... 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?

Yes it always makes me laugh when people hanker after the stress free christmases of their childhood. Their parents were probably going batshit behind the scenes just like we do now.

"It's astonishing how freeing it is to cast off the should and musts, which, again, devolve disproportionately on women."

Well that surely depends on what the consequences are for others. I mean, if you don't want to attend a funeral but know your bereaved best friend would like you there for support, it might be 'freeing' to say no, but it's also unkind and selfish.

It's not a very good comparison, is it? Anyone can attend a funeral, but from what I've seen, the bulk of the work for Christmas (the cooking, hosting, serving, present-buying, card-writing and decorating that Sondheim mentions) is done by women.

Why is it unkind and selfish for women to increasingly say they're not willing to do this?

I can't think of anything worse at Christmas than spending the entire day dressed in pyjamas! When I was growing up, it was a day for your best dress and shoes indoors!!!

OP if you wish your christmases were same as the old days then the onus is very much on you to recreate that yourself for your family and your friends.
I am sure they would be delighted to be invited to your old fashioned christmas. You can show them what they are missing and do it every year and therefore will never be disappointed.

if you don't want to attend a funeral but know your bereaved best friend would like you there for support, it might be 'freeing' to say no, but it's also unkind and selfish.

But most people would want to support their bereaved best friend, if at all possible.
It is freeing making the choice not to subject your kids to Christmas afternoon with auntie Phyllis who, after half a bottle of Bristol Cream about how kids have far more than they need, these days and why is daisy not wearing a pretty dress and she doesn't know why you insist on working full time yet still live in that horrid little house. She hopes that Alfie doesn't turn out to be as useless as his father and you'd best not have any more quality street because you really can't get away with the extra corries, you know...

We do different stuff each year. Sometimes we visit my folks or the in-laws, sometimes we stay at home, sometimes ExH has been invited and once DS1 spent it with his dad abroad. This year we will be doing it at home in our PJs and DS2's godfather has invited himself.

Me, mum and MiL will still cook our bits, but the advent of freezers means that most of it can be done in advance and delivered during December. I think YABU OP to do the same thing every year!

I think your childhood comparison of Christmas day would be different from many others. As children we never spent xmas with extended family, ever. As an adult I have visited extended family and spent it with them. Likewise extended family have spent it with us, many times. But the truth is in my house, the majority of xmas chores falls on the woman. The best Xmas days are my most recent ones, these consisted of only my husband, kids and me. Because I wasnt running around serving drinks, preparing dinner, serving up, washing up, more drinks followed by a tea time buffet, more drinks. Followed by my taxi service to take them all home. It's hard work, I missed out watching the kids open and playing with their presents and I can't have a drink! Time is so precious as my husband is always working shifts. So I genuinely don't feel bad for not including extended family for Xmas day. Love that I can drink bucks fizz for breakfast, while watching the kids open prezzies and play, in my pjs. Dinners ready when ever it's ready, and if we're still stuffed then its just a sausage roll, and a few chocs for tea!

We take it in turns to have the elderly relatives. It works both ways though, they are grateful to come but find the children too excitable and noisy. They then get crabby and snappy and I end up wishing they would go home early if they have had enough. I think rose tinted views don’t do anyone any favours. I will continue to do my duty and invite them, because I do believe nobody should be lonely. It is very hard balancing all the generations at Christmas time.

My own childhood was spent with lots of family and I loved it. But my grandmother had a huge house that could fit everyone in. Nowadays she is too elderly to host christmas and the younger generation can’t afford the huge houses. It is a squeeze to seat 6 people at mine! We tried to host it at her house and do all the cooking and tidying up there etc but she got so so stressed out we didn’t do it again. And so our christmasses have become much smaller. All the elderly people in my family had huge houses. So I think times have changed too.

Christmas for me as a child was a brief opening of presents, followed by helping my already stressed and arguing parents chop veg, polish and set the table for 20, fetching and carrying drinks for everyone, my mum getting wound up by her mother sniping at her, then doing all the washing up for 20 whilst all the men, including my siblings, sit on their arse.

Someone's doing that work, and the vast majority of the time it's a woman. So I'm absolutely spending my Christmases now with that much derided "my little family" and my siblings can continue to run my elderly parents into the ground as much as they like.

Yabu I’m afraid. Your view of “Christmas past” just isn’t true for everyone. I’m an only child of an only child and someone who didn’t keep in touch with their siblings, it was always just the three of us at home on Christmas. Then we might visit my maternal grandparents on Boxing Day. I really struggled when I was with my ex with the idea that how we spent Christmas was governed by others’ needs, and not enjoying ourselves with the kids. The best Christmases I’ve had have been with random groups of friends.

I actually think some GP's are very selfish when it comes to Christmas. I have a set of neighbours in their 70's who insist that their 3 DC and their families spend Christmas with them at their house. One has to fly from overseas to be here. They ask me to lend them things and when I go over with them their DC always look really miserable and make comments about their controlling father. My neighbour always makes comments about Christmas being about family. Their DGC spend every Christmas sleeping in a bag on a floor. That is their memory. I once asked my neighbour if they ever get to have Christmas in their own homes and she snapped my head off.

We have issues with our parents too. They think Christmas is about them and the topic of conversation solely revolves around were they are going and what presents they are getting. I'm not kidding you.

I hate Christmas. I hate the sense of obligation. I hate the fact that people in my family get affronted if we don't do the same thing every fucking year. I hate having to bolt down the motorway on Xmas morning and spend two days being fair and nice and sharing the time between the families equally. I hate the expense. And I hate the weather.

I totally get that the grandparents want to see the kids and that the kids want to see the cousins and that everyone should just be bloody jolly happy we're all together, but for me it's become the worst time of year and I dread it. I can't see it changing until all the older generation have gone, and then no doubt I'll sit at home missing the whole thing. It must be nice to look forward to Christmas but I would happily fast forward from now until Spring (although I do quite like Halloween and I bought some lovely Christmassy decorations in John Lewis sale in January so there's that...)

Yep, Alpha. Totally get it.

Every year I tone Christmas down further and get feedback about how sad it is that family is not important any more. I stopped sending cards to people I don't know, who are remotely related to my DH and I got serious grief about being awful.

As others have said OP you remember one type of Xmas which you miss. My family Xmas memories only involve my immediate family, my DM and mil did not spend time together and there was no wider family that was ever mixed with, very distant family relations were scattered throughout UK. My DH had fewer siblings than me and an even smaller Xmas.
My DC are actually used to having cousins, aunts and uncles around during the Xmas period but no one expects it as we are scattered throughout the world, so it is hit and miss who is around when and who can meet up with whom. Expectations and demands don't make for a very festive time.
I usually enjoy Xmas, but it is a lot of work and it is usually women who are expected to do the bulk of it. I reflected that I was really looking forward to it this year, but then I haven't been working since we moved overseas last year and it makes a huge difference not juggling it between work, childcare and everything else!

Havaina I was responding to a thread of this conversation that was about people, in general, not being prepared to put themselves out for occasions that might be important to others. 'Freeing' yourself has consequences that impact on others, and that always has to be taken into consideration.

'

I have to say being dragged about on christmas day is rubbish. Me and my husband don't have kids and we go to alternative in laws each year plus trying to see my brother aswell who now has his own christmas day with his family most likely so there is less travelling about. I didn't enjoy christmas last year it just felt like we were trying to fit everyone in and just waiting for the next 'appointment'.

I say it should be whatever makes you happy and if its seeing every man and his dog or staying with just your immediate family then so be it. Stop trying to please everyone I say!

I wish it had just been us and our mum for Christmas, then three people would have had a lovely day. Instead my mum was told she was inviting her brother around when it was his turn to have my cousins and my Nana would come too. This way there was one happy person and six miserable ones as my uncle ruined everything.

People say how special Christmas is, but being forced to spend it with people you don't like changes it into a shit endurance fest. Like the first Christmas for dc1. I spent most of the day upstairs feeding, pil whined that it was a waste of time them being there as we 'would let' them spend time with him and then the older generation merrily spent their time saying how wonderful Brexit was and that we should boot immigrants out. How on earth is that fun? Pil not happy because I was 'deliberately preventing' them from seeing to their grandchild, DH running around cooking, our siblings being told they're wrong about politics, me upstairs topless and feeding. TBH I had the better deal, I got Christmas food and to sit around away from arguments despite the pain of feeding as dc1 was cluster feeding and giving me blisters.

The next Christmas was the three of us and it was lovely, no fighting, getting to watch dc1 with his presents without others literally excluding us from our child (which happens whenever they see him), a nice lunch on our timings, less mess, nobody breaking our plates and relaxing quietly without having to make an effort not to bite someone's head off.

We have decided to alternate the years, one year hosting and the next a reward of a stress free time. Just have family on Boxing Day instead. The children are only tiny once, why should I be excluded from interacting with them over Christmas by people who had their turn with their own children (my mum too, Not just pil)?

I think there are a huge number of factors at play.
The fact that many women now work and want to have a break at Xmas rather than turn it into a huge amount of work either hosting or traveling.
The fact that women can now say 'no' to people rather than having to be endlessly selfless with our time and effort.
The fact that everybody seems to expect fancier and fancier food and drink - a simple turkey with a few sprouts doesn't cut it anymore. Xmas dinner is now a fine dining experience.
The escalating costs of hosting lots of people who feel entitled to complain if things aren't to their standard.
A tree with a few baubles is not enough - you need outside lights, illuminated reindeer on the lawn, decs that colour coordinate with your sofas.
Gifts have to be thoughtful and beautifully wrapped - a few smellies in a box is taken as an insult.

Xmas has gone from being a simple meal with family and a few gifts to a massive performance.

Yes, I agree Tiny. Christmas has increasingly been turned into this huge, hassly event with pressure on people to spend a fortune, socialise like it's going out of fashion, and decorate their houses like Bloomingdales.

A lot of people nowadays just sort of stagger towards Christmas day, exhausted, stressed and wishing the whole thing was over.

We really need to step back a bit and really see al the excess for what it is.

My spouse has worked the last several Christmases so others don't have to and others get the Christmas service they want - that's his semi-selfless giving (he does get paid extra for 24th-26th). He will once again be doing it this year, on the 25th he will be working both his shift and will be going in early to split the shift before so his colleague can go home early to her family and he is working most of the days around Christmas until New Years.

This means we don't visit anyone at that time of year outside of our area and we tend a very relaxed December because it's very tiring for him, but if he didn't do it, the consequences would be someone else's Christmas plans would have to be cut short or they wouldn't be able to go visit relatives who would otherwise be alone. You can model giving and thinking of others to your kids in many ways, it doesn't require that you do Christmas at all, let alone in a particular way.

"It's astonishing how freeing it is to cast off the should and musts, which, again, devolve disproportionately on women."

Yes. And the truth is most people/women are capable of nuanced judgement about this kind of thing. You can stand up and say "No, no more spending my christmas running around after my horrible nitpicking demanding MIL while the men sit on their arses, it's time I had a break" and still actually be a reasonable person who cares about others and goes to people's funerals.

Women should say no to the unfair expectations and extra workload that is unthinkingly dumped on them all the time. They can do that without becoming heartless monsters. Yet when they do try to do that there will always be a people queuing up to remind them that they should always put others' feelings first and not be so selfish.

That's one reason why it's so hard, one reason so many women put up with this shit - because of the disapproval heaped on a woman who questions it.

We just have an enhanced Sunday lunch at xmas with xmas pudding. Surprised to read that people are making an enormous deal. It is supposed to be fun.

It's not a very good comparison, is it? Anyone can attend a funeral, but from what I've seen, the bulk of the work for Christmas (the cooking, hosting, serving, present-buying, card-writing and decorating that Sondheim mentions) is done by women.

Funerals are also not typically annual events held at a time when people are most likely to be off school and work together, they usually only last one day, and attending your best friend's parent's funeral typically requires a lot less work to arrange than Christmas does. So you're quite right, it's not a good comparison.

And I see my elderly relatives at Christmas, and indeed throughout the rest of the year, but this doesn't involve any massive difficulty or effort on my part. That's a game changer.

I agree with every word alphajuliet123 says

We bowed out of Christmas a some years ago and I will never regret it

And I have to say, spending Christmas in someone else's crowded home is never fun. Having one arse cheek on an overcrowded sofa for eight hours..oh jee

We always had Xmas day at home. Then Boxing Day was for relative visiting then “tea at aunties” which meant cold cuts and salad.