Ridiculous made up 'traditions'

[Sittinonthefloor]

Looking at you on your shelf, Elf . It actually has the word 'tradition' on the box, after what, 2 years?

Also spotted today 'Christmas Table Favours' eh? Not a thing! They were like wedding favours (also ridiculous) but gold and silver. That's what crackers are for surely?

Advent calendars for grown ups, Christmas pjs, also Christmas Eve boxes (haven't dared discover what they are though).

Love, love, love made up / evolved family traditions but feel irrationally enraged by the commercial ones, and more so that people seem to fall for it with enthusiasm!

The Christmas jumper day thing is I think a classic example of a charity marketing/fundraising/'brand' management team really not thinking things through or talking with their operational staff about the impact of their campaign.

So, now parents across the country are paying 15 quid for a jumper for that day at school and paying a quid for Save the Children. It's crap for those who can't really spare the money at that time of year and I really don't think Save the Children thought this particular campaign through at all. But it's all about the 'brand' these days for lots of charities which are being asked to evidence 'impact'.

Anyway, the most festive Christmas jumpers I've seen at school are the slightly mothy ones with tinsel on the front.

I bought a couple of jumpers about 4 years ago and they wear the same one every year

Have they not grown?

Haven't RTFT but I have a knitting book from the 70s that contains patterns for:

• A Christmas jumper (not just fairisle, snowmen and reindeer feature)
• A Christmas village blanket (yes, a knitted snowy village scene complete with Christmas decs on the houses. So complex it blows my mind and would take me approximately a billion years to complete)
• A Christmas shawl
• children's Christmas jumpers in different boy and girl patterns
• various knitted Christmas decorations

The book clearly refers to Christmas jumpers being a tradition, so the concept wasn't new in the 70s, at least not to knitters!

There is definitely an air in the book of Christmas 'stuff' (asssuming yarn is stuff) buying and of having new clothes and decorations at Christmas, specifically for Christmas.

I have lots of children so they all get handed down broomstick

Christmas eve boxes have been around for a long time. As a child (am in my early 30s) and I got a Christmas eve box containing pjs choc and a video whereas my partner never got one. Elf if the shelf I believe is similar to a German (I think) tradition? My friends family has a tradition where on the run up to Christmas (am sure it starts the 1st Dec) a sweet is left in a clog 😂

We were just the two of us at Christmas for 15 years before DD came along and so we had a lot of 'adult' traditions that we enjoyed - watching It's a Wonderful Life on Christmas Eve with a glass of Grand Marnier. Putting some sausage rolls in the oven on the timer before walking down to the carols and midnight mass so that when we got home we'd have hot sausage rolls and hot choc with marshmallows before bed. Christmas morning we'd drink pink champagne and eat choccy croissants in our jimjams then open our prezzies to a backing track of cheesy Christmas tunes. If the weather was good we'd go for a long walk in the forest and have a drink in the pub there - during the brief period we had horses, we'd do a Christmas day hack, which also involved a pub stop for all. Actual dinner was usually much later in the day and consumed on the sofa with Dr Who on the telly, followed by turkey sarnies at midnight if we were still up. It was bliss.

One year DH's sister decided to 'rescue' us from this appalling fate and insisted we go with her and her then DH and kids to his mothers (so not any actual relation of ours at all...) for Christmas day. It was excruciating. They did Christmas outfits. A three line whip on the women to go in the kitchen and peel veg while the men sat around drinking. And they did 'table presents', which I'd never heard of before (and was looked at like a leper by SIL's SIL for saying so) and played some kind of weird board game that wasn't monopoly but went on and on and on and on....

But they were their traditions and I'm sure they all enjoyed them - I think they thought we were slightly feckless and borderline alcoholics when we described our usual Christmas :o Each to their own.

Christmas jumpers of the 70's though were made as a present. You didn't have to fork out for one for every family member and still have to buy a present.

Lots of families do fresh clean pajamas hot chocolate and a film Christmas Eve ( and most other nights in the winter).The concept of a "hamper" is what grates.

DMIL was German and expected Christmas Eve to be the big present session whereas my family were a no presents (except Santa) until after the Queen's Speech household. SO we decided on small presents on the tree (once the candles have been blown out) and then main presents after Church. Sometimes you have to create your own traditions when you are combining families.

WHen DDs were born I did make them each a fairly small stocking though so there is a limit on what Santa brings - they are now old enough to have rumbled that one.....

I do cringe at some of the consumerism (although, it's opportunity really - no demand, no supply!)
I think people want to create traditions - things like Christmas Eve boxes are part of that (don't personally do it, but each to their own)
I just hope that people don't go into debt for things they feel pressured into buying. It's such a difficult time for anyone on a very tight budget.
We have quite a few traditions, one being that you can't open any presents (other than Father Christmas ones) until the Queen has spoken at 3pm!
Adult advent calendars are my guilty pleasure- love, love, love my Cowshed one this year (& get very excited each morning!

What happened to one advent calendar (non-choc) between children? Taking turns. Im only 40 (something) but that was it in our house. My mum had completely changed tune by time her GCs arrived......one choc calendar each or i was being mean!!! Wth?!!

Elf on the Effing shelf. Ahhhhhrgh! No no no no no.

However, I have instigated a December calendar that records every day whether DS (5yo) has been naughty or nice to help him think about his behaviour. On Xmas eve it will be left for Father Christmas alongside the mince pie and carrot so FC can decide what to leave for him. DS knows that FC has been known to wrap up potatoes for those who don't make the grade...

I agree with this for the most part, but it is just supply and demand. I don't want to judge people for how they do Christmas any more than I wish to be judged for how I do mine.

Sorry peppa but that sounds really mean. Is your ds, at five, that badly behaved that he has to think about his behaviour every day for near on a month, in order to be rewarded at Christmas? Can't you just enjoy Christmas with him?

We give each other gifts because we love each other; FC gives gifts simply because he is kind to children and they believe and put their stockings out for him.

I love reading about other people's traditions as Christmas in my family was just a stressful argumentative time, no nice build up, just stress and then one frantic day trying to play happily families desperately.

It's my DS's first Christnas and although he's too young this year im thinking about ways I can make the whole of advent special. And Christnas Eve also, which was a non event in my family. Just lots of last minute cooking and wrapping in a bad atmosphere. I LOVE the idea of a Christmas Eve box. Doesn't sound consumerist at all. Sounds like a nice way to celebrate slowing down and enjoying time as a family.

I think the elf looks incredibly creepy and I don't like the whole naughty or nice thing but I've den some cute fabric elves and I think it would be fun for a small child to have a little elf who comes to stay for December.

I love Christmas,

I've always had new Christmas pjs for as long as i can remember and do this for my dd

We bake Christmas cookies on Christmas Eve for santa 🎅🏻 and we have an elf not the creepy one a cute one who just does activities and plays won her toys and brings small things on occasion but its story books that we'd buy anyway and small festive bits and bobs and I buy from the sale in Jan and put up, my dd loves it and finds it hilarious.

Our Xmas eve box contains our family Xmas pjs, festive story book, home made fudge and hot chocolate and we watch a movie together. We also go for a walk to look at the Christmas lights in our neighbourhood then home for pigs in blankets and chips.

We have a family North Pole brunch where we have all wear dodgy Xmas jumpers and play daft, Xmas games , do Xmas crafts and eat breakfast Sandwiches and cakes 🎂

As our family is relatively new (dd is 2 but it's her 3rd Christmas) we're building and shaping our own traditions

I'm not sure about others, but our 'Christmas' PJs aren't remotely Christmassy, this years they've got Marvel PJs with their Christmas Eve gift (which we don't put in a box either).

I'm in my 40s and we always got new pyjamas at Christmas as children and we've been doing it for the last 20 years with our children, there's nothing at all new about it.

And it's not to keep up with the Jones' either, I don't know or care what the Jones' do. It's just part of our Christmas, like turkey, chocolate oranges and the Radio Times.

We do Christmas eve pj's with hot chocolate and a film and have done since my first child was born 16yrs ago same as my parents done for me since I was born.

My DM still makes me up a stocking and I'm 32

Some of the things you mention are things that have always been traditions in my family. You might call them table favours, we call them table presents. They are instead of crackers and are actually something you can use (maybe a chocolate lolly for the children, a small hand cream/soap/bottle of something/home made sweets/nothing pricey but something you can use).
We had our elf long before they were so commercial.
I do have an advent calendar, but only because they were on offer, buy two for £3 of something and I have 3dc. Why would I not take advantage of an offer?

What's wrong with Christmas Eve boxes? This is not a new concept, I am 29 and we always received new pj's on Christmas Eve as children. When my sister and I got engaged, my Mum bought our partners Pj's too. I've carried it on with my own family now in the form of a Christmas Eve box, along with a new book/hot chocolate etc, nothing too extravagant. That's our tradition, not a made up commercial one as far as i'm concerned.

And if people want to make their own variation on Christmas crackers, what's wrong with that either? I again, have a memory of a family friend doing this for everyone about 20 years ago.

I do despise the elf on the shelf though, it is entirely creepy and over the top.

Surely a North Pole breakfast would be reindeer sausages?
I had some in Alaska once and they were OK.

YANBU. People should not feel pressured to join in things they do not wish to. Last year I actually got told off at work for not wearing Xmas jumper even though I still made charity contribution. I just didn't want to look stupid.

My sister bought me my first Advent calendar, I was seven or eight, she's ten years older and was working at the Tax office. It was a cardboard one with glitter on, it was the prettiest thing I'd seen. My Santa sack was a pillowcase and my stocking was one of my dads socks.
I think Facebook is to blame for a lot of the excessive shows of Festive breakfasts, mounds of presents, humongous trees.

Wow, people are getting grumpy that others see hot chocolate as a treat. Maybe that's more the issue. We can only afford to buy it at Christmas so it IS a treat. New PJs once a year IS a treat. Maybe if you can afford to buy these things throughout the year you have no need for these as treats on Christmas Eve. But for many people this is a one off.

We have a Christmas eve tradition of tea being whatever is reduced in Tesco's after the Christingle. It's one of my favourites, you just don't know what you're going to get!