some animals live inside our houses with us and buy special food to feed them, paying a fortune to stop them from dying if they become unwell and crying when they do, while killing and eating other animals

Accepting that you are unlikely to have the same friend, job, car, house or live in the same place at 40,60, 80 as you did at 20 but ideally you will be with the same person, regardless of how much you've changed since then.

Eating stuff we know is bad for us and will actively make us unhealthier

I enjoy the cosiness of the tree lights on dark evenings and my family all do jobs that mean they have time off Xmas - new year, so it's an opportunity to get together which we don't often manage.
I do like gift giving but it's immediate family only and I don't feel the pressure to go overboard.. no tat just for the sake of it! It's just nice and quite low key.

@SpreadsheetWarsI can appreciate evergreen branches and plants but it’s the whole tree that seems a bit out there to me. And then adding random ornaments.
I have no judgement on this. Happy that people do things that make them happy or have meaning to them. Just it’s bizarre to me.

You don't have to celebrate or indulge in any part Christmas just to please others if you don't want to OP ! Do something else that you want to do or do nothing, it's your life, live it the way you want to.
It brightens up a long cold miserable Winter for me , we just have the two of us and our dog but we still enjoy Christmas very much, we are not religious, so we ignore that part, we don't have small children for Santa or elf on the shelf so that out of the way too, but I love the decorations and the tree and presents for the dog, eating favourite things, cuddling in and watching tv. We don't go nuts or go to excess, we don't even drink, but we enjoy what we have.

I don’t think many people are actually celebrating anything these days. It’s a cultural tradition to get together with family, decorate homes, give gifts. I don’t see how you can’t ’get’ that, does sound like nd thinking to me.

it’s a festival and most cultures have festivals based on religion - Eid and Diwali being other ones. As we move towards a secular society, Christmas progresses to a celebration of family and friends.

festivals are a time to celebrate ans
love it as a married 45 year old with no kids. I didn’t particularly enjoy it as a child. It was OK and then lost parent divorce very stressful. It took me until my mid 20s to appreciate it. Then I met a man who loves it too.

The sparkly lights int he darkest days. Connecting with family. The pagan roots of the tree/ holly/ mistletoe. Food and drinks heavily spiced and tasty. Selecting meaningful presents to give thanks to our friends and family. Celebrating with colleagues and a break from
work.

Last night I sat in my living room with roaring fire, a beautiful tree decorated with memories and lights all around, two stockings on the fire place. My beautiful dog and husband and felt the magic of christmas.

why nt just let people celebrate how they want to or not at all, and be happy for them.

I'm not very Christmassy, I pretend to be for my son. Once he's grown, that's it, I'll do very little. Maybe a tree, I have a real tree and I do like that.

I was religous but am a lapsed Christian, do go to church at Christmas and Easter still but not always. I wish I did still believe like I used to but I do not. I was in a church choir for years and also the flower team and used to assist decorating the church at Christmas. I’m decent with flowers though not professional and have done them for weddings, I used to love that.

I enjoy giving gifts to people and I give Selection boxes to the kids along our road and donate toys to the local appeal. Personally I have always liked seeing people enjoy themselves. DH and I were in a small local pub, I know the owner and he had a works Christmas lunch on. I took their photo so they could all be in it. They were having a good laugh , it was just a great atmosphere to soak up. The whole pub were joining in chatting freely. We are very late fifties similar stage of life to you.

I feel similar to you, I don’t really ‘get’ Christmas. I’m single and childless so maybe that is partly why, it’s not magical if you don’t have close people to share it with. But even if I did I don’t think I would suddenly love Christmas, to be honest it all just feels like admin and pressure to me.

I don’t have decorations or put up a tree, I can’t be bothered especially when they’ve just got to come down again after a few weeks. I hate shopping so having to buy gifts for friends and family is a chore, especially as the shops are always rammed. Almost all Christmas music is annoying and even the bearable songs feel repetitive as they start playing in November. People always go on about the food but I’m not keen on traditional Christmas foods, a roast dinner or a cheese board or smoked fish etc are all of little interest to me.

I know I sound miserable but I just don’t really get it. My favourite years were those where I either went away to a country that don’t really celebrate it or the Covid years when it wasn’t possible to celebrate! I don’t feel able to ignore it now as my siblings have young kids and I do love my DNs so enjoy family Christmas a bit more but I still find the build up stressful and the day a bit of a let down.

I like the traditions and seeing people having fun. I like giving my friends gifts.

Christmas was a really magical time for me as a child and putting the tree up and making the house pretty brings back those memories. On the tree we have all sorts of decorations that mean something, bought from different countries, made by DS or given to me by friends and family. I love getting them all out.

It's also a time we all have off and get to do lots of fun stuff together, we have Chritsmas puzzles and play lots of board and card games even though DS is a young adult. Most of our presents are practical now but we still have a new board game, card game and puzzle under the tree (often from ebay or charity shop). We watch certain films and tv shows that have become a tradition, make oranges with cloves and eat lots of delicious food.

For me it's a lovely family time and definitely the best thing about winter..

There’s a reason to celebrate on another thread - we’re past the shortest day, sunset is already slightly later than it was.
Of course this happens whether humans celebrate it or not, but it’s as real a reason as I can imagine.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/5463150-brighter-days-are-coming?reply=149341395?utm_campaign=thread&utm_medium=app_share

Recreating childhood memories. Remembering those that made Christmases of the past magical for us. Wanting to carry on the traditions. Making something “special”. Seeing loved ones. I always think Christmas makes people out and about just that tiny bit nicer to each other. That’s what Christmas does.

All cultures have their festivals. People celebrate them for all sorts of reasons. Besides the religious reasons, people like an excuse to socialise, drink and eat good food.

😂

I'm an atheist and feel quite strongly about this. With the decline of religion in is little enough awe, wonder and ritual left in life. What makes some people think that these things are only for children? Is your day-to-day work and routine really so fulfilling that you don't feel the need for it to be broken up by celebrations and culturally significant events which mark the passing of the seasons or stages in life? Humans have always needed this. It binds us together. Ot it should do.

If anything, the problem is that we don't have enough things like Christmas any more. Imo that's why we've made Christmas into such an unmanageably huge deal and why people can be so competitive and judgmental about it - it's the only event of its kind in the whole year, so we overdo it and pin too much expectation on it. Obviously ocial media makes it much worse.

I don't think it's remotely hypocritical for atheists to celebrate Christmas. Firstly it's partly based on a pagan festival anyway. Secondly, continuing to celebrate originally religious traditions which have become culturally popular and embedded, long after the belief has waned, is just a totally normal human thing to do and is not specific to Christianity.

There's no rule that says it has to be enjoyed, or that you have to do it a certain way. There are customs that we can take part in and there are extremes (or otherwise) we can go to. I'm not at all religious but I like the lights and colour associated with this midwinter festival which helps me through a season I really struggle with. I like our small family coming together, the food, the presents, the music and a couple of weeks off from a stupidly busy job. It's the way we've celebrated midwinter for centuries and I like the continuation of that ritual.

London is absolutely packed with adults doing Christmas things.There are work dos in every restaurant, black tie Christmas balls, people going to the ballet and theatre, the restaurants and bars are busy and there are adults shopping and taking photos of Christmas window displays. You can tell when the Christmas parties start by the amount of pavement vomit you have to weave around on the way to work. That is definitely not caused by children eating too many Christmas treats.

As the winter of 2020/21 demonstrated, take away social connections and rituals and you end up with a national depressed fug. The pagans/ early Christians and all the other faiths/cultures with festivals of light in the darker months of the year knew what they were doing.

The great thing about Christmas is that it's relatively easy to pick and mix what you want to get out of it. I don't go in for huge present hauls, but I love that connection of a carol service, singing songs I sang as a child, and previous generations have sung, and coming together with a community in a peaceful oasis from the world.

My relationship with Christmas ebbs and flows through life. I'm past the young child "magic" stage, but with teenagers it's easier to hone in with what they like and want from it. It's a time of communal leave from work (not universally, but it's the most widespread avaliable) so it's an easier chance to connect socially. One day in the not so very distant future I'll have adult children and things will evolve.

I'm not the type to have a big "as seen on TV" Christmas, and I find the commercialisation from Sept-Nov offputting, but once into December and its limited daylight, I'm ready for the decorations, the rituals and the celebration/ rest period. It gives punctuation for the year and creates contrast between the old year and the approaching new year.

It's tradition for most people and for the none religious like myself, a celebration of the darkest time of year in the Pagan tradition.

Besides, the tree, lights and decorations look gorgeous and whats not to like about feasting, sharing gifts and seeing loved ones?

Why do you need to put people into categories like that? Is it so you can be judgy and sneery?