To think extended family Christmases are often idealised in media?

[abacucat]

According to the media we may get slightly irritated by our in laws, but extended family Christmases are largely magical occasions.
In real life so many people watch Christmas TV precisely so they don't have to talk to one another.
AIBU?

TV isn't real life. Mind blown!

Of course not. Most families are full of tensions and issues spoken and unspoken. Some are better at hiding it than others is all.

YANBU. Reality can be disappointing. My extended family are largely nice people but putting up with each other for extended periods of time can be exhausting.

Well, of course they are idealised in the media.

All of Christmas is, actually.

I'm sure there are families where everyone in even the extended family really likes each other and is happy to meet for Christmas. But they are probably rather rare.

So don't do it.

It's a shit time of year for travelling. The days are short so you end up spending all day cooped up inside getting on each others nerves. Make christmas an immediate family event, and shift the extended family get togethers to a better time of year (easter or the summer).

You don't have to conform to the christmas stereotype. Most family problems seem to start when we do what's expected rather than what we want to do - be it christmas, weddings, etc.

I don't know, actually. I have a fairly small Christmas Day (me, my 3 children, my sister, her partner and 1 child and my mum) but on Boxing Day go to my grandparents for a family gathering of 35-45 people depending on who's working, seeing other side of the family etc.

Personally I find large family gatherings really difficult because I don't cope well with being around a lot of people for a long time in one place, small talk etc.

But I think that's just me. In every other way the large family gathering goes so much more smoothly and happily than Christmas Day. By the end of Christmas Day the children tend to be over tired and fractious, the house is a mess and I'm getting stressed about cleaning and there's nothing to do but slump in front of the tv feeling that it would be rude to go for a walk and get the hell out of there! But on Boxing Day the children entertain themselves in their own small army, nobody notices the mess because there's too many people around to see it, there's enough people to have a board games group, a talking group, a going for a walk group and a watching tv/sleeping group and it takes most of the day to get round to talking to everyone. More people creates more options and keeps people happier.

I guess I am posting because our extended family are shit and we have as little to do with them as possible. Sometimes I wish we had a nice extended family, but I think I idealise it too.

Advertising relies on selling lies.

Its also not true that drinking X and wearing Y will instantly make you more popular/sexy or cause you to have a good time.

Or that women are only complete once they've had a baby.

Rejecting media messaging is hard work though...and that's when you don't have a TV and hence miss most of it!

And what about people who are single and don't have large extended families? The whole Dickensian Christmas thing is very excluding.

And what about people who are single and don't have large extended families? The whole Dickensian Christmas thing is very excluding

What?! No, it isn't. Nobody's lives are exactly like those portrayed on tv. I've always been a single parent and have never had a long term relationship. Does that mean that portraying families with 2 adults shouldn't be the norm on tv? Some people don't have children. Some don't have grandparents. But surely everybody realises that a lot of people do have these things.

Adverts and Media will portray what sells and what people want to see. I'd rather see a happy family dinner table with happy, loving parents, excited children and included old people on TV than a representation of me trying to single handledly cook, talk my teenager into eating, stop my younger ones fighting and put up with my complaining mother! I want TV to counteract my reality, not mirror it!

There are a lot of unrealistic representations of Christmas around, with adverts being the worst culprits. It gives people this idea that everyone else is having some kind of perfect Christmas and they're the only family who argue, end up opening the Christmas presents in a rush because the hostess is fussing about the turkey nearly being done, have toddlers crying at the table during the dinner, have to listen to Uncle Bill going on and on about something no one else is interested in etc etc etc.

It makes a lot of people dissatisfied and trying to chase a perfect Christmas that doesn't exist, instead of just accepting family Christmases with their idiosyncracies, annoyances and irritations.

Sometimes the unrealistic representations go the other way too though.

When I was young my parents were Eastenders and Emmerdale fans and my gran liked Coronation Street. So we had to sit through the Christmas specials of all 3. And, oh my word, the misery. I swear not a single family had a happy Christmas ever on those programmes. I don't know if they're still the same these days or if they still boradcast on Christmas Day. But, if they do, those are the programmes to look to to make you feel better about a less than perfect Christmas!

I was brought up one of 3 children in a fair degree of poverty and by parents who wanted little to do with family. Christmas was a cold, barely observed affair in our house and we received no visitors, nor did we visit.

Once I was old enough to realise that our Christmases were crap, I realised they were crap. I'd have given a lot as a child to have been part of a decent family gathering.

If you don't have much to do with them then why should it be different for a couple of days in December? They won't be any different!