Christmas!

[MagicChanges]

To get frustrated at all the hype about christmas - all the TV adds that seem to start earlier every year, and all this black Friday stuff, people getting into debt, families falling out about whose going where for christmas. It is after all ONE day when we have a Sunday roast type meal. It's a money making racket for big business I reckon that somehow sweeps us along - or not. ARE there any families like the TV adds - 12 people sitting round the table with enough food to feed an army and a smiling woman comes in carrying the turkey - surely by the time it's carved and dished out all the veg will be cold!! OK rant over.............

YABU - when are we getting the Festive emojis?

YABU - I love it all! And yes our Christmas table is happy and smiling but it's dh who does the cooking of the turkey!!

I agree actually the tv ads are shite no single parents no split families etc

Yabu

We don't have a Sunday roast type meal - we go out for a curry. And we never host anyone / go to anyone either.

Yabu.

Christmas is a time when we can forget about work (most of us anyways), forget about the housework and the humdrum. Forget about anything and just spend quality time with those we want to.

I love sitting round the table with extended family eating the biggest and best meal.

I enjoy giving out thoughtful gifts and seeing what people have chosen for my dc.

I love settling the kids into bed sticking the Christmas lights on and watching a movie with dh.

The build up is all in anticipation of this.

Quite agree. As soon as Halloween is over for some people it's straight into Christmas. November ceases to exist.

I am not a fan of excessive "stuff" in any situation but a lot of the fuss aobut Christmas appears to be around acquiring more "stuff" - elf on the fecking shelf, christmas eve boxes full of crap, changing decorations every year, present mountains. It's just crass consumerism. I find people who start planning Christmas from February and who start watching Christmas movies in the summer holiday very dull - they cannot live in the moment and are always focusing on the next big thing.

We will be putting our tree up probably around 15th December and it will be down between Christmas and New Year. And of course it's not like the TV ads, life never is.

🎅 🎄🎁🎀 ho ho ho

Sure, it's massive hype and lots of people get carried away and spend more money than they normally would on one day a year, but for some people it is a really special day where they can get together with loads of family that they never normally see.
I try and keep my food shopping very cheap all year, Christmas is the time that I will buy more expensive food, drink etc BECAUSE WE ENJOY IT.

You could say the same about weddings. Thousands of pounds on one day. So many things in life like this. Why do you care?

Each to their own!

They are here!!!!!

I will wait until Dec 1 to change my name to something festive though

I'm ( sort of) with you op, Christmas 🎅 preparations should start the second week of Advent.

Though saying that Im fighting an urge to watch Elf today

I agree that TV adverts are totally unrealistic - but they're just adverts, aren't they? They're selling a product. They're not meant to be gritty realism. You don't have buy into that if you don't want to. It's a choice.

If you don't want that kind of Christmas, don't do it that way! Do whatever you enjoy. I actually enjoy cooking a traditional Christmas dinner but there won't be loads of us round the table - just me, my partner and my parents this year, and then my sister and her partner will probably come over on Boxing Day.

I'm fine with people not liking Christmas, but it is irksome when they act as if everyone who does is some sort of idiot spendthrift who is brainwashed by 'big business'. It's not the case.

Would you really want November and December to be like January and February? Dark and cold, no Christmas lights and music, no mulled wine at a Christmas market, no ridiculously excited children, and everyone spending their time whinging that they can't wait for the clocks to change back?

YABU. It's a nice way of celebrating the end of a year if nothing else.

I get two weeks off with my family. And there are sparkly lights. I love it.

I love Christmas

We put our tree up each year on 27 Nov. To me it's a season not just 1 day !! All the preparation and planning and excitement and busy days etc etc, I love it all.
I find it a massive distraction from anything negative in my life and it provides escapism in the form of Christmas films and I really need that once a year !!

It's not just one day for me. The whole of December is about Christmas.

And Christmas dinner isn't just a normal roast either.

You're not into it, that's fine. But don't piss on anyone else's sprouts.

No Christmas dinner is not a normal roast. There are crackers and cranberry sauce.

I don't mind the actual Christmas week bit but quite relieved when it's over. My tree goes up Christmas Eve and is down before NYE.

I'm not fussed either OP, although as someone else said, it gives us all something to do in the darkest and most miserable time of the year. I am having difficulty making Christmas much more than sitting around with the family I already see and buying stuff we don't really need. I would like to add another dimension to it (spiritual, seeing friends) or something but it never quite works out like that.

YY the buying stuff always makes me feel very conflicted. Especially now I have teens.
They don't actually need anything. Yet I am often found trawling the shops for inspiration for them.

It's only one day now?

Who cancelled Christmas Eve and Boxing Day?

You're not into it, that's fine. But don't piss on anyone else's sprouts.

That may be marginally better than my MIL's gravy

I think a week is about right.

YANBU. It's become a massive money-grabbing consumerism machine!