To friggin hate Christmas?

[Iliveinazoo]

I'm sorry that this isn't in the Christmas topic, seems little point moaning about Christmas there.

It's not actually Christmas that I hate, but all of the commercialised enforced buying.

I love decorating the tree, the fairy lights, having delicious food, excited children, Christmas television, a few days off, Christmas parties.

What I hate is the fact that it's October, I'm trying to enjoy Autumn, and every day I'm getting texts from grown adults asking me what I want for Christmas, and putting their orders in for what they want, sending me links to stuff I can buy them and I'm supposed to think of something for them to buy me back.

It's such bullshit, most of us have far too much 'stuff' already.

I know I sound like a right Scrooge but I do see a lot of it as being so wasteful, every Christmas we end up with piles of packaging and plastic that we don't even want or need.

I also dislike Christmas being turned into a feast of secular gluttony. It should be about the joy of new life, of hope, of peace. It’s really not about who gets the most ridiculous mountain of plastic tat.

That said, I absolutely love Christmas but as we’ve done the same things for years and years, with the whole period steeped in family and local traditions, I don’t spend months planning or shopping.

@PiperPublickOccurrences

You really can't just not look at it an ignore it? I've managed it successfully for around 17 years. Learn when and where you're being advertised to and it eventually just goes over your head. I used to work in marketing so maybe that's why I can though. I'm a branding execs nightmare and have never looked and an end aisle display in my life 🤷🏼‍♀️

Alpha Bravo - have you been into a supermarket recently? it's everywhere! Entire aisle facing you when you walk in the door. Christmas POS hanging from the ceiling. Prominent displays of mince pies in the bread aisle.

I am well aware of what the supermarkets are doing - my background is marketing too. The job of the supermarkets is to make it impossible to tune it out. I don't buy selection boxes, big tubs of nasty cheap chocolate or lots of the other tat but that doesn't mean you're oblivious to it. It smacks you in the face and depresses you anyway. At least the supermarkets haven't started playing shitty christmas songs through the loudspeakers yet. I don't know how store staff cope.

Yes, Christmas isn't confined to one aisle. If only!

Just because there's stuff in the shops, doesn't mean you have to buy it. And if you shop online or in Aldi or Lidl, there really is very little to notice. I've bought a few Christmas chocolate stuff from Aldi and Lidl because I like those things.

It smacks you in the face and depresses you anyway

Does it? On the rare occasion I go into a big supermarket I am a little surprised at the great wall of quality streets but then I just get on with what I was in there for. It barely registers. Similarly online. I just don't notice the adverts and never click on them because it's just not interesting. Like Alpha says, it just goes over your head.

I go twice a week thanks. I ignore it all as I know what aisles I need to go to and in what order 🤷🏼‍♀️ I find it very easy to ignore tbh. Because none of it is on my shopping list!

Large supermarkets sell tens of thousands of items. The typical shopper will buy what, a few dozen or a few hundred of those regularly?

So most people never buy 95%+ of what a supermarket sells. Christmas stuff (and Halloween, Easter etc) just falls into that category for me. I don't even look at it, just like I'd never look at any of the other things I rarely or never buy.

I love Christmas but then I don't buy for people I don't want to. You can choose not to make it commercial! I love the music and the lights and the food and spending time with people.

I'm clearly too distracted crossing things off and entering amounts in my calculator making sure I don't go over budget 😳

M&S and Aldi in December is the only time I let Christmas register I think. Because M&S is luxury to me and I think their traditional style xmas stuff is lovely, and Aldi has lots of tasty festive bits in that aren't cheap palm oil crap. A tub of roses or quality street doesn't scream "Christmas" to me. It screams cheap plastic SHIT quality greasy sweets.

The ex asked me what I would like for Christmas,i said 'oh,i don't do big pressies,just a bottle of baileys and a box of chocs will be perfect'. He looked at me oddly and announced that although I may not do big gifts he does.
All this buying is ridiculous.
A chav heaven to get into debt for the year

I don’t go near aisles full of tat whether it be Halloween (which ours didn’t ‘do’), Christmas or Valentines. It’s too depressing to see the joy of Christmas stolen by a cheap inflatable snowman and a fake Father Christmas beard. I can’t imag there is anything in those aisles I would ever give house room to or waste money on.

So far our Sainsbury's has Christmas food and gifts at the back of the Halloween stuff in the seasonal section at the back of the shop. Toiletry gift sets are creeping in at the front. It's not in your face yet. And as I said, some of us have to spread the cost, or we'd have a miserable Christmas. I'm looking at a Christmas outfit for DD at the moment, by which I mean an outfit for Christmas, nothing Christmassy. Jeans and a t-shirt.

You know none of this is compulsory, right? if you don't want to do it, don't.

I love Christmas because my work shuts down so I get two weeks off. I spend it doing whatever I want.

I don't have a tree, just buy a present each for my immediate family and that's it. Last year I didn't even do anything on the day itself as my sister, who I normally spend it with, was at her inlaws.

It doesn't have to be this big expensive thing and you don't have to get caught up in the commercialism.

Even just spending £20 each on the DC, without food, decs or anything, is a lot for us. It's easier if you don't have DC. And before people start with "don't have DC if you can't afford them", we could when we had them. DH was self-employed, now we're on WTC.

I love Christmas! In fact, I spend the whole year gradually preparing for it. I reuse decorations that I inherited, I buy second hand, we have a 'fancy roast' but frankly, it's probably not as grand as most people's weekly Sunday roast.

If you have chosen to martyr yourself, then that's on you.

You could chosen to do a Christmas you enjoy.

I LOVE Christmas. In fact, this year to make it super-charged I’m going to Lapland.

But it is a December thing. I ignore and pointedly avoid anything to do with it until the first week of December, which is surprisingly easy to do.

Next won’t care, but I and a random group of total strangers, stood appalled two weeks ago when the store omin Bluewater put a tree in the window. Then we all ageeed not to go in. As I say, Next won’t care but we don’t have to go along with corporate soulless Christmas if we don’t want to.

I have just been to B&M for cat food. Christmas is everywhere in there. I didn't buy any of it but every time I turned a corner there was something Christmas!
Even Pets at Home were at it with the advent calendars for pets and doggy candy canes at the till.

YANBU I cannot stand it. Over commercialised crap. My husband on the other hand loves it.

YANBU.

There is so much to love about Christmas, but it's being gradually hidden beneath a pile of commercialised crap. Already some shops have their Christmas displays out and after next Wednesday, with Hallowe'en out of the way, every other shop will follow suit, and we'll have 'Last Christmas' and 'I Wish it Could be Christmas Every Day' and 'Do They Know it's Christmas' blaring around every shopping centre.
I'm sure some people have already got their decorations down from the attic and they'll be up by 1st November, and then whipped down on Boxing Day because the family are tired of looking at them and want to go to the sales and forget about Christmas.

It's just gone so tacky, and seems to be centred around buying stuff nowadays. I avoid all that as much as I can, but I would just love to be able to enjoy a quiet November, with maybe a frisson of anticipation towards the end of the month, not a full on onslaught.

There's the expectation to buy for adult nieces and nephews who don't even give me the time of day.

I have this too. We only buy token gifts for 'proper' adults but neices and nephews in their 20s still expect to receive bigger presents like the children. Except that they now just ask gran to arrange cash from everyone so they can buy what they want. I'm all for avoiding waste by not buying lots of tat no-one wants but being told to send cash to a grown adults who don't ever actually speak to me or send me as much as a card/e-mail/text is just greed in my opinion. I have decided not to do it this year. I will be announcing that my cut off for more than a box of chocolates is 21 (so those in education still will get more). I expect sneery comments, but that makes me even more sure it's the right thing to do.

I have actually been trying to have a less wasteful and stressful christmas for a few years now. I have cut down a lot on what we buy but there still seems to be a huge amount of pressure to join in the mass spending. TV, facebook, shops etc seem to be full of messages that you won't have a good christmas unless you spend 3 months preparing, buying piles of presents and having every type of food and drink imaginable in the house.

We do the voucher swap thing for teens. Nobody has the nerve to say we'll get our own vouchers.

We don't buy adults in my family anymore and have introduced a £10 limit for the children. It has been such a relief for everyone involved, I highly recommend everyone has this conversation with their family.

What has being a chav got to do with it?? Yanbu op

Last year was the first Xmas without my parents and I basically told everyone I wasn't really doing it anymore. It's a hellish time of year when you've lost people. I still bought a few presents for close friends, DC and DP but cut way back and put a £10 limit on the kids.
In the run up I met up with friends, went for walks took the Dc to some events. On the day itself it was all about getting through it.
This year I'm doing the same - low key, enjoy the nice bits, forget about the consumer crap :)

Some tips to make it bearable:
Make gifts
Cinnamon in everything!
Lots of winter walks
Dont spend time with difficult people.
Nice booze
Avoid crowds...shop early