... to be sad at the way Christmas seems to have changed?

[MereDintofPandiculation]

I was brought up to view Christmas as a magical time, but a time above all for giving. Getting together as a family (grandparents cousins, aunts, uncles) because it's one of the few times that the family does get together. Making sure no-one is left out. Learning to enjoy yourself and have a happy time with others even if your home is full of relatives, or you spent an hour on Christmas morning travelling to other relatives who don't make the bread sauce and brandy butter quite as well as your mother.

Nowadays on MN "family" means "me, DH, DC" and Christmas is all about receiving and not giving. "You have a right to spend Christmas in your own home". Everything centres around making it perfect for the children, without any thought of modelling for them the qualities of thinking about other people.

AIBU in thinking this not only makes life more unpleasant for older relatives who are excluded or barely tolerated, but that it also bodes ill for the future, in moving society more towards "it's all about me" and less about taking responsibility as a society for the welfare of all its members?

We decided a few years back it was only fair to stay at home as our own little family on Christmas day we just take it in turns to visit eahh other in our pj's as the kids wanted to play with all their new toys not be with family but on boxing day we all still get together an have a curry and a little party. Kids prefer to do this so they spend all Christmas day playing! Also saves the arguing who's goin who's for Christmas Dinner!! Xx

I recognise your Christmas of days gone by.. along with relatives that couldn't be bothered to even remember our individual names (3 sisters), passive aggressive comments towards my mum and a dark cloud cast over Christmas becasue we've to go see the other half of the family becasue "it's expected".

I don't do that with my child. It's nothing to do with it being all about him and it thinking of other people and everything about spending time with people we all love and enjoy being around.
I'm not being beholden to family just because it's what is expected.

Nope, not at all. We had lovely Christmases just us as kids, boxing day was for duty visits. Think of the poor parents caught between the generations.

Why is the forgiving only meant to go one way? Aunty Mary tutting about spoiled children and tsking about mealtimes isn't being very inclusive, is she?

You can be sad all you like but YABU.

You were brought up to trail around after other people. Isn't it nice that people have realized that trying to cram three families worth of celebration into a single day is unfeasible and no fun for lots of people?

Also, why should old people come first? I VERY rarely say this, but children should be at the centre of Christmas Day, and no kid whatsoever thinks the nice bit is carting around to different houses when they could be playing with their toys.

But then I was brought up to view Christmas as a SEASON of good will, with plenty of days to spread out the joy between friends, family and neighbours. Not a possessive obsession with the day itself, which yes, was always just our family.

You’re assuming that in “the past” everyone did Christmas like your family, and now everyone has insular Christmas days at home based on what you’ve read on Mumsnet.

Seriously, you are basing 'Christmas has changed' via a few posts on mumsnet. You're not even on the Christmas board. Plenty of people will spending time with relatives but the posts yij ajve been Reding are usually about people who have been guilt tripped 'because its Christmas'. Read the post today about a MIL who banished her DIL from her own kitchen , moaned all day about the quality of ingredients and refused to ever visit again. The family is expected to travel for hours to hers - where is the Christmas spirit of the magical past in that. Its manipulative and entitled. Enjoy your lovely extended family Christmas but don't assume everyone else's is as blessed.

I don't think it's Christmas that has changed, it is our whole way of life. Most families have two working parents and little time off over Christmas, not having a mum at home full time to do all the preparation means that there is hardly any time to just relax and enjoy your own family, so I fully understand why some elderly relatives get 'left out'.

I have some lovely christmas memories of both large gatherings and just close family. If you're forced to spend the day with people you don't like or get on with then it isn't much fun for anyone.

If you read the posts you're criticising you'll see a lot of people felt dragged from pillar to post as children, never able to enjoy their gifts, spend time in their own homes, enjoy being with their parents because their parents were run ragged driving up and down the country trying to appease relatives that didn't make an effort the rest of the year and then demand the seasonal visit. They want better for their children. How could that possibly be a bad thing?

It's not my experience at all as we had no extended family, but it's clear if you bother to try and understand where people are coming from that for lots of them their childhood Christmas wasn't actually magical at all. It was dictated by overbearing relatives and scared parents.

Also what thecatsthecats put more eloquently!

Christmas with relatives you can't stand is hideous! We decided long ago to only have Christmas at home and meet up with relatives on Boxing day.
Made everything much easier, even for the elderly relatives who hated it anyway!

Those Christmases of old are still my Christmases of now and I love them. But I've been very lucky. Our extended family is very close and we all get together several times a year. One of my aunts has always had a house just big enough for us to all squeeze in. Now that we're moving into a third generation, I don't know how much longer that can last and it does make me sad.

But... I know so many people who have spent their Christmases negotiating unpleasant family politics. If that had been my life growing up, I'm sure I'd want it to be just me DH and DC as well.

Well my family, is myself and dd, so what do you make of that? I don’t do forced family time at any point in the year. Especially Christmas. Me and dd in pjs celebrating our awesomeness is all we need.

fenneltea makes a good point. Both me and dp work in healthcare as do several members of both sides of the family. We just don't have the time off over Christmas to do all the dutiful visiting even if we wanted to. I put my foot down about 5 years ago when my gran had planned my 2 days off during the whole Christmas period and arranged all the family visiting around that. As lovely as the thought was it was exhausting and I never actually got to enjoy any time with just my immediate family and ended up feeling resentful of everyone that had the entire week off.

YANBU. Christmas really has been steadily becoming a more materialistic occasion over the last few decades. We are also being peddled, through ads, glossy magazines and telelvision programmes this idea of the 'perfect' Christmas, which doesn't exist, but which leaves some people dissatisfied with their own ordinary Christmasses and desperately trying to make them more glamorous, unique or glossy.

I also find some of the threads on here around Christmas time quite depressing - people hugely resentful of having to make any effort for extended family over Christmas, or pandering totally to what their children want to do, or even leaving a parent of sibling alone over Christmas because they're 'too tired' 'want it to be just us' or whatever.

I'm not talking about toxic situations, which are the exception of course.

YABU

Christmas for us is calm and quiet and lovely. Boxing day is crazy visit relatives day. Was the same when I was a kid as well.

We always did Christmas at home with just us and visited relations another day.
We do the same now. DH would rather cancel altogether then endure his DM's presence all Christmas day!

YABU you are saying that your childhood Christmas is the correct way to do it.

Of course people can stay at home if they like. You are remembering the child's memory, for the adults it was most likely not so much fun

I was bought up having Christmas as just me, Mum, Dad and the dog. I LOVED it. And it has been and stayed that way for 26 years. This will be the first Christmas I'm not living at home and I will probably still be going back home to spend it with my parents.

Way I see it is why suffer through 'making nice' with relatives you don't make an effort to see the rest of the year, or just tolerate when you do.

"children should be at the centre of Christmas Day,"

I disagree. Why should children come before a lonely grandmother, a widowed aunt, a neighbour with no family or whatever? Why can't it be about compromising so that no one is left out, if possible. When did it become a childcentric occasion?

You were brought up to trail around after other people. Isn't it nice that people have realized that trying to cram three families worth of celebration into a single day is unfeasible and no fun for lots of people?

Yup. I was brought up in the full knowledge that my siblings and I were way down the bottom of the totem pole compared the expectations of a bunch of adults who were, frankly, never remotely nice to us, and to whom my parents never questions their duty.

And I say that as someone who travels, with my DH and six year old, and enormous expense, every Christmas, to our home country to spend it with family. BUT we rent our own place and host everyone, because that best for us and DS.

I'm with you op. Christmas for us is about coming together with the wider family. I'd be disappointed if it was just us. It's about enjoying a wonderful meal together, playing games and generally being sociable. Presents are the least important part of the occasion and now the kids are older we've scrapped all the present exchanges except to our own dc and then a secret Santa for the wider family.

Well Christmas has changed for me. Christmas as a child was all about the whole family getting together, but relatives have died, married, had children, moved away etc so the whole dynamic is different.
I spend Christmas with my DH and our four kids and that's the way we like it. If a family member was alone then they would be welcome to join us but everyone has somewhere to be. Giving the kids their best Christmas at home is my priority, not relatives I only see once every few months.

YANBU. Christmas for us still involves the whole family and a couple of friends with no where to go. Children don’t need to be in their own home all day to enjoy the new toys. I can’t imagine leaving my parents, in-laws and elderly grandmother out of Christmas Day.

YABU.
When I was little my parents stopped tying my cot to the roof of the car and travelling for hours to relatives for Xmas. The relatives came to us. When my dc were little we became the hosts. Nothing much else has changed for us in all those years.
Yes everyone is better off financially so we spend a bit more but we're not talking silly money.

My Christmas has certainly changed since I was a child. Then as an only child our Christmas day was me and my Mum and Dad. As magical as they made it for me I did used to thinking longingly about those friends who told of large family gatherings.

Now my children are adults with families of their own I do get to enjoy those large family gatherings. Their choice and with the arrangements that they make.

I guess now as always, each family makes their own pattern.