Scrooge-like I know but all this lark is getting a bit much...

[Jacobandcara]

Are we ruining Christmas? I remember only 30 years ago Christmas was mentioned a few times the weeks before, I got a quick visit to Santa at the garden centre, wrote a letter and sent it up that chimney and wore an angel costume made out of a pillow case. Magical times.
Nowadays it's all gone crazy. Mums on our local facebook 'what's on' page are clamouring over booking several 'experience' events which cost 20-30 pounds a ticket. So Santa on a train...or visit Santa cove or lights all over the local zoo and we will charge you an arm and a leg. And from the reviews on Facebook people are splashing nearly 100 quid and often these events are badly managed with hours of queing and disappointment.
Christmas eve boxes. And now today I'm a grinch for not doing a 1st of Dec box. Wtf.
The bloody elf on the shelf....yawn.
It used to be just the occassional oddball that put their decorations up in November and now it's ten a penny.
Supermarkets selling ready made nativity costumes for 15quid.
A friend of mine has just paid 20quid for a personalised Santa letter reply. Honestly.
Wheres the charm and magic when it's all drawn out over weeks and weeks?
Bah humbug

Everything has been overhyped and extended in order to provide as many opportunities for people to spend $$$$ as possible.

I think this is it really, and applies to xmas, valentines, halloween, easter and other holidays/events.

I'm not a Christian and I have a very young daughter, so I'm starting to thing about how we spend the December holidays and handle comparisons she draws with other children. I like the idea of going to carol services (they are magical!), maybe going to look at the Harrods etc window displays, that kind of thing. FWIW when we celebrate Hannukah, which is around the same time and which stretches across eight days, I plan to give a toy/gift of her choice for night 1, and then more practical books/socks/PJs/new clothes for the remaining nights.

Decorations up in November is just plain wrong and I love Christmas.
The advent calendar for adults thing is weird.
Don't even get me started on the drag the kids round to every Santa themed thing for the next 4 weekends thing.
People need to stop trying so hard, Christmas isn't meant to be like this, it's just feels so forced now.
The best christmases I had were as a child. The decorations went up 2 weeks before Christmas, we saw Santa once at the school Christmas fair and my weekends in December stayed the same all the way up to and including Christmas. I would be at the stables Saturday and Sunday I would help out at our local RSPCA. My mum & I used to go to the RSPCA Christmas morning (6am until lunchtime) to help clean out and feed the cats & dogs so the staff could also go home at lunch time.
I now do the same with my kids and they love it and appreciate Christmas far more than the hyped up over excited at the beginning of December but bored of Christmas by the time it arrives friends of my children.

I agree. These days people just have this desire to buy/spend and the retailers have responded by designing tat for every occasion.
The experiences don’t bother me so much but I agree about the elf and the Christmas Eve boxes.
What makes me laugh is everyone seems to be constantly whining they’re skint and can’t afford holidays etc

I enjoy the moments: Sally Army playing carols in the dark at 4 pm, school carol service, putting up a tree with all the old familiar decorations, lovely dinner with everybody after more stuffing and gravy.

Everything else seems a bit superfluous and I get a bit like pre transformation Scrooge. And I hate the travelling on dark icy roads. I like to see my relatives but during daylight saving..

It’s all nuts and I love Christmas. Consumerism gone mad, people often with the least to spend the most affected, buying tons of crap they can’t pay off. In order to feel better about life and keep up on Facebook and Instagram. I went in pets at home the other day to be met by a wall of dog stockings and Christmas hats and jumpers. I wanted to jump up and down screaming “spend that money on vaccinating, neutering and insuring your pets, and give money to animal charities” .

If you live anywhere near Byron Road in Hampshire, you have my every sympathy.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-hampshire-42157743/christmas-lights-adorn-entire-street-of-hampshire-town

Entire street decorated with flashing tat. But it's OK, because it's for chari-dee.

It's capitalism. We all have to buy this stuff to prop up the economy.

A friend was in charge of a high street shops Christmas campaign - it started in Feb. On the day itself her and her boyfriend went for a curry they were so over Christmas.

30 years ago I went on a Santa on a train 'experience'. I got a Thomas book and tape.

We also wrote to Santa and got a reply back from the Royal Mail and visited Santa's Grotto. Those things aren't new.

I totally agree with the posters saying it is now all greed and social media showing off, all driven by capitalism and the need for us to buy! buy! buy! in order for the system to continue. Result? Envy, debt and a planet choking on plastic TAT.

Merry fucking Christmas!

I hate the over commercialisation of Christmas and Valentine's and everything else that has gone mad over the last 20 years and unfortunately it continues because so many people buy into it (literally).

As for Save The Children, I'm afraid there have been too many shoddy practices by them in the last decade for me to consider them a good charity, although I think things are improving there.

The excess may be new but the whole 'lets get ready for Christmas nearly 6 months before the event' is not that new.

When I was at school (so this was at least 25 years ago) I had a summer job in a greetings card warehouse (that mostly sold cards etc to small newsagents and independent shops) and while I was there they had their 'Big Christmas Launch Event'.

I also remember coming back from holiday a few years later and being shocked to see all the Quality Streets etc appearing in the shops in mid September.

But it's probably the effect of needing a constantly growing economy. Eventually you are going still need growth even when you have gone well past 'everyone' having everything they can possibly need. Because if the economy is flat, or contracting, that is bad. So it seems that to avoid going into recession, we need people to be buying crap they don't want or need with money they don't have .

But the most disgusting part of all this excess is that it is generally manufacturered by very poor people working long hours for a pittance in poor countries so we can have all these luxuries relatively cheaply.

My mum & I used to go to the RSPCA Christmas morning (6am until lunchtime) to help clean out and feed the cats & dogs so the staff could also go home at lunch time.

freefrom this sounds like my DS's ideal christmas. We aren't anywhere near a rescue centre (and have no transport on xmas day anyway) so couldn't do it, but I am Officially Jealous.

Is it filled with (bah) humbugs?

I do love Christmas, it was always a big deal in our house growing up but I think a huge part of the excitement for us was the anticipation. Looking forward to the school holidays, being brought into town to see the lights and the best window display, putting up the tree and decorations, Santa of course, the Christmas dinner, tins of roses and quality street (only to be opened on the big day itself) people visiting, what would be the "big movie" shown on Christmas Day.

The thing is, all of this was over a ten day to two week period it didn't start from bloody October! And it was one trip into town to visit Santa and see the lights, a day out that was very exciting to us because actually even a trip into Dublin city centre was a big deal to us children, it wasn't the norm then to wander around shopping malls as a leisure experience as it is now.

Santa(s) didn't actually "arrive" in shopping centers until two weeks before at the earliest. No one had ever heard of Christmas Eve boxes, hell an advent calendar was something the teacher had in the classroom and we all got to admire the pictures in it. It all felt really special and exciting because it was for such a short period and because these treats and experiences were not the norm through the year for so many of us.

Like I said I love Christmas but I think many parents who believe they're making it special for their dc (and probably stressing themselves out in the process) are in reality diluting the excitement and the magic for those dc by "doing" Christmas to excess. I actually think it's almost cruel to small children to put up decorations in November! I really wonder will those dc have the fond memories we (some of us at least) have of our childhood Christmases or will all the events and experiences just run together with the memories of all the other events and experiences that are now considered the norm in children's lives?

I have found my people!

I have never done elf on the bloody shelf, xmas eve boxes never mind the new 1st december boxes (wtf is that?)
We go to xmas market at edinburgh and this year ( well in jan) are going to the zoo light extravaganza. Kids used to go to panto with primary school now we sometimes go sometimes not.
Kids have a stocking and presents under the tree. I dont post pictures of them anywhere.
We have some xmassy plates but have used the same ones for 5 years they cost less than £1 each in home bargains😀

Putting the tree up is first weekend after 1st dec and a big deal for us. Although that's not going to work this year due to me working!

I do gold coin trail from kids bed to tree (even though they are too old to believe now they still love it) kids bring thier stockings through to my bedroom, they can open a couple of pressies under tree before breakfast and thats about it tradition wise. We chill out for the rest of the day opening and playing with pressies. No haring about visiting people just us.

I think putting decs up in November is awful. Xmas is a specific time of the year not 2 months ling. it ruins the magic if you have decs up for 2 months surely? You are used to them by xmas so its not something special any more.

We love xmas in our house but we dont see it as an excuse to spend a fortune on 'stuff' just to keep up with the joneses.

And dont get me started with shops filing shelves with crap in october before Halloween...let's keep things in order please. Halloween is huge here just stop with the xmas tat until december ffs.

I'll be a Grinch with you OP, I agree. It was magical years ago because it was understated. Understated is good. I don't see how children can easily develop much imagination about any seasonal event now as everybody's so bombarded with 'stuff' - and even more shite to buy.

It's too much. I don't care what other people do but I do care that it's foisted on me too because it's what drives massive consumerism in this country.

I'm really hoping that the plastics recycling crash has a stupefying effect on the amount of cheap plastic tat we import.

I yearn for yesteryear a lot... when we had snow sometimes too. :)

Well that was long, I obviously feel strongly about this .

I think we should maybe enjoy it while we can. In 5-10 years when we are all at war, the earth is grey and dead, we are hungry and cold and poor - we will look back and fucking marvel at what we had and threw away.

(Just really depressed looking at the news these days. Hate and willy-waving and warheads and suffering )

We are all very obedient consumers.

I don't do any of the "extras" and I don't think my friends do either.

I do it exactly as when I was a kid and it has never crossed my mind to do differently.

You don't have to buy into the bollocks you know. Not in a million years could I be arsed with elf on the shelf, arctic breakfasts, Christmas eve boxes, matching pjs and Christmas bedding (wtf?) and all the other crap.

If other people want to then that's up to them. No one is forcing anyone else to take part

It is just more pressure - people should be able to celebrate, or not, and do whatever pleases them. A lot of it is just hype.

We do a fairly low key xmas. Decs never up till December, santa's stocking on xmas eve, nice dinner on xmas day, prezzies for all on the day, not OTT and that's about it.

I love it when the rotary club send the santa float round a few days before xmas with his music and lights. The kids love to see that out of the window. School nativity and party all lovely.

We'll do ONE trip to a grotto. Google the garden center reviews first to make sure it's not too £££ and the atmos is nice.

When my eldest was 5 or 6 DM decided we should pay for her to go to a local 'magical blue fairy at xmas' experience in the grounds of a local stately home. It was cold, naff, overpriced and too long and dragged out for what they actually had going on and i vowed never to bother with anything like that again. DD doesn't even remember it now!

Little home grown traditions are the best ones. Cooking together, putting up the decs together, getting santas biscuit/carrot/milk out and writing the note and dusting off the sack or stocking. They're the bits that your kids will remember fondly when they're grown up.

@Nakedavenger74 I completely agree ! I love hearing about a crap "Winter Wonderland"! And then I feel bad for laughing at the sad faces in the local paper.

I agree Christmas has gone mad though. My SILs are really into the big Santa experiences, Elf on the bloody Shelf, Christmas Eve crap, every new fad that comes along. They want to make it "magical", apparently. Last year their DCs were so hyped up that by the time Christmas came they were exhausted and just alternated between hyper and whiny all fucking day.

We usually do a 'Father Christmas On a train' because we are steamheads and like any excuse to go and visit one of the heritage/miniature railways. But we also like Halloween, and my birthday is early December, so Christmas doesn't really get much of our attention until we are into December.
I hate EOTS though. Talk about training your DC to accept permanent, intrusive surveillance by the authorities For Their Own Good, and learn to love it...

their DCs were so hyped up that by the time Christmas came they were exhausted

this as well.

IME there's only so much a kid can take in a day before 'excitement fatigue' sets in and they start to glaze over a bit and just want to sit and watch a bit of Hey Dougie (or whatever) in the afternoon.

I am very anti-consumerism so don't buy (or receive) many presents but I do love Christmas anticipation and I thought new nighties/pjs on Christmas Eve was compulsory! I wish ELf on a Shelf had been around when my DC were little, it sounds like a lot of fun.

The thingsI hate most about modern Christmas are gift boxes of toiletries. They are piled high in all the high street chemists and are generally over-packaged and unwanted, the gift equivalent of handing over a tatty, out of date £5 note you found in the botttom of an old handbag. I also dislike the 'buy 2 get 1 free' gift offers. Unless you are very lucky with the range on sale, it becomes 'buy 1 or 2 things you actually want/need and take away a third unwanted piece of tat to fob off on someone' .