to think that Christmas is ruined because of the warm weather

[finetonive]

I am not feeling it this year.
Winter should be cold.
Cold, crisp sunny days, warm Christmas jumpers, hot chocolate, frosty mornings.

This Christmas will be a damp squib. With the emphasis being on warm and damp.

Im saying...YANBU. I'd love a snowy xmas but just for that one day. I love the snow on Xmas as it makes me feel so Christmassy. I remember it being warm last year and it felt just like any other day at some points.

I'm on the fence, my DH is a gritter driver and he's on call next week so there's every chance of him being called out on christmas day if it gets cold. But it would be nice to have it cold and crispy with a bit of snow/frost about.

Right cunny - the million dollar question. How does the gritter driver get to work??

I'm sick of the rain and fog we seem to have had forever. I'd like it to be cold and frosty but Christmas won't be ruined if it's mild.

Upside it saves on the heating.

Christmas should be snowy. Anything else is a damp squid.

YABU, i should imagine the people in ""the jungle" will be glad of the respite, as will other homeless people.

Its saving me a fortune in heating

It is weird though.

And cunny does he have from April to September off work?

SirChenjin his work hire out small vans for the gritter drivers to get out to the yard 40 minutes away. So there you have it, he drives a little white van to work!

Compos no, his day job is a roadworker. All year round he drives all over our county filling in potholes, closing roads, cleaning up after crashes etc etc and from October to the end of April his night job is driving a gritter. If he has a run at midnight or after he gets the following day off work. If he has a run between 10pm and midnight then he can go in to work an hour later than usual.

He has a work phone and gets two text updates a day, one at 12pm and one at 6pm. A standby D means no chance of a run and a standby C means there's a possibility of a run.

Gritters are actually quite fascinating when their computers are working properly, you enter your route code (each route has a code) and the gritter lorry knows when it's on the route or not. If it goes off its route it won't throw out salt until it gets back on its route. Also they're supposed to stop spreading automatically when the lorry comes to a stop (like at traffic lights etc). But like I say, that's when they're working and not busted as they frequently are :o

Thanks cunny - I always wondered that! Have the roads ever been too bad for him to drive to work? That must happen from time to time, esp up in the Highlands.

I object to flies in December. Not to mention the live wasp I found the other week

Good job I didn't follow through on my childhood ambition then! I hadn't really thought how the mechanism worked either. I just thought there'd be a big lever marked 'fling' that you'd pull when you wanted to distribute the grit. No idea it was so high tech.

They have been quite bad Chenjin, but never bad enough that they can't get there. Just asked DH and he said if it was really bad (roads very snowy) then one driver would brave it out to the yard in his van, get in his gritter and come and fetch the other drivers/clear the roads so they can get there relatively safely.

Last winter DH had an 11pm run, and when he got back to the yard they were all sent straight back out because it had rained and washed all the salt away :o

When the snow is relentlessly falling it's common for the drivers to be out there for 24hrs. All the driving rules and regs go out the window in really bad snow. Sometimes they have multiple runs in a night and DH won't bother travelling home, he'll just sleep in his gritter.

Can't remember the last time it was crisp cold and sunny. There are about 2 days a year like that. Christmas is almost always wet and grey but this year it's wet, grey & warm. I am much happier with warm grey rain then cold grey rain.

I love the milder weather. Hate the cold with a passion.

Weather doesn't make Christmas.

Same here in Canada : no snow, few frosty days but nothing serious.. It's going to be a green Christmas.

Weird eh? Doesn't feel like Crimbo.

YABU to say that Christmas is ruined because the weather is too warm - it's 27 degrees here (35 towards the inland areas with very high fire risk), warm and sunny and hugely Christmassy - going to be fabulous :)

YANBU to say that grey, damp, drizzling fug ruins the Christmas mood though, it's one of the reasons we moved to NZ :)

Hahaha, Australia here .... try a 35 C degree Christmas Day, with Turkey roasting, roast vegies, Christmas Plum pudding steaming for hours.

Merry Christmas everyone xx

I love the mild weather but am so sick of the rain. I can't remember the last time I saw the sun.

Lots of things can ruin Christmas.

My bloody oven stopped working yesterday.....That's pissing me off.

The electricity going off because the power lines are down would put a bit of a dampener on it.

Granny falling on the ice and ending up in A and E.

Traffic accidents on icy roads.

It still gets dark early and so we can all enjoy the Christmas lights, go to carols by candle light etc. December is usually a damp miserable month weather wise. I've experienced 50+ English Christmases and there have been many more muddy post lunch walks than frosty ones.

Chances are we will get some ice and snow at some point. Lots of winter still to come.

3yo DS doesn't believe it's Christmas as there's no snow or snowmen! He last saw snow as a newborn!

YABU. Mild weather in winter is a godsend for the elderly and those with respiratory conditions, for the poor who can't heat their houses properly, for those unsteady on their feet as there's no ice or frost to slip on.