Not to understand Christmas day

[ginorwine]

I love Christmas Eve.
Veg prep , getting the turkey , cleaning , candles , carols and meet friends for carol singing in the pub .
Christmas Day we have a tradition of stockings for the teen dc , then gifts then late lunch .
Then I tend to get twitchy
Clausterphobic feeling

We have been out for a walk but as lots of folk are doing the same thing as we live near a park its quite busy and also I feel the loss of my darling dad more when I see families .
I know thAt I'm lucky to have family and a home .i just wonder does anyone else feel a bit odd on Christmas day ? I know it's known to be a bit of a loaded day emotionally but no one in rl I know feels this .at work it's all 10 sleeps to Christmas etc .

Yes i do know what you mean then. This year I'll have got round it by having a load of people round for Boxing Day, and will therefore spend a lot of Christmas Day after I've cooked lunch, prepping for Boxing Day. I don't think I'll have time to feel too emotional

I think the best thing for Christmas day is to have a plan of what you are going to do after all the present opening and the Christmas dinner are over. Otherwise it can feel like you are waiting for the fun to begin and it can fall flat and never happen. For the last few years we have had extended family join us in the evening for drinks and snacks. My mum did this when I was a child too.
However, I remember when I was a teenager and all my grandparents had passed away and it was just my parents and my brother and me we always got a new game for christmas and spent the evening playing this and this became our new tradition.
So, maybe OP you need to create a new family tradition for your family?

We won't be having our meal until 4.00/4.30 (just adults in our house). Will have a lazy day opening presents and sipping bucks fizz.

Have I understood correctly that the only kids are teenagers?

In that case, have you thought about swapping the day around?

Stockings, brunch, nice long walk out somewhere mid-morning in the best bit of the day, home for presents and an evening meal?

That will fill the day with much the same activities. The issue with the other way around is always how early it gets dark.

Our day is quite full because we go to church, but I assume that's not something you want or you'd have mentioned it.

I get what you are saying OP. I love the build up to Christmas and all the preparations. I am a teacher and it is my favourite time of year in school.

However by the time Christmas day actually arrives then it all feels flat. I find it hugely stressful having people round, particularly if staying they night and I crave space and peace (am an introvert). DH's family are extremely loud.

I loved Christmas as a child and I think things we did to make it fun in the evening was playing card games and board games, also collectively watching a big film (usually James Bond). Charades can be fun! An afternoon dog walk is great too (but usually getting dark
by then).

I think it's a bit of an anticlimax because in your head the word Christmas is the wonderful magical time it was when you were younger, and then it gets here and its the adult version which is pretty much a normal day plus presents and seeing/spending time with people you may not like.

crack the board games out with dc?

or just chillout and watch a film on tv and enjoy the relief that it's over for another yr!

I get the twitchy feeling. It weirds me out sometimes when you go outside and it's rainy and there's no one about that it's just the same old drab world out there carrying on while we all pretend that there's magic happening. (Sorry, haven't explained that very well and I know it sounds a bit weird!) I find Christmas quite hard for a lot of reasons. I would quite happily go to bed at midnight on Christmas eve and not wake up until Boxing Day morning.

Yes, me too, I find it a bit of an anti-climax after all the build-up which I love. I love cooking the dinner, but don't really enjoy eating it having been immersed in it for a couple of hours already. Then after dinner things fall a bit flat, the DCs never want to go for a walk, we haven't got much space for board games etc till visitors have gone home (small house), none of us want to watch the same things as each other on TV. Then it's all over for another year.

I also don't like Christmas Day, OP.

One of my best friends mother died on Christmas Eve a few years back, and we rallied round to support her and her two DC through it at the request of her DH (her DM had been seriously ill for a while, but her death was still a massive shock to my friend and her then quite young DC, and her - actually very lovely - DH literally didn't know how to support them all through it alone. So he called in the troops.). Ever since then, myself and our other best friend have made a habit of putting aside an hour or so on Christmas Day to call, or Skype with her so that she can remember her mother (whom other friend and I both grew up with in our lives) and cry without it impacting upon her DC's day too much.

My own parents don't understand why I do this (loudly, and repeatedly barging into the room I'm trying to hide in and bitching at me), but... I know my two friends would (will) be there for me when they die, so I grit my teeth and carry on. Plus it gives my parents a bit of one-to-one time with my own DC... they live 10 minutes drive away from us, but don't tend to spend any "quality" time with my DS at all. They can't cope with his "issues" apparently (he has AS). Christmas Day is the most time they spend with him all year, and if I can escape for an hour to encourage that? I'll selfishly do so.

Now that my DD is getting older, she's less interested in spending time with family and more attached to texting her friends all through Christmas - which can be difficult to deal with. I know there will be at least three arguments concerning her attachment to her mobile before dinner's done with that day. My parents will squabble and bicker like spoiled children. My DS will have at least one meltdown due to the tension and over-stimulation. And I will spend much of the day longing for the day when I don't have to deal with parents and/or children (for one day, they will have their own children and partners to be spending the holiday with, and I will resolutely not inflict myself upon them, even if my parents do!) and can simply lock myself into my home and do what I want to for a change. I will also spend a vast portion of the day missing the sanity of my DP and wishing that he were there simply so that my parents will be on their best "we have a guest" behaviour and, well, behave like adults and not school-children. But he'll be with his own family at the other end of the country (as he should be!). My DC's father refuses to have them for Christmas as he, too, is with his "new" family and our DC are a nuisance of a reminder to his DW that he had a family before they met.

My two best friends and I have plans for the Christmas Day when we're all 50. We're going away somewhere that we can pretend Christmas doesn't even exist, and leave everyone else to deal with the boring, repetitive stress of it all (although we all know that we won't... it's nice to dream!).

Yes, I always feel miserable and detached. I make an effort for the kids, but usually just opt to go into work at 4pm to get rid of the tension. I always feel as though I should be making more effort and get dressed up and things, but none of us are into that so it would just be silly.

I prefer Boxing Day

Oh contrary I recognise what you are saying. So kind of you to call and support your friend in that lovely way.

We lived abroad, and almost always had open house for anyone else away from home. Only recently have I worked out that my mother preferred it, when we were all on 'company' manners, so that any visitors were a welcome addition.

Glad I'm not the only one! None of us are really looking forward to Christmas this year (there's just DH, me and DS for Christmas day).

Last year was heaven; dh and I went to a beautiful villa outside Marrakech where Christmas was completely ignored. We lay by the pool reading books and drinking prosecco whilst the staff fed us. DS was with his GF at home.

Really wish we were going away again this year but I've been outvoted

Spread out the fun. Growing up we would get up, do stockings, Christmas breakfast, church, drinks with the neighbours, lunch, bit of a movie, PRESENTS!!!!!!!!!!!!, games, playing with stuff, more TV till bed.

I do believe that doing all the presents early results in the afternoon being a bit flat.

We don't even eat 'lunch' til about 3 PM. That's the afternoon gone, then.

Christmases have always been tinged with a bit of sadness for me. When I was a kid, my um died 6 weeks before christmas one year. It was never the same again. Then we became a 'blended' family and so our christmas was hijacked and uprooted and swapped for a stranger's idea of christmas. So it was a grim time, growing up.

Then I was one of Maggies' millions so xmas became a very frugal (but quite happy) affair - long before we had kids, so we realised we could stop going to my dad's or his parents' and just eat stuff and watch telly all day.

Then I had my own large family and christmas became fine for the first time, really but I still, 40 years on, miss my mum and my dad, more recently. This year a very dear friend died and I will be thinking of her, too.

We used to walk the dog in that longeur after we'd eaten - but for a few years we had an elderly dog, who wasn't up to walking beyond the end of the drive. Now I have a young, fit pup again - trouble is by the time we have finished eating, it will be dark! And we usually walk her in the evening, anyway. Dog walking is the best way I know to fill the afternoon, assuming the telly is crap.

I understand where you're coming from.

This year we have a fair bit planned on boxing day and the days after that, so hopefully on Christmas Day, when the presents and the dinner are all done and dusted, I still have something to look forward to.

I think it has something to do with remembering Christmas through a child's eyes. I never had that flat feeling as a kid, I would always feel a little sad when the day was drawing to a close as I wanted it to go on for longer.

I feel the same OP. Christmas eve is so much more exciting and "active" feeling. Christmas day is kind of empty in a weird way. I think I found it easier pre-kids when you could just blob about, have lunch, have a nap, watch shit telly and have too much wine and chocolate. With kids, though it's fun seeing them excited, you have to be available and "on" all day and keep the interest going. I hate the Christmas day walk, but you kind of have to do it to get everyone out of the house. It's always a bit boring and the weather is always gloomy and muddy but not snowy and not cold enough!

I agree River but DH is adamant that opening them all when you get up is the only way. I'm going to tell him I want it to be different this year.

I don't like Christmas Day that much because we live a long way from family and none of the grandparents want to come and visit us (too busy with our siblings) so it's just the 5 of us. On the other hand I love Boxing Day and Hogmanay (which we often spend with my extended family) and New Year, when all the stress is over and we can relax and the kids play with their toys and we can enjoy the only real family holiday we get as just the 5 of us (summer holidays are spent visiting family so are not actually that relaxing).

Oh and we do Christmas dinner/lunch in between 12 and 5pm, so that helps fill the afternoon a bit too.

i find xmas really hard since my dad died that was 10 years ago. sometimes i think will anyone ever think of me. a long time ago now when my 18 year old was younger but old enough to go to the shops alone. i wanted to give her some money to get me a couple of bits for xmas. so i would have something to open. her reply was oh do i have to i cant be bothered and all huffing and puffing. i felt very hurt and have not forgotten it....she has got better though so i should let it go was a while ago but it really did hurt. it has got a bit better. shes at college now does not earn money but if i give her a bit of money she will get me a few bits. i see pics of my mother and brother on fb having fun drinking and stuff looking happy. messages on the fb wall saying thanks for a good night mum from my sister and things like that. but i dont even get a phone call or an xmas and im never invited. and i do feel jealouse.

But this year im hoping it will be better. as im now seeing someone and it seems to be going ok. hes not spending xmas with me as hes going to his mums. but him my kids his kids are having an early xmas dinner on sunday and we have all bought each other things. and he is going to spend new year with me. so although we cant spend xmas day together at least i have been thought about.

I hate everything about it. I'm starting to get the 'dragging me down' feeling now. So much to do in work, all of the present planning, buying, wrapping to do. DH refuses to be home for Xmas so we do a grand tour of the British Isles staying with relatives which means everything for 2 adults and 2 kids (presents and clothes) needs to pack into an easy jet luggage allowance.

Every year I say I won't do it and every year I'm coerced into it and DH continues with spectacular behaviour like going our for about 4 different work Xmas parties and waking me in the early hours (this morning was 3.30am).

I hate all of it. There is no joy in it. Just a massive chore and a monumental waste of time and money stressing. I hate it.

I think Christmas lunch ruins everything. You have to rush through presents to do lunch, then have lunch, then it's dark but it's only mid afternoon and you have hours and hours of darkness before bedtime and everyone feels lethargic. Ditch lunch is the solution.

So it might go:

• Get up and do "a round" of presents" i.e. everyone opens one thing, with breakfast
• Walk time - get out somewhere fresh with plenty of air. The park will probably be empty or get in the car (roads v quiet) and go up a hill or to the coast. At least 45 minutes to an hour outside. If it's raining or snowing just wrap up and enjoy the airing/wetting! Alternatively pop in to say Merry Christmas to family or neighbours
• Come back and have a light lunch. An omelette or soup or toasties maybe?
• Another "round of presents" if you feel like it
• Get dinner in the oven
• Open any remaining presents while you're waiting for stuff to cook
• Eat - by then probably around 4-6
• Charades or board games
• Film and slump

It's a bit of an anticlimax in some ways. I love all the run-up to Christmas but the actual day is a bit "so, that's it then" and you have (in the northern hemisphere) dreary months of winter weather to look forward to.