to heave all over my boots if I read one more thread about "special family traditions"

[Mintyy]

and how that interfering old hag of a mum/mil/aunty is not asking permission to buy presents or, even worse, hoping to spend some time with their relatives over the Christmas period?

Stop being so bloody PRECIOUS! and get a grip. You are part of the older generation's "special family traditions" - do you not understand??

There does seem to be a growing need for control from some parents, just a hunch but I think it comes from a clawing need to justify our parenting because whatever choices we make someone is ready to attack them.

I think anyone who needs to micromanage their children's lives feels rather insecure and probably needs a bit of support and to be told that they are doing a good job with their children.

Just a personal and very unscientific theory though.

Urgh! Yadnbu! Forced bloody traditions are irritating and pretentious.

I've never understand what's so bad about a thread about a thread.

Just sayin.

People are vile about Christmas. Stop being so spoilt and precious and be thankful for what you've got.

Haha, YANBU and you are quite right mumsnet is getting a bit competitive about who can have the most heart-warming family traditions. Especially the ever-more complex Christmas Eve hampers (some people seem to have about ten things in theirs!) which seem to have come out of nowhere. But yes, it is a matriarchal power thing I think, She who wields the Turkey rules the Roost. And I have sympathy for those who've gone through 30-old Christmasses at their parents now wanting to do their own thing. Luckily, for us, MIL is fine with it and my mum TBH I think will be pleased to be hanging up the oven mitt after this year. And THEN I can go mad with hampers and pantos and homemade cards and reindeer food and board games all the rest of the bloody thing until I get sick of it (give me a year, probably).

but this 'micro-management', though... no-one actually does it, do they? it's a tabloid invention, like the helicopter parent. the fact that people believe in such things ( but note it's never someone saying 'that's me! i am just like that') imo suggests that they too are insecure and want to judge others and declare them less confident parents. [circular]

and then there's those of us who have mils who are painses in the arses .

I've posted about this on another thread but I'd repeat the fact that you cannot dictate, let alone determine, what your Christmas traditions are likely to be. They evolve and most importantly, this evolution is nearly always child centred and not something imposed.

Because, despite all sorts of lovely things going on at Christmas, the tradition that my dcs most enjoyed (and expected to be repeated every year) was the Great Gravy Row that former FIL always presided over just before lunch.

Forget sodding sleighbells, wooden Advent calendars, chestnuts roasting over an open fire or letters to Father Christmas. The dcs would have felt cheated if, 5 minutes before Christmas lunch was served, FIL hadn't opened proceedings with "Are you seriously telling me that you want this gravy put on the table?"

I'd say my mil probably thinks I'm precious and controlling with DS. He's about 11mo now and I have in the last month left him with her overnight - I know she thinks I should have done it much sooner, she wante me just to hand him over to her when he was only a few weeks old ad I wanted to give him all his bottles, cuddle him when he cried and so on. I just didn't want to give him to her as much as she wanted and this upset her. She would definitely think I was precious but I'd do the same with a second child tbh.

This is about the advent calendar thread, isn't it?

D'you know what? I posted on there (a few weeks ago now, but I notice it's come back) in support of the OP, because I have a difficult relationship with my ILs and my mum can be a wee bit overbearing, so I could understand where she was coming from.

And I was a bit surprised - in response to that specific scenario - how many people responded in the vein of Mintyy's OP - that she was being precious and unkind and traditions evolve rather than being created. I could GET the point that people were making, but I didn't think that was being entirely fair to the OP.

ANYWAY - it did make me think a bit. Perhaps I over-react sometimes to my ILs (lots of history - but mainly to do with some thoughtless behaviour on their part after DH and I lost our baby son last year). I realised that a lot of my anger with them was really grief at losing him. And that they have their faults, and their family is different from mine. But there's no reason to HATE them.

So I called them on Monday evening just for a chat. I NEVER do this. But I realised that I can't sit there on Christmas Day (or any day) steaming with resentment at every perceived slight when the issue is really my attitude and not their behaviour.

So thank you for the posts on the other thread. I still don't really agree with them - in relation to that specific OP - but it did make me think about my own situation and make the effort to do something positive.

Can someone link the thread this thread is about plz.

What the hell is a "Christmas Eve hamper??"

All the angst about Christmas annoys me.

We probably get about 80 Christmas's give or take & we are unlikely to remember the first 4 with any clarity & the last couple are probably fairly shit, so that leaves us about 70 to enjoy and have fun with. But, everyone seems to go a bit mental & start bleating on about evil out-laws, traditions (which is usually bollox, unless you are really old & have genuinely been doing the same old thing for 50 years) and buying stuff.

So break out the marmite, nutella or whatever takes your fancy, work out how many Christmases you have left & then think how you want to spend them. Having a massive trauma or making the best of your mental family & your own control freakery & having a laugh.

that's brilliant, treats, well done. very sorry to hear that you lost your wee son.
christmas is a good time to reflect and patch up, definitely. (similarly, it was me who patched up pne christmas eve between dh and mil after years of no contact, because i didn't want her to miss out on grandkids. she's still a pain, though. )

again, though, that's the point postbellum. it's really just a midwinter roast dinner with family, so why all the bother? (imo because it's so much about consumption nowadays, hence the at the piles of chocolate advent calendars signalling that the buying and eating starts NOW).

no idea about christmas eve hampers, but i have seen threads about them and managed just not to click on them, rather than heave all over my boots.

What the actual fuck is a Christmas Eve hamper? Should I have one?

It seems to be a 'tradition' in our house that we have to drive xxx miles to one set of parents with toddler DC in tow on Christmas Eve, then another xxx miles on Boxing Day, then another xxx miles on the 27th to spend with PIL's extended family. DH will not compromise This year, fx, we will have a newborn too.

Something's gotta give. I suspect it will be my sanity. Maybe that will become a tradition too?

Good post Post .

We have a family tradition - that we don't have a traditional Christmas - we enjoy different things each year - sometimes abroad, sometimes hosting, sometimes visiting family, sometimes helping with the Church lunch for 'the isolated' (more helpers than guests interestingly ). Ths year we are do nothing, going nowhere and having no visitors. And no poncey new pyjamas, hamper, etc etc! Happy Christmas all .

You too Scrambled?

I looked up the number of miles we clocked up last Christmas. It was close to 1000. And this is every bleedin year.

I think it doesn't help that there is an element of competitiveness. Either competitive wonderfulness at the 1950s happy family-ness of it all or the "my SIL ate the children, vomited them back up all over the special new Christmas sofa, told us all she hated us & only bought the DCs an oxfam goat".

It is like the experience has to be defined & either aspired to or dreaded - not just something that happens and we roll with it.

Isn't a Christmas Eve hamper a large package that is sent from Fortnum & Mason's? (It arrives by Christmas Eve as no one delivers on Christmas Day.)

Urgh, I googled Christmas Eve Hamper and the second link (i.e. the non sponsored one) took me the the NetHuns discussion of them...

But why have I never heard of one?

Here's a nice MN thread about them

We don't really have many traditions at Christmas in my family, just eating our own body weight in chocolate for breakfast and when we were little we would leave out a mince pie and something alcoholic for Mum Father Christmas.

I think people are creating so much work for themselves with Christmas Eve Hampers, sparkling reindeer dust in the garden, buying new outfits etc. I love Christmas, but I regard it as a nice lazy day of eating and snoozing and watching tv with the family.

Thanks Aitch. Like you, my MIL will still annoy me but I've realised that it's time to cut her some slack. My own mother is the MOST ANNOYING WOMAN ALIVE, but I've always just accepted it and made allowances. My MIL deserves the same, regardless.

My situation obviously has a lot of backstory to it, and I think some posters should remember that you don't always know every detail about a situation described in a post. I am still a bit and how abusive some posters were being to the OP (on the other thread) - she might have sounded a bit U, but you don't know what else is going on.