To ask if you think we should make a bigger deal at Christmas?

[honeyandporridge]

The threads already have me wondering.

DH often has to work so I think that's partly why it's just never been a thing. Don't decorate bar putting some cards up. DC1 gets one present. (Other DC was a baby last Christmas so didn't bother; might get her something this year.)

That's it.

I like Christmas but on the whole prefer Easter.

But other families seem to make such a fuss and I suppose I wondered if it was really very strange to have a low key day?

I always wish there were more blokes commenting on Christmas threads. My (extremely limited) research indicates that this obsession with Making Christmas Magical For The Children is very much a female thing.

Everything's about the fucking children if you have children. Bloody attention-vampires.

I think we've found the new mn tag line.

'by parents for parents' was getting a bit old

I don't really understand why you posted to be honest. You asked a question, people (very nicely, IMO) replied and you have just basically said ' well I am right/ I can't be bothered'. They are your children, it is your house - do what you like. I mean this in the nicest possible way - I don't really. Are what you do for your Christmas. But you asked a bunch of strangers whether they agreed with you and the majority don't. And to be honest I think you probably knew they wouldn't.

For what it is worth, I think you are being bloody miserable and all I am hearing is what you like - you have your candle, you like Easter. It isn't about you. I love Christmas and if I am lucky enough to have children I want to make it as special for them as it was for me. This WAS a stealth boast - what you essentially intimated was that your kids appreciate things (like bats) more be ause they don't have a big Christmas and everyone else goes to so much organisation(for just one day!) when I was a child I still loved Spring and Easter and summer and autumn. But I also still liked Christmas and doing things because it was Christmas. I think you are being totally joyless. I am also more glad than ever that as a teacher I get my kids a tree every year.

mulitvac I can't tell if your last post is tongue in cheek.

My world revolves around my children, because they cannot fend for themselves. I am still me, I still have a life outside of them, but they come first. I would say that the majority of posters on here feel the same towards their offspring.

Bit odd to be criticizing that standpoint on a parenting website on a thread about Christmas.

Because saying to a seven year old who wants a bike in March to wait until the entire summer is gone and wait until Christmas seems a bit daft to me.

Obviously substitute bike for any other toy or game or book. When the children want something it's generally because they want it then. Even a week is a long time to a child.

• sorry - don't really care.

Bloody iPad

OP- if your child needs a bike in March then he presumably was getting ready for one the previous December...

And of course there's the anticipation, the thrill of waiting to see if you've been lucky enough to get that special gift that you asked so politely for in the note you wrote to Santa.
Actually, your approach of "I want it I get it" whatever the season is more grabby in my opinion.

But why not think ahead? Surely the fun of presents is getting something fun and unexpected, not something practical that you need.

Can't you buy him a book series or a lego set or something and keep it aside for Christmas? Just because he wants a bike in March doesn't mean he gets one, surely?!

Ignore the stealth boast shit. Seriously. Who cares?

It is natural to inquire about what other people do, but people gave you suggestions and you said you don't like trees, are shit at crafts and can't be bothered with the rest.

I can't be bothered with cooking a big roast and wrapping all the presents and tidying up the mess and unboxing plastic crap with bloody screwdrivers, and part of me can't wait for the days when I can just show up at my daughters houses and be waited on hand and foot :o but for now I put myself to one side so they have great memories and a good time.

Ok, last post then I'm just going to hide the thread.

This was not or ever was intended to be a stealth boast.

I'll give a little wee example, if I may. I never used to get my nails done (am a horsey person if that 'helps') and yet recently started going to a baby group and the women there all get theirs done regularly.

It made me think it was a thing I 'should' be doing that I wasn't. I started feeling a bit self conscious about my own nails. I even got them done a few times before realising I was actually ok with my boring nails.

(I am very vain about some things - hair mainly - just not my nails.)

Now with Christmas - it's never been a big thing. I acknowledge it and stick a few cards up and tinsel and buy presents for the children but it isn't a massive deal. Then I come on Mumsnet in August and it's all about Christmas. And I start thinking 'am I doing this all wrong' and then slowly conclude - no, ok as it is, a lot of people for whom Christmas is a big thing have very different circumstances to us.

It is difficult as you worry about spoiling children and depriving children, about wanting everything to be perfect but also not bringing them up in a bubble.

But usually when I've just gone with things and not tried to push and shape and control things end up being ok, that's what I was trying to explain with the bats. Just being there with my beautiful son was enough.

The phrase stealth boast is frustrating when levelled at you. I know that. Its just its difficult to think otherwise when you post in the way you have.

I have tried to make suggestions. In your situation I would think. Right, I'm not big on Christmas but I have two DCs and I clearly have the money to go skiing, hire cottages etc and so this year I am going to try to make this more magical. They won't have presents in September October and November and instead I'm going to save those gifts and wrap them for Christmas. I'm going to buy a few nice bits of ultra easy ready prepared food from M&S/Sainsburys/Tesco and a box of cheap crackers which we all know are rubbish but the children love. In fact I'll throw in a box of party poppers for a quid (even the nine year old will love those). I'm shite at crafty stuff and don't want nature in the house so I'll spend £50 on a fake tree, some shiny stuff and lights and decorate the living room. Stockings, mince pie and carrot left out for FC, read the Grinch to the DCs on Christmas eve before bedtime, sit outside their bedrooms making tickling sounds on a glass, job done.

I just don't see how 'my children come first' automatically equates to 'therefore I have to put a tree in my house in December'. I don't see how not celebrating Christmas is so vastly different from not doing any of the other million and one things different families do differently, all the time. I don't, in short, get the angst people seem to feel about this particular issue, when they come across someone who doesn't confirm.

It's odd, is all.

No, they're not grabby. But if they ask for something politely - well DD is still too little really but then she's too little to understand Christmas as well - and I can afford it and it's age appropriate - I buy it.

conform

honeyandporridge - pfft that's nothing. Sometimes, I buy my kids stuff they haven't even asked for when it's not December!

That, too.

Which is where you are probably different to others.

My DC don't have gifts unless its Christmas or birthday. If they want a bike they'll get one on their birthday or at Christmas.

If you chose to give your children whatever they want when they want it then that's your choice as a parent but why does that mean you don't do Christmas?

But we do, atticus. Just not in the same way you do.

I have spring/summer babies but if you had been my mum, my brother and I would only have had presents in deepest darkest December (well my birthday is at the very end of November actually but still!)

That's up to you as a parent. Obviously it is. But personally it isn't how I do things.

It also must be dreadfully expensive!

multivac- " I don't, in short, get the angst people seem to feel about this particular issue, when they come across someone who doesn't confirm.
"

What angst? I don't see that at all. Christmas is a big thing in my home, but I don't give a rat's arse what other people do or if they even celebrate- it doesn't affect me.

Random gift-giving doesn't mean 'giving your children what they want, when they want it'. Not at all.

I would say it costs less than buying things for the DCs all year round.

Actually I buy things all year around to put away for Christmas and Birthdays, Personally I believe its good to teach children that you can't have whatever you want when you want it, you have to wait - but that's just my opinion.

I think you're changing your position now though. You can't say you "do Christmas" when you've spent the past seven pages describing some cards, a bit of tinsel, no Christmas dinner and one present.

That is 'doing christmas'

I think you're just trying to have an argument with me now to be honest. I've been perfectly clear on what happens.

What angst? I don't see that at all.

Really? People feel sorry for the OP's children, who have a "horrid" and "shit" Christmas. She is "depriving" them. If only she made a little effort, her kids would be so much happier. And so on.

If you don't give a rodent's behind, then clearly the 'angst' thing doesn't apply to you. But it's somewhat disingenuous to suggest it doesn't exist at all.

Personally I believe its good to teach children that you can't have whatever you want when you want it, you have to wait

On our budget, it's also a necessity. But I don't see why "You can have what you want, but only on two days a year" is a superior moral stance.