To be dreading Christmas?

[kensingtonkat]

I just don't want to do it this year. I didn't grow up in a religious family and we only ever did Christmas in a very half-hearted way.

DH's family makes a Bloody Big Grasping Showing Off Deal of it.

Everyone circulates long and elaborate Father Christmas lists - including the grandparents. I thought Father Christmas stops being real once you're seven, but it doesn't seem to get in the way of their requests.These people have everything they could possibly want and more than enough of the things they need. One year I asked for charitable presents from Oxfam Unwrapped and FIL told me it wasn't in the spirit of Christmas!

SIL goes completely overboard because she doesn't work, and makes very elaborate Martha Stewart style preparations in terms of food, drink, flowers, tree etc. She also hosts a glamorous drinks party on Christmas Eve with caterers and waiting staff. Then she produces Champagne Brunch and a huge Christmas Dinner. Because she has gone to so much trouble we feel compelled to join in. Oh, and DRESS UP like we're in Downton bloody Abbey.

I know it's unkind but I do spend much of the time thinking, "This is naff and excessive and in a recession you need to calm the f*ck down."

I also hate Midnight Mass, to which I am guilt-tripped into going against all religious principles.

I'm just sickened by the excess of it all. The greed and total lack of concern for the less fortunate. The sheer bloody futility of consumerism.

Cory that was deep, man .

DH does get a bit childish about a London Christmas or going away. I think what he actually appreciates is being with his family, his presents and the food.

Everything else is a bit surplus to requirements and I suppose that's why it strikes me as a bit excessive and showy.

OK-if you´d like to see your parents at Christmas-ask to go there or ask them to you!

If not-a Christmas Day/Boxing Day with your husband & see his relatives at another point.

It´s not all about what he wants all the time!

I find it odd that you want your parents to insist you have Christmas with them.

Perhaps they think that you prefer to be with ILs & are sat at home wishing you would consider them, whilst you are at ILs & wishing you weren´t!

"It seems ridiculous that everyone is going round purchasing pointless presents for other people who are also buying pointless presents .Its just a merry go round of consumerism . "

Yes, you've said what I wanted to say, but so much better.

When I was on my uppers I didn't give a stuff about presents "creating an obligation", I just bloody needed them, so when people asked me what I wanted for Christmas I asked for them. They weren't in the slightest bit pointless. Basic household stuff, big pack of cleanser I couldn't normally afford etc. And I don't really mind being "obliged" to my family anyway.

I can kind of see where you are coming from OP, it's like the Christmas in Love Actually Vs the Christmas in About a Boy. It should be the season of good will to all men not making yourself sick trying to make things perfect.

I love Christmas and I like to go a little OTT but I have small DCs, I should imagine when my three have flown the nest our Christmas will be a little more chilled, and I agree about the gift lists for adults, just no.

"It´s not all about what he wants all the time"

In fairness to DH (who is LOVELY despite t he picture of him I'm painting) we do see a lot of my parents and he does go along and I'm sure he does the gritted teeth thing too.

I think the problem is that my parents' experience of hospital shift christmases is so alien to DH that it strikes him as un-festive. There is also no way my parents would prioritise Christmas over work - that's just how it is, same as if your parents were clergy.

I think it sounds lovely, but if you don't then why not just start volunteering again?

Do you have any DC?

My dh's family do xmas lists - just because we are all going to buy each other gifts so it might as well be something they want. Lists have included charity goats and tools in the past. I like it tbh. On my side of the family I spend a lot of time trawling the shops for things my teenage nephews/nieces might like - not having a clue what they're into.

I prefer a more low key xmas I must admit. We tend to stay at home for xmas morning, then go to relatives in the afternoon.

I loathed the formality of xmas put on by my parents as a dc. We were all frog marched out of bed then made to dress in velvet or similar and report to the heavily dressed breakfast table where monstrosities such as kippers and sherry coated grapefruits were served. There was usually a huge amount of stress for my parents in going to this effort.

We go for get up, race downstairs in pjs, open presents whilst eating breakfast on our laps, which is probably sugar coated cereal as a treat.

Could you not have xmas day at home one year? And then just visit relatives later in the day.

If your ILs want to have a fabulous time once a year with their family and you don't normally see them much (you said you see much more of your own parents normally), I'm in the "suck it up and don't be such a Grinch" camp. If we all had an austerity style Christmas, a lot more people would be losing their jobs. If the expectation is that everyone writes a Christmas list, then that is an implied request for a list anyway, so not bad manners. What I find bad manners is you being snooty about your in-laws's cherished Christmas traditions, to the extent you are "embarrassed" by your husband taking pleasure in it all.

Instead of suggesting to your SIL that she "chill", which just tells her you don't value her efforts, how about you ask her how you can help and (this WOULD be in the spirit of Christmas) tell her how much her hard work is appreciated by her family. No wonder she "doesn't seem to be enjoying it" if you are always suggesting that she is going overboard and you don't appreciate it!

If you want to do some charity work to improve the lot of those less well off than you, do it at another time of year. A token Christmas helping out at a soup kitchen (when lots of other people do it anyway) is not going to be as much use as volunteering thoughout the year, or even putting some work in AFTER Christmas, say in February, when it is just as cold and nasty out and fewer people are volunteering.

I have to say that my ideal Christmas would be us 4, my parents, ILs, my sister & her husband & daughter.

But it wouldn´t work.

Geographically & personality wise!

My sister & her family would find my ILs too quiet/boring & my sister would take over even if it was at mine!

Or what cory said.

I´m confused.

Do your parents celebrate Christmas at all?

Have a Christmas meal together?

Kensingtonkat - YANBU it sounds like my idea of hell too! I think I'd give up Christmas completely if it wasn't for the DCs, luckily DH can't see what all the fuss is about either.

Can you compromise a bit - say no to Midnight mass if you don't agree with it, go and visit your family and volunteer with them or just escape the madness for a bit.

Can you have Christmas at home for once? I agree, Christmas day should be spent in PJs . Oh, and if your DH is so into it, let him organise it all (do NOT be that ASDA woman )

But that´s irrelevant really.

People do Christmas differently & if you would like to see you parents on Christmas Day he should respect that.

I think it wholly depends on which version of a Richard Curtis Christmas you opt for.

Me, I aspire to the Love Actually version, but really I'm much more in step with Bridget's mum.

Look if your SIL wants to go to town, let her. It won't kill you to extend her a bit of the charitable feeling you're talking about.

Why can't you volunteer at the mission before Christmas, they have loads of events right through December don't they?

IME doing some good to help at Christmas parties, donating food for the Christmas Day celebration is still a valid contribution.

And PS I also think a Downton Christmas sounds awesome, I'm going to make DS and DH wear dinner jackets on Christmas Day.

Lisianthus Christmas is SIL's "thing" and offers to help and do some things ourselves are batted away. For those few days she is superwoman .

I take your point about the in-laws "cherished" traditions, but from talking to DH they aren't exactly long-standing. The drinks party and the champagne brunch are simply an escalation of festivities.

What's more, we are always terribly appreciative of SIL's efforts which seems to encourage her to do something even more elaborate the following year. Oof.

Then again, kensington, you don't know that your family doesn't have habits that strike your dh as surplus to requirement. Ime most families tend to have some extravagances and some economies and they can seem very mismatched if you come from the outside.

To me, coming from where I did, a 3 day full-on Christmas celebration doesn't seem excessive at all, but eating ready cooked meals and drinking wine or juice instead of tap water and keeping a bar cupboard stocked with spirits, as chez ILs, did seem very extravagant. Dh no doubt felt exactly the opposite. The extravagances of either family could easily have financed the extravagances of the other family- or gone to the deserving poor.

I have to admit I wasn't over keen on Christmases with dh's family who were of the least-possible-effort school. It wasn't that I didn't enjoy their company, nor that they were not hospitable- they are lovely people and I will happily spend any other time of the year with them. It was just that for me Christmas means activity, joining as a family in preparations and game, having active fun. A Christmas ensconced in armchairs watching other people doing things on the telly rather than doing them myself seemed a waste of time. I realised this the year when I found myself actually envying the characters on Eastenders (!) because they were at least doing something. To me, getting your Christmas second-hand from the telly seemed far more "fake" than doing things with real people.

Diddl Christmas chez Cat:

Get up, wander down to breakfast in jammies. Have a fry up or other time-consuming breakfast. Sit around drinking tea with siblings around kitchen table.

Depending on parental shifts, we'll have either Christmas lunch or dinner. Open presents afterwards. Telly. The end.

Well I would say that that sounds like what quite a lot of people do tbh.

And it´s also about being with family!

Christmas was never a big deal in our household. At about 5 years old, I asked if Santa was real, and my parents answered me honestly, that it was a hoax. I was pleased by this, that they didn't try to trick me, and were honest with me. Unlike the other parents at school. I also enjoyed telling my schoolfriends that Santa was not real.

DH's family left mince pie and brandy for Santa, and a carrot for Rudolf.

Both our families did presents, and Turkey dinner. DH's family also played bag beetle, and went to church. They also did adult presents, ours was just children.

Mum and Dad never did extravagant presents either.

It's a bigger deal for DH, and he wants Christmas to be magical for our children. My attitude is a bit more bah humbug, and although we have a newborn this year, I can't get excited by it.

YANBU.

So it sounds as if you don´t like either option-in which case start your own!

You don´t have to sit around.

You can get up & dressed & go for a walk.

Play board games/charades, Cook lunch ready for your parents, volunteer somewhere...

Most of that we do on Boxing Day, Diddl.

Yes, we do the food when parents are working, and the volunteering is a family tradition, if you like. (In response to comments above, we do volunteer during the rest of the year too, Whitechapel Mission is amazing)

What I would really like to do is persuade SIL to come to Whitechapel Mission. Just think her time and energy would be better spent there than in in decorating her banisters in garlands of holly and ivy.

"I don't know anyone who had such fancy Christmases going up, and my upbringing wasn't exactly underprivileged"

OP, you need to drive through a council estate Blackpool illuminations at Christmas... like the one I grew up on... some people take Christmas very seriously regardless of wealth or that fact there is a recession on (actually that is more of a reason! Life is shit - lets turn the house into santas grotto).

I think its just lighthearted fun but I do have 2 very small children.

Sorry, you and your parents sound somewhat martyr-ish, maybe you have wealth-guilt...

I'm poor and always have been, the benefit being that I don't feel the need to volunteer to help out my own kind on xmas day!