Not so exciting at Christmas due to small family

[Dorsetmum18]

Wondering if there are others out there who are not totally excited about Christmas because you dont have a huge family all meeting up ?!

I love Christmas but have no siblings and so my kids have no cousins, i would love to have a few siblings and all get together with loads of kids just for noise and even for arguments but just normal for us really, me DH and our two kids. They are excited but I guess I just feel sad sometimes that I don't have loads of family to plan visits too, it just seems so much more Christmassy ! This does not help when watching typical festive movies which often shows noisy huge families having fun and games !

Or am I just going doolally ?! Would love to know its not just me feeling sorry for myself......

Is it really bad that I would love to spend Christmas just our small immediate family. It's looking like we will have a succession of family staying with us (not kids either but older relatives) for over a week in total, with visits to others interspersed. Only perk might be a babysitter so DH and I can get out for a drink without them.

I'm very relieved not to have a big family!

This year it'll be me and 9 month old DD. DM is visiting my brother and that's about it for family. ExH isn't bothered with contact so he won't put in an appearance.

It's hard having a small family but it's what you make of it.

There's no rule saying you can only spend the day with family. Invite people who might be alone for the day to join you. Maybe parents of your kids friends with nowhere to go. Then you get to see them all running around and excited.

It's just the three of us here too. We can still get excited but it is lonely/quiet.

Things are changing this year. Instead of staying at my dad's bachelor pad (The first year in the house we didnt have a tree, just a mug with a tree on it that we put the presents under.)

This year we're going to my sister's house where everything will be perfect but it will be a lot of work. So I am hoping to try and get her some good presents to say thank you.

One of the problems with Christmas is that everyone has an idea in their head of what the 'perfect' one would be like - and often it's based on a 'grass is always greener' sense that someone else is having it better. Someone else has a bigger tree, better gifts, a more caring family. Someone has a pile of presents the size of K2, children with eyes that are actually saucer-sizedwith delight, a pet reindeer, a hotline to Santa, a set of wise men bearing gold, frankincense and myrrh, and Heston Blumenthal to cook the roast.

Actually, very few of those ideas live up to the reality.

Christmas is just a day. If you can have it, and not have stress and arguments, and be happy and reasonably grateful for where you are in life with some people who you love, then you're doing really well.

I am heartily sick of Christmas 'cheer' already, the non-stop adverts since Nov 1st seem to make the population feel worse about themselves, not better, so we have threads about 'only' having £140 to spend on Christmas presents and 'only' having a husband and two children to spend Christmas with and so on.

Op, I don't blame you for falling for the myth of Christmas (the piles of presents, the huge happy family who smile all the time), but honestly, I think we all need to get a grip (collectively) and stop the madness. If you have a nice family who likes you- this is lucky. If you have to get a few presents, not your usual 10, that's still lucky. Mine don't have cousins, but they have us!

I can't muster up any sympathy for spending family time altogether as a little group, then going to NY, it sounds amazing, and like my perfect Christmas!

Oh dear ... maybe you should re-read the chapter from Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix where they visit St Mungo's and meet the family Christmas casualties? :)

I do feel for you, although I'm the exact opposite - can't stand large gatherings!

Only skimmed thread so i'm sure it's been said - but traveling to see umpteen relatives with kids on xmas day is a PITA and not particularly 'magical' for young kids. (And xmas should be all about pleasing the kids IMO.) The alternative would be hosting everyone at yours and that gets expensive and stressful and you spend the day serving, running about, and doing basically 100 x the usual daily organising and cleaning.

Main thing i wanted to say to you though OP is this: I'm an only child, my mum AND dad were both only children as well, so when my kids were very little our xmas's were a bit like yours. To be brutally honest when mum and dad got elderly I was worried xmas would disappear up it's own arse with lack of excitement! However, as the DCs got to 4, 5 6+ the lovely little xmas traditions and rituals around the food, decorations and present giving which they loved to repeat year on year started to 'up' xmas, IYSWIM?. They insist on sticking to them all to this day even though the bigger ones are teens and 20s now - it's out of my hands - it's very sweet really !

Also now the 3 older ones are adults (and trust me it goes in the blink of an eye) the long term boyfriends begin to be invited round for the whole of xmas day or part of it, and when you couple that with my elderly mum, a distant aunt who comes over plus me and DH and little DD4 who is only 2 i have gone from low key xmas to house full gradually. When the grandkids arrive there'll be even more! I'm wondering where my peaceful xmas's have gone! You've sewn the seeds for hectic xmas's to come OP. And it wont be long! :)

shovetheholly that's what I was trying to say! I also think it's worth pointing out that no-one can stay in a state of excitement for 7 weeks. I think that's why Christmas isn't so exciting any more, because it's really stretched out, and very much about buying presents (online,in shops, in sales). We used to do the Christmas Tree on Christmas Eve or perhaps the day before! It was a limited amount of time when we were little and there was consequently a bit less expectation about it all.

Same here, there's the three of us and lovely DMIL as usual this year. That said, a lot of these big family gatherings are probably not all they seem and must be terribly stressful with all the work involved. My DP is working until 2pm so just me and DD all morning, I think we'll go out for a drink down the pub at noon (lovely pub, roaring fire and big friendly labrador) to kill an hour or so.
That said, I am so incredibly thankful to have even a small family. A tip for you might be to introduce a new tradition at Christmas. We started booking a local panto for Boxing Day a few years ago, it gave us something to look forward to after Christmas Day.

We stay at home by ourselves at Christmas for a variety of reasons. We LOVE it. At this time of year I listen to various friends moaning about how they are dreading their visit to one or both sets of parents because they would love to do Christmas their own way. I am literally rubbing my hands with glee thinking about cosying down in our lovely home, eating what we want, when we want, and making a big fuss of all the daft Christmas rituals that make Christmas special for us and the two dcs. But I do love Christmas. I think it's one of those things where you get out what you put in. Find your own Christmassy things to be excited about and go to town on them!

I cannot wait until Christmas. There is only me and DH and the dog.

I wouldn't want it any other way. The idea of a huge family with lots of people all over the place gives me palpitations and is my idea of fucking hell.

The adverts and films are just fake Christmas fluff, as people are saying. We have lots of extended family, who we see as little as possible because of the inevitable arguments and general PITA-ness

My favourite bit of Christmas is when it's just me, DH and the DC. Oh and a sleeping nan in the corner maybe, but anymore than that and I feel like I have to be on 'host duty' and can't really relax.

Christmases wax and wane.

As a child I had big family Christmases, in their full 70s and 80s wonderful gaudiness. Then a couple of quiet but romantic Christmases with dh, then small family Christmases but with the magic of my own dcs. Now I'm staring down the barrel of empty nestdom so expecting a few dud Christmases (just dh but without the romance this time!) and then I suppose I'll be the grouchy mil or interfering granny. Ho hum!

Ive experienced both types of christmas and found them both fun in different ways.

Big family christmasess can be stressfull, and the washing up is collossal!

Make the most of it being just the 4 of you can spend your time playing games or watching a christmas film snuggled up together under the christmas lights

Occasionally we have invited a friend without family to share our christmas day, (last minute invite when my friends parents who were getting divorced decided to cancel christmas!)....seriously though, christmas can be fun in small intimate groups, your with your loved ones and thats what counts :)

I have a small family and I'm very excited about Christmas. I am an only child of an only child and I have an only child. I have an Auntie who I see a few times a year, but not at Christmas and 2 cousins I rarely see. DH has a sister who we see once or twice a year, usually not on Christmas Day but we have a meal sometime between Christmas and New Year.
Christmas Day will be me, DH, DS (4), my parents and MIL. We have it here and have a lovely day- lots of fizz, nice food, DH cooks a roast, loads of presents. Maybe a short walk in the morning to tire DS out a bit. Evening in pjs watching Call theMidwife.
Anyway we plan lots to look forward to throughout December. We are going on a Santa train with friends, we make a big deal of decorating the tree with Christmas music, mulled wine and nibbles, we are going to see Santa and out for lunch with friends, we have tickets to see Rudolf at the theatre, we will go to the Christingle on Chrisrmas Eve and have a few people round for a drink afterwards.
So excited!

Also I always spare a thought for the poor children of re-married parents at Christmas. It must be crap for them to have to visit dad, new wife and new family and hover about on the edges seeing the grandparents making a fuss of dgc, whilst being tolerant of step dc but wishing they'd disappear.

Sometimes small nuclear family is the long straw, not the short one.

I think you always want what you can't have. I was thinking similar myself. I have a huge family yet no parents or in laws bother with us xmas day. We basically wouldn't see anyone over Xmas if we didn't visit them.

This year we are doing things differently. Xmas eve morning we are going out for breakfast and a walk before we head home. We are pretty much busy just the 4 of us till 5pm xmas night. Then we will be visiting in laws. Then boxing day meal at my grans.

Actually one year I did have a large xmas gathering at DPs family, when we were a young couple. It was a lovely day, but looking back an incredible amount of work and expense for DPs parents. I didn't appreciate how much at the time.

I have one sibling.
One of my parents was an only and the other one of two - both now dead
I had two cousins much older than me and haven't seen them in 35 years,

I basically have no real family other than me DH and the kids.

I wanted more kids but (D) H said no - loved the idea of huge dinners (probably never have happened though)

Every other year we have a quiet Christmas at home just the 4 of us and I love it. We either have a couple of our (elderly!) neighbours round for drinks or go to our local pub late morning for an hour, home for big lunch, presents etc then go for a walk and either drop in on a local friend or have people round for early evening drinks. I found when you ask around there's a surprising number of people who have very quiet christmas's and would welcome either a visitor or drinks invite.

I feel for you OP. Just me and newborn DD this year. (She's 1wk old now)
Stbxh will be coming over for a bit on boxing day (he's working Xmas) to see DD.
I'm not even arsed/able to put up the tree etc so I think I'll just put a christmassy outfit on dd snap a few photos and have done with it for the sake of the memory box.
and to everyone having a small or lonely Christmas this year

Neither of my sisters have kids, and my other half's brother and sister in law likes to be them and their kids only for Christmas. This year we're celebrating with my dad + 2 sisters, last year we celebrated the 3 of us (have a little boy). I don't mind a small group for Christmas :) But sometimes it's nice to have a big family Christmas party with aunts and uncles and cousins, but for the actual present opening and stuff, I prefer to be a smaller group.

I know where you are coming from OP. Its just me, dh and ds on christmas day - and we love it, but it would be nice for someone to be excited with ds for a change.
On boxing day we have to go to MILs and when ds's cousins were little it was great. Now they are all adults, and everyone bogs off to the pub (no U18s allowed in there) and no one wants to play a game with ds or watch an age appropriate dvd so its like being on your own among 22 adults!