To wish we could stop over complicating Christmas

[Beswitched]

Ever more elaborate decorations, Christmas boxes, expensive branded advent calendars, fancy alternatives to the standard Christmas Dinner, competitive posts on Facebook, manic manic shopping, trips to lapland, Secret Santa angst etc etc and the whole shebang starting in November.

Aibu to wonder what happened to a couple of presents from Santa, simple presents for family and friends, putting the beloved and tattered decorations up a few days before Christmas and enjoying a roast dinner together?
It all seems to have become so elaborate these days.

Agreed

It's hard work, tedious, expensive and a huge waste.

You can shove yer Christmas Eve boxes, jumpers, secret Santa's, elf on a shelf and God knows what else up yet jaxi

It's just companies convincing us to buy ever more shite.

Absolutely agreed. The whole thing is just designed to make us all spend as much money as possible on unnecessary shit.

Agreed
Especially hate those Christmas Eve box stuff

Well I don't have any social media so Christmas will be the same for me this year as every other year. I don't have a clue what other people are doing, buying or decorating their houses with, and I really don't care.

Oh yes; forgot that bloody elf!!

We just don’t engage with all the extra crap.

And people having a melt down about cooking a roast dinner- they make me laugh though.

Aibu to wonder what happened to a couple of presents from Santa, simple presents for family and friends, putting the beloved and tattered decorations up a few days before Christmas and enjoying a roast dinner together?

We do even less than that. Tree, at some point. Meal at some point over the winter. Few presents for DD (no Santa), nothing for anyone else. Brilliant.

This year we’re avoiding the whole thing and heading off on holiday. Even easier!

What's a Christmas Eve box - that must have passed me by?

Surely ‘we’ do as ‘we’ see fit??

No Christmas Eve boxes here, or new decorations each year. I’d do a Lapland trip in a second though if it wasn’t so bloody expensive for a family our size.

After a couple of years of branded Advent calendars we’ve gone back to the simple chocolate ones.

I’ve been doing Secret Santa for 30 years now with school friends, so that’s not a new thing.

Kids have the same jumpers as last year or hand me downs from older siblings.

I do your traditional Christmas, except I started with no decorations and buy one a year.

Laugh at me then @thefluffysideofgrey - went from being long term single to marrying a veggie. I can do it, obviously, but I’m not that well practised...

noone has to buy into it thankfully, we don't celebrate it as we are pagan, no presents or decorations just some nice food and a few drinks,

I do agree although I think you can still do Christmas 'your way' if you choose providing you don't engage in the nonsense. My run down (as if anyone cared) of what I PERSONALLY think is worth bothering about at Christmas:

Do's:

• Christmas Tree
• Presents for partner (with an agreed limit) & stepdaughter
• Visiting close family and meeting friends at a time that suits everyone
• Christmas games
• Christmas dinner (basically a normal roast with pigs-in-blankets) but none of the unnecessary bits that nobody cares about
• Christmas films and Christmas tunes
• Pub on Christmas Eve
• Chocolate advent calendars for partner/SD (I'm not fussed)
• Father Christmas (in years gone by before stepdaughter was too old for it).

Don't's:

• Elf on the bloody shelf
• December 1st nonsense
• Christmas Eve boxes
• Huge piles of presents (mostly plastic tat)
• 14 types of veg with Christmas dinner
• Christmas jumper day
• Secret 'f'ing Santa
• Christmas cards
• Buying presents for EVERYONE (plus their kids) - Just agree in advance not to, less stress, less expense and spread the joy of not giving
• Rushing about to see everyone on 'the big day' (see them when it suits you all).
• Advent calendars that cost more than a couple of quid.

...I'm sure there's more but that'll do for now.

The DC do have Christmas jumpers for school, but they're the only non-school jumpers they'll have for the next 2 years.

Don't assume none of us already do your 'simple' Christmas. If you're fool enough to buy All The Crap, more fool you, but don't tar us all with the same brush, cheers.

I completely agree!

Christmas is not an official holiday where I live and so there’s no big fuss over it.
I find it relieving.

Esspecially not having to spend Christmas with my family this year. Too much pressure to be nice to each other ‘ because it’s Christmas’ whilst being at each other’s throats during the rest of the year.

Me and DH have a very small Christmas tree and we’ll eat a lovely dinner after he comes home from work. During the day I’ll be going for a nice walk in nature with DS. DH also got me the lovely kind of handbag I had wanted for a long time as a Christmas present.

Just dont do it then. I dont do any of those things.

Don't assume none of us already do your 'simple' Christmas.

Absolutely, and we’re likely not to be flaunting our lovely Christmas on social media.

We’ll go for a walk in nature too, and are surrounded by nature and go for walks every weekend. On Christmas Day and other days over the holidays, I also like to be surrounded by family who I don’t see much of the rest of the year. 364 dinners of the year are just DH, kids and I, so yes I will cook a bloody big dinner for extended family. And be grateful to do it.

Yanbu- I can remember when the Christmas food came In a hamper from the milkman and we used to put the Christmas decorations up literally the Sunday before. Nowadays, it starts earlier and earlier and has literally sucked the joy out of what used to be a special time.

@PBo83 has completely summed up my Christmas too. All the good stuff, none of the extraneous crap. DC is teenage so we missed Elf on the Shelf craze (thank god) and Christmas Eve is watching a film then he's off to bed while I finish any wrapping drink my secret Baileys. It's perfect and no need for FB (except for a pic of the dog in antlers if he'll let me).

It all seems to have become so elaborate these days.

It's what you make it. You don't have to buy in to the latest fads. The World doesn't stop turning if you don't buy a new "fashionable colour" christmas tree or a cosmetic advent calendar.

We'll be putting up our 20 year old tree with lights and decorations we've also had a similar amount of time (we have 2 sets of each so have 4 variations of what the tree will look like for a bit of variety between years).

For us, we just enjoy a bit of family time, we do what WE want, don't travel hundreds of miles to see relatives we don't hear from year to year, we have a few nice family meals, play a few simple games, watch a few films or box sets, go on a preserved steam railway "mince pie special" on Boxing Day.

Then when it's over, we go on holiday for New Year. If it weren't for my mother, we'd go for a holiday covering Christmas too.

Aibu to wonder what happened to a couple of presents from Santa, simple presents for family and friends, putting the beloved and tattered decorations up a few days before Christmas and enjoying a roast dinner together?

Why don't you then?

I don't do these things any more. But I see and hear so many people stressing, worrying, competing etc and realise a lot of them seem to get swept into the madness, come under pressure from their kids etc and just wish that a lot of the complications and unnecessary extras that have been built into the Christmas celebrations could stop.
I think it's being turned into an exhausting and expensive time of year followed by a massive sense of anti climax in January.