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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To not understand how people manage to make such a meal out of Christmas?

193 replies

BlueBananas · 21/12/2015 11:42

All you hear this time of year is 'oh I haven't got the potatoes peeled yet' 'I haven't cleaned the windows' 'I haven't hoovered the roof' type moans
Am I the only one that just doesn't get it?

I love Christmas, it's a huge thing in our family it really is, but it takes a couple of hours to cook a meal and why exactly are you all cleaning like mad people? I get that if you have guests then you clean yes, but only normal amounts of cleaning, why do people have to bleach all of their silverware and clean out cupboards? Why? Will Santa not come otherwise? And surely it's only clean for about 15 seconds until all the presents have been opened/chocolate eaten/guests descend? Then it looks like you never bothered, so why bother?

I'm starting to see that our Christmases are so lovely and relaxed and happy and I'm so glad

AIBU to think that everybody just needs to calm down a little bit?

OP posts:

HeadDreamer · 22/12/2015 09:35

Dont' start me on the elf on the shelf. It's creating another battleground of competitiveness.

OnlyLovers · 22/12/2015 10:17

Thanks, Verbena.

angelos02 · 22/12/2015 10:24

I just think, 'what is the worst that can happen'. Meal goes tits up? Plenty of other stuff to eat. House not immaculate? If you are the type of person to notice this, you are not the kind of person I'd want in my life anyway. etc. etc..

OnlyLovers · 22/12/2015 10:43

Exactly, angelos. I can't imagine having to scrub and clean for anyone I know. And if the food went wrong, what the heck? My family and friends' attitude would just be 'Oh well, let's open another bottle of fizz.'

DisappointedOne · 22/12/2015 10:46

There's a banner across the bottom of the page asking "what's your colour scheme for Christmas?"

FFS! We'll be eating nice food off normal plates. That's it. Fucking colour schemes now. They're bad enough at weddings!

MoMoTy · 22/12/2015 10:59

Some people become total idiots over this and really create the issues themselves. I think they just totally miss the point about the meaning of the day.
Tbf I've only seen this panic and drama on mn.

Goodbetterbest · 22/12/2015 11:03

I get everything done by the week before. Then I have a party which is the start of my Christmas, there is always loads of booze left over and we graze on buffet leftovers for every meal until the shopping is delivered for a big roast dinner a few days later.

It's a fucking nightmare up to the party, but once that is put done and the house is put right Christmas is a breeze. It's my first year as a lone parent and there really is very little difference in effort - i did it all and continue to do so. I'm just enjoying it more this year.

Now, the whole Christmas Day outfit thing... Getting nails and hair done... That baffles me!

angelos02 · 22/12/2015 11:03

This whole colour scheme thing is something I've only come across on MN. One of the weirdest threads I've seen was one in which someone only displayed Christmas cards if they fit into her colour scheme! Now that is fucked up.

Bumpsadaisie · 22/12/2015 11:05

Yesterday DH had a lunch date for the first time in ages - pizza followed by Star Wars at the cinema.

Of course it was chaos - we couldn't park, it was throwing it down and we got soaked to the skin by a large truck splashing a muddy puddle all over us, most people had road and queue rage etc....

When we finally got sat down to eat our pizza (in the 30 mins remaining before the film started!) I said something along the lines of how it was ridiculous that Christmas should be so chaotic and hadn't we lost the meaning of it etc etc.

But then I thought of Mary and Joseph, legging it across the desert - her about to go into labour, some evil dictator chasing them and trying to kill their baby (and for Joseph it wasn't even his kid) and then their finally getting to Bethlehem only to find the place heaving and nowhere for Mary even to give birth. I reckon stress is an integral part of Christmas and always has been from the off!

Bumpsadaisie · 22/12/2015 11:07

"DH and I" of course ....

angelos02 · 22/12/2015 11:11

I find it all quite baffling. I don't get why pubs and restaurants are so much busier at this time of year. Where is everyone the rest of the year?

OnlyLovers · 22/12/2015 11:21

My mum is absolutely not in the colour scheme/increasingly inventive turkey recipe camp, but she has in the past said things to me like 'I shan't be buying all that stuff again this year. We never eat it all/drink it all anyway, do we? I don't see the point.'

In aggrieved tones, as though someone frogmarches her to the supermarket and obliges her, at gunpoint, to buy trays of dates and boxes of nuts and tubs of Pringles and Twiglets and bottles of shite booze.

Where do people perceive this pressure coming from?

TheSecondViola · 22/12/2015 11:32

But you people who are oh so baffled by the busyness and the traffic and he full pubs...you get that its caused by people having FUN, right? Enjoying themselves with friends and family and colleagues. The pubs and restaurants are full, the roads are busy, the shops are heaving, because people are having a GOOD TIME. People are buying nice food and presents because they like it and its fun.
A lot of you sound like you have entirely missed this rather salient point, sitting around bleating about the fuss. The "fuss" is FUN. FFS folks, lighten the shite up.

TheSecondViola · 22/12/2015 11:33

And if its not, they are doing it wrong. But tell them to do it right, don't tell them not to do it at all.

TheFairyCaravan · 22/12/2015 11:37

I don't know why people leave everything to the last minute. Christmas is the same day every year. I can understand the buying of fresh food etc, but not the present wrapping and de-cluttering.

I wrap presents as they come in, from August. I dislike clutter so don't have any. We buy extra on the shopping from September, so pickles, dried fruit, chocolate, sausage meat etc is done.

DS2's birthday is Christmas Eve so that's a Christmas free day.

It's supposed to be fun not a stress fest.

TheSecondViola · 22/12/2015 11:41

Buying xmas presents in august is weird. December is not the last minute.

TheFairyCaravan · 22/12/2015 11:49

Buying Christmas presents in August is not weird. I have 2 kids with December birthdays. When my kids wanted the "must have toy" or whatever they weren't disappointed because we'd planned and prepared. There's bloody good deals to be had in Summer sales. The watch I bought DH in August is more than twice the price now.

BarbaraofSeville · 22/12/2015 11:49

But these people aren't all having fun are they? Yes, the ones in the pubs and restaurants are, and I don't think anyone has said 'oh god I have to go to this party and I don't want to' have they.

But I don't think these people Guilty Christmas Secret are having fun are they, or this woman or this one.

The last one is buying presents for adult men that she doesn't really know FFS!!

How have we got to a situation where we feel obliged to buy presents for people that we don't know, or stress about cooking dinner because of 'the pressure' or being a martyr and feeling obliged to do it all yourself?

All people are suggesting is that people take a step back, think and just do what they want to do, not what they feel they have to do out of some misplaced sense of obligation.

I like Christmas. I like the time off work, seeing friends and family, going out and seeing the Christmas lights, the special food and drink, the rubbish TV.

But what I don't like is the endless tide of consumerism, the piles of shite at rip off prices in the shops, the suggestion that I should buy crap that people don't want with money I don't have, the crowds and fights over parking spaces and taking hours to get in and out of town or shopping centres, the 'pressure' to clean my house from top to bottom in case MIL implodes when she sees dust. So I don't do it and I have lots of fun not doing it.

Philoslothy · 22/12/2015 12:10

I am having the Christmas that I want. I want it filled with people and parties. I don't want to do presents so we don't.

TheSecondViola · 22/12/2015 13:02

WE haven't. You might. I have not, and neither have most people.

Philoslothy · 22/12/2015 13:07

I think some people do feel those obligations snd stresses, they then start threads about it - making it look as if we are all stressed and overwhelmed.

DarkRoots · 22/12/2015 13:43

TheSecondViola I need you to come with me to my in-laws and repeat all that. We are leaving tomorrow evening so you can squeeze in the backseat beside DD.

Bring a corkscrew.

Marynary · 22/12/2015 14:24

I know what you mean OP. My mother starts fussing and flapping about Christmas in the beginning of November and I have never understood why. In particular I have never understood why people make such a big deal about Christmas lunch as to me it just seems to be a roast dinner.

CheesyNachos · 22/12/2015 14:26

Yes lots of people very genuinely do have stress and expectations upon them for whatever reason. Usually family dynamics. The poor OP in another thread who is staying with her parents for 10 days with no escape and is expected to enable her childish, selfish temper-tantrumming mother is certainly having a stress. And that is not because she just failed to get organised.

I like our Christmases, and we are in our own home which helps (I hate staying with people... i like people staying wish us). but even so, i have a diswasher that has broken, a washing machine that is on full time, I have a very ill MIL who currently has double incontinence (hence sheets being washed again) and a FIL with dementia. Plus a 5 year old. DH has a work project that is due that he just has to get in if his contract is going to be renewed, etc. Those things are stressful. And again, it is not because I am not organised. I am just grateful that I personally do not have to travel to anyone else during Christmas and that I enjoy the company of everyone I am spending Christmas with. So that makes it alot easier than many people have it.

Philoslothy · 22/12/2015 14:31

I have never understood why people make such a big deal about Christmas lunch as to me it just seems to be a roast dinner.

Because to some people it is more than that. To be honest with six children and an adult stepson even a roast dinner becomes quite a big affair. Throw in a few relatives and it becomes a big deal. We are incredibly lucky as a family and we like to be able to share that luck with those that we love - particularly when we know they have it hard for the rest of the year. I love a party, I love playing host and don't find it stressful. My family completely play their part and so I also relax over the festive season.

Just because I want my Christmas to be different from yours does not mean it is wrong or a journey in martyrdom.

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