To ask how Christmas prep has been for you...

[Bananabread123]

... well it's been a busy last weekend making sure everything's perfect for the official start of Christmas in 4 days, , but the tree' now up and decorated, last minute presents wrapped, cards written and ready to be posted, chest freezers all full to the brim with festive goodies, Christmas bedding on, food order done, my 6 secret santas sorted! I can now relax with mulled wine in front of the fire and my DH can get his DW back! - Each year it gets more manic but this year's been worse than I can remember despite it feeling like it's taken over my life since the kids went back in September!

I already feel like I'm not going to be ready for this Christmas till next Easter ,5DC and were waiting for the new sofas to be delivered and still finishing some decorating and we have a huge family.

I've done some of the Christmas present shopping and bought some crackers,but no cards or wrapping paper bought yet and no food bought yet neither.But we have bought the 5DC they're Advent calendar's though.

We have Christmas bedding and it's lovely,we bought a set for each of our 5DC as well and they all love they're Christmas bedding.

They won't go on until the 1st of December though and I've picked up another set each for everyone and they'll get changed and washed once a week.

Elf on the shelf is so last year.... what can i do this year to get ahead and show em all on Facebook how my Christmas is so much more complete than theirs?

Everything about Christmas is so last year. And the year before. And the year before.
I have done 40 something Christmasses now and TBH it's all a bit samey, the addition of unnecessary bed linen won't improve things.

I do elf on the shelf,!indot post it on Facebook however!

I've also done 30+ Christmases they've never been the same but then again we have a large family 200+ and we ALL meet up once a year, then lots of little dinner parties.

One Christmas I didn't put the tree up until 27th December because we weren't going to have one because we fecking hate putting the lights on but I bought a prelit one for half price in the argos sale and put it up.

They were selling real trees in ikea yesterday so presumably the people buying them would have put them up this weekend. Won't it be dead by Christmas, or do people buy another nearer to Christmas?

Sparkling - so agree, that's a good thing about being more mature - done so many Christmasses that I've now got it fine tuned to what is actually essential - very little as it happens. I just don't get stressed out about Christmas anymore, I enjoy what I want to enjoy (which includes reading all the stressed out threads on Mumsnet ).

I'm with you Ragwort.

DD is 16 so there is so much stuff we don't do any more - Santa's grotto, no school productions, Elf on the Shelf (although I don't even know what it is as we never did it when DD was little). We don't have visitors over Christmas as family can't or won't travel and we can't stay with them as there is no room and DD is allergic to their pets.

I do most of my Christmas shopping online. I have cut down my Christmas card list, and sadly, most of the older members of both of our families have died so we have very few Christmas presents to buy.

The youngsters - all in their teens or twenties just want money for Christmas, which makes it easier for us as it is easier to post a cheque than send a parcel anyway.

So there are just 3 of us for Christmas, and I stopped worrying a long time ago about getting Christmas dinner on the table on the dot of a certain time.

Ooh a mature Christmas. I like the sound of that.

Just important stuff like and the family. We don't have Christmas dinner as nobody is fussed so it's just help yourself to what's in round here. If we have visitors they can help themselves too. No deadlines or clock watching.

This is a joke, right?

I've wrapped most of the presents this weekend and our decorations are up. Our tiny (£2 from ASDA about ten years ago) plastic tree is up, the real one will stay in the garden until later in December. I've got a vague idea of what food I'll need to organise. Christmas cards...well, that's DH's job and he might remember some time next August (strange British obsession with cards for everything...). Never had Christmas bedding in my life.
However, I'm 38+ weeks pregnant and have family staying for a week during Christmas, so...if the baby is late, he'll arrive rather close to Christmas (or on Christmas day...bloody hope not). I'm anticipating that I'll have other things to do closer to Christmas. We usually don't put anything up until mid-December at the earliest.
I thought I was early...

I've bought an advent calendar. I suppose I should do some other stuff in a week or so. So far Christmas prep has been pretty easy.

Not started yet

The OP is not too far from reality. My neighbour had all hers done and tree up by mid November. It's all a big competition, n

Sorry, didn't finish that! Mums at school are super smug and a common form of small talk is "all ready for xmas?". No I'm not!! I just haven't got any money spare & I'll be lucky if I've got everything by xmas eve. But the looks I get when I say that, like my child isn't getting anything if I haven't bought it by November. Get a life!!

Are you for real, banana bread ? 😳

You do know you're making us less-organised types feel bad, don't you?

Although . . . I have made a Christmas cake ( not marzipanned or iced yet, because it needs a whole load of brandy poured into it first ).

I have bought 2 presents ( mum and dad's ) , as yet unwrapped.

I have bought a frozen basted turkey from Lidl.

This is about normal for me at this stage. Thought I was doing ok. We never have decorations up until about the 18th Dec

Ok now have RTFT

Very funny OP.

My manager at work always completes her Christmas shopping by 1st Nov and tells us all. It's annoying.

Going to pay the last lay away off on Wed morning and then I've only got dh to get his last few bits. All wrapped up- wrap and hide as I buy to make it easer to hid them from 4 year old dd. Tree is up always put it up the last weekend of Nov.

That's exactly my point Stephanie, it's women pressuring women again to be the best organised. Grips my shit and has made me hate and dread xmas in equal measure because I've been made to feel inadequate

Have you written your detailed round robin letter about how well you and your extended family have all done this year, OP? Surely everyone's waiting to hear how many tap-dancing trophies the cat modestly accepted in 2016, whether you fixed the the shed roof despite the unhelpful shop assistant in the brown t-shirt who had to find out which glue you'd need, and how the neighbour's cousin's postman puts mixed colours of washing on the line (in December)?

Tooclever - yes exactly and the scale of Christmas seems to have increased so much lately. Am keeping things frugal this year, not quite Ebeneezer Scrooge but our financial circumstances changed this year ( DH redundant now self-employed) and we have much less money coming in. Ignore the school mums - I don't like to think of you dreading and hating xmas. In our house it is what it is, this year !

Never knew Christmas bedding was a thing until I came on MN! Still don't have any. But I do have most of the presents bought and wrapped and have made the cake

Well, Christmas is now officially ruined

Went round my neighbour's house and they've only gone and got Christmas toilet decs - apparently Marge down the road has them too..... Of course I had to order it, but it i isn't due to arrive AFTER until my Santa Stollen soirée for all the neighbours. I'll be the laughing stock

m.twinkledeals.com/festive-party-supplies/3pcs-christmas-santa-toilet-decoration/p_663269.html?currency=GBP&gclid=CjwKEAiAyO_BBRDOgM-K8MGWpmYSJACePQ9CFgch5BCVsYNYtp_ccsd4Jk3-hTa0gwJZT7TFbnBoFRoCBdvw_wcB

Bit pricey that Santa toilet set.

They have cheaper ones in ASDA.