To not recognise Christmas on Mumsnet?

[Kikisxmas]

I love reading all of the Christmas threads but more than ever this year I can't relate to much of it. I'm not slating anyone's way of doing things btw, it just seems that the norm here is not what I know and experience in real life at all.

Some examples;

Not visiting family at Christmas- I don't know anybody who doesn't spend Christmas/part of Christmas with family or friends.

Minimal gifts for dc- it sometimes seems like a competition on here, who can spend the least/buy the least for their dc. There's definitely some snobbery about those of us who buy lots of presents and the assumption it's tat. I'm not including those who can't spend much here btw.

Christmas Eve boxes/elf on the shelf/stockings- Again I've seen so many posts, some pretty nasty derisive comments to those who participate.

Giving random essentials for Christmas- A mattress and a potty are the standout ones for me this year.

So is it just me!? Like I said I'm not bitching about those who do things differently, I understand some people aren't big on Christmas, don't like it for personal reasons, don't like the commercialism etc.

Not looking for a bunfight, just curious about how your Christmas is and if it fits the mn norm?

Christmas eve has never been a day for me. It was always just a normal working day when i grew up. Dad went out on the lash and mum wrapped presents. Now with my kids we don't do much. This year we may go to a carol concert at the church.

Christmas day, growing up this was just Mum, Dad and me. Same for DH (both only children and not close with extended families). Now my parents pop over in the morning for an hour, but don't stay long as they wouldn't be able to have a drink and drive home. We have room for them to stay but they have a dog so can't leave her too long. Fil will come over for dinner later but he has dementia and has no idea what christmas is anymore - not that he ever really cared anyway. I'll cook a turkey roast which the dc wont touch and i'm not bothered about.

Boxing day my parents will come over for dinner and get a taxi home. I'll do a meal i will really enjoy, venison or beef wellington followed by a ginger and orange trifle.

As for presents, we have spent about £200 on each of the kids. They get them from my Mum and Dad but no one else and we can afford it.

Never heard of christmas boxes/pjs etc.

Everyone else i know has extended family type xmases. But if you have a small family there isn't much you can do.

I'm lol-ing at the mattress angst, my parents bought me a garden fence last year grin best present ever!

Sounds like a useful, practical present. Genuinely. But to explain, the mattress was something a renowned Mumsnet fantasist had supposedly given to one of their fictional brood.

I love the church part of it too, IamalsoSpartacus. It's the most important part really, for my family. We go to Mass Christmas Eve.

I live on another continent from my family, and at least a day by car from cousins who are in the same hemisphere. When I only had three DCs we used to make the 9 hour trip to the exILs to stay for the whole holiday. After having the fourth this became a pita so we went for Thanksgiving instead. Still a pita to schlep four and then five DCs all the way there and back. I would dearly love an Irish Christmas with family but that will not happen any time soon. In any case, all the aunts and uncles who made Christmas visits so nice are now dead.

Elf on the Shelf is a brand new thing that wasn't around when my DCs were small. I think it's the epitome of crass Christmas-related materialism - the creator of this 'tradition' is laughing all the way to the bank. Elf kits sell for $29.99 here. We have an Advent wreath and light candles on each Sunday.

We have stockings here, small ones that get packed with Christmas chocolate figures from Aldi and a Toblerone each. I never put toys in stockings when playing Santa Claus, and as a child on the receiving end we didn't have stockings. Is this a British thing?

I don't know what a Christmas Eve box is. I never had one as a child.
We open presents that come from family (GPs, relatives, godparents, etc) on Christmas Eve. Now that my DCs are aged 16-27 each one gets all the others something. It's lovely to see what care they have taken to get a thoughtful gift for their siblings or how effectively they have taken advantage of Black Friday... I do Santa Claus, and they get a mixture of useful and frivolous things every year. As children they always got a book plus some toys/craft things etc. Of course the sort of thing they were into changed over the years.

Over my dead body would I go into debt for the sake of Christmas or a birthday or First Communion, Confirmation, graduation, prom, etc. We celebrate, but within my means - I never use my cc for gifts. This does not mean anyone gets just a packet of tube socks but if it came to that, they would. I also don't like emphasising the acquiring of gifts because Christmas is a religious holiday that imo has nothing to do with new toys or iPads really.

I agree with Bruno Bettelheim that Santa Claus is a metaphor for unconditional love and a benevolent God and that is why I participate in the materialistic hoopla, to the extent that I do, and the DCs were firm believers in Santa Claus until I thought they could handle the truth.

The DCs always got up at the crack of silly o'clock to open presents and gobble chocolate. One year I heard them creeping 'noiselessly' downstairs at about 3am and decided to just roll over and go back to sleep, and let them rip. They had just gone down to peek though - when I got up I found them curled up asleep on the hard wood floor under the tree, poor sad little urchins. It was quite a sight . The idea of keeping them waiting as children for present opening until after lunch would have been unthinkable. We always had breakfast after all the presents had been found and opened. Now that they are all older I have to poke them to get them up.

We live in a very multicultural area where people have multitudes of ethnic and family traditions. Everyone here does their best not to do any comparing and contrasting of each other's way of doing things. This applies to Christmas too, so there is no comparing of other children's loot. 'To each his own' applies. 'Showing off' was always frowned upon when I was a child, and in turn I didn't let my children do it.

When i grew up i got coats and shoes and hats and scarves for xmas and birthdays. It never occurred to me till i came on MN that this was considered cruel and my parents responsibility to clothe me and i should have just got toys! But it was fairly standard. Every year, coat from Mum and Dad, hats and scarves and jumpers from grandparents. Birthday (close after xmas) boots/shoes/jeans etc. There were a few years i got 'things' but mostly it was clothes. Still now i save up a list of things i want throughout the year and ask for money towards boots/jeans/moisturiser. Even tho i can afford to buy them when i need them.

People save all year, get into debt, go without to provide a "good" Christmas.

I was already in debt even before the Christmas shopping, don't plan on providing a sofa full of presents, but do plan on providing a "good" Christmas nonetheless.

I have seen a non-trivial number of posters here on mumsnet talk about 35-50 presents for their kids being the norm, which I personally think is obscene.

AIBU To not recognise Christmas on Mumsnet?

YABU - Other people's Christmas' might differ from yours in the details, but not so much as to be completely unrecognisable celebrations. You seem to be deliberately taking 000s of different people's posts about their 000s of different ways of organising Christmas and conflating it into "nobody on MN does Christmas like I do".

I don't recognise a MN Christmas either with regards to the one or two gifts or buying parenting essentials instead of presents.

Nor the after Christmas moaning about gifts, usually aimed at MILs, or the use of children's cash or voucher gifts to buy things for the household or essentials that parents should be buying which is also common on here.

There's always been a lot of thriftiness at Christmas on here, it's like a competition as to who can spend the least on their children.

I love seeing pictures of giant piles of presents round Christmas trees. It makes me think of cornucopias (sp?) horn of plenty, the abundance of love behind the gifts not the money. On the other hand I like the idea of a minimal Christmas too with the emphasis on other than materialism.

We spend Christmas Eve mostly at home just us. I make our special dinner and afterward we cozy up and watch It's a Wonderful Life. Then midnight Mass. Christmas morning we have a log fire and open presents after which we and dc drive to my parents where our whole extended family gathers for Christmas lunch and presents and lots of talk, conversations, and general fun with the young ones running all over the house. Then we go home exhausted. Wonderful though.

Oh and A Christmas Carol is a must, read or watched as a family or to the play.

Magical time for us. Also the Luke narrative, reading a little each day.

We've never visited family for Christmas, neither dh or I grew up with it. For him it was because his mother was a publican and for me, because my family believed Christmas should be spent with immediate family only and that is the family you live with and not extended family. In their later years we did take it in turns with Aunts on maternal and paternal side to host the Grannies but I can't get my head round inviting 10 people round to your house on a day that is so special. I want to devote the day to my kids not chatting to my friends or extended family.
We don't do Xmas eve boxes as we celebrate St Nicholas Day due to dh being Swiss. So the kids get their Xmas jammies and dvd then.
I don't know exactly what random essentials entails but my lot get their annual underwear quotient in their stockings and my main Xmas pressie age 15 was a new bed and simply the BEST present I ever received.
We don't do minimal gifting but my parents did so I'm not shocked by it. The year of the bed I got that and a duvet cover. They were incredibly wealthy so it wasn't because a bed is an expensive item, but because you only got one or two items per Xmas in our family.
I buy my kids a lot more because I grew up awed by my friends Christmas as her Mum bought her lots of lovely things and she felt genuinely spoilt for that one day a year.

Growing up we got an orange and black walnuts in our stocking plus a giant peppermint stick and a few presents, one clothing, one book, and 2 or 3 toys.

I never heard of a CE box until mn!

Ok @perspicacia everybody else on the thread seems to have understood that I'm not saying "nobody else does Christmas like I do" but that on mn the majority seem to have a Christmas that is unrecognisable/ very different to me and my Christmas.

@math I agree with most of your post, I did do elf on the shelf this year, I bought him from the £1 shop and he's just brought a bit of Christmas fun for my dc. Nothing that's cost money just silly things really.

There's surely a differene between being thrifty, and depriving your children though. DS has a large novelty stocking (I got in it for a photo last year, and 5'6" it came between my waist and boobs) which is full, and his main gift is seperate to that. However we've probably only spent about £100/£120 on everything (I know that isn't exactly an insignificant amount of money, but the gifts look as if it has cost a lot more). I make some bits (for enjoyment, not to show off), shop in sales, use loyalty points and coupons. I do consider myself thrifty, yet DS still has a fair pile of gifts. I don't feel he's been short changed in any way.

it's the norm here to provide a sofa full of presents. People save all year, get into debt, go without to provide a "good" Christmas.

Whereas I don’t know a soul who does this. Different strokes/different folks.

We don't see family over Christmas as i'm in a different country from my parents, one of whom chooses to spend 6 weeks in Oz with my other sibling.

In-laws live nearby but we don't see them because they are cunts.

We see friends with/without dc over the festive period, which over here doesn't finish until 6th January (BIG hangover day!).

It is me, DH and one DC plus dog. Lots of boardgames, eating, walking the dog (we are near both beach and mountains) to burn off all that cheese.

Christmas day is stocking from us, presents from The Guy in Red, other presents from friends/family.

Not much lounging in pjs as we walk the dog and ds is a firework who needs tons of exercise.

Being abroad we don't do (or don't want to do) xmas bedding, eots, xmas eve box, 1st dec hamper, carols, cristingle, midnight mass. We do, however, have a smiley-faced log that poos sweets on Christmas Eve.

Our tree is fake. Our decs are mostly made by me out of felt, wood, string, beads - and they're ones i made, let alone the glittery pinecones and cardboard looroll reindeer that DS has made over the years.

His presents this year are fun to do alone (jigsaws) or with help (My 1st Science kit). He has got some cheerful pants, some slime, some blue tak (from his list)...all sorts of stuff.

I don't bat an eye over how others do or don't do Christmas. But the "OMG you don't see family?" brigade piss me right off.

it's the norm here to provide a sofa full of presents. People save all year, get into debt, go without to provide a "good" Christmas

Whereas I don’t know a soul who does this. Different strokes/different folks

Me neither.

When my boys were younger I could easily fill a sofa with presents and not break the bank. As they got older the presents goy smaller and but more expensive.
Even though they are now 19 and 21 ( both still at home) I still do the Santa sack at the bottom of their bed but where it was once filed with small toys and Beano annuals it now contains deodorant and shower gel, pants and socks that are better than the usual Tesco multi packs bought and any weird bits that I think are funny( this year my oldest has a bobbing head of Donald trump)

We will visit one sibling Christmas Eve and maybe have drinks with another 2.

Christmas morning we will visit my DPS then oh DPS then a bit of time alone before returning to ohs DPS for lunch then to mine for tea.

No living DC but oh and I will spend a couple of hundred on each other so have decent piles and we will get piles off DPS too.

We are working class although I guess financially now if it weren't for all our debt we would be middle class.

Part of the problem is so few people actually get the holiday they want because they are so busy trying to please others and do "the right thing"

Cantspell that reminds me of the Pope Soap on a Rope that DM brought be back from Italy

Christmas Day is now just me, DH and DD. This is due to family dwindling/moving away over the years but also because that’s the way it was when I was a kid and I loved my Christmas Days at home with just DM and DF.

Christmas Eve or Boxinv Day are for visits either out or here.

Christmas Eve box is always done... new PJ’s, dressing gown, hot choc etc

I go way OTT with Advent... wrap 24 little gifts (£1 each or so) and each ones numbered for the days ... totally my own new tradition but I (and DD) bloody love it!

Gifts lean towards a couch full (only we put them in a pile on the floor).

I suppose I’ve tried to recreate my own childhood christmasses which were so so happy, whist adding in my own new traditions. Love it

I think I might like a Pope soap on a rope😀

I'd love a Pope soap on a rope

We've got bird-watching FIL a mug with British Tits on it. With pictures of the birds. But also it says tits.

I'm in the 3rd house I've been in since receiving it,and it still has pride of place in my bathroom. It's possibly the best gift I've ever received

There's a lot of stuff I just don't 'get', such as Christmas day pj's, or getting rat arsed, or having a holiday/ break, but then I've always worked in retail so it's never been a break, always a mad rush and getting drunk is not a thing now I'm in my mid 40s as going to work with a hangover is grim.
I hear people all the time talk about their 'xmas nails'/ 'xmas outfit'/ 'xmas hair 'and just don't get it. But then I never, ever go to xmas parties! I've worked for small retailers that just don't have the budget and friends don't have them although there may sometimes be the odd meal, that no one dresses up for. I am now temping for a huge retailer but as a temp I was not invited to their do.
As for family, most people I know are too far from theirs, or estranged, or working. Since I've been with DP we go to his family but this year will now be a mad rush to leave early Boxing Day morning to drive a few hundred miles for me to work BD afternoon (rota was changed and not negotiable) :(
As for practical presents, I bought a very dull one today, a plate rack for DP (but really for both of us) but we do really need one as all our different sized plates are lumped together and it's a pain to keep lifting them.
I don't have kids and certainly don't understand things like Elf On the Shelf , this seems to be a very new thing here in UK?
Also things like Christmas Eve presents...when did that start?