To think lots of men must believe in Santa? It’s the only explanation

[NurseryTrouble123]

DH and I have a pretty equal relationship in most respects - parenting, cooking, etc. I wish he’d clean more, but no one is perfect.

But when it comes to Christmas he does nothing. This morning he bought his first present and Christmas card while at the supermarket (for his niece - that gift, something for me and something for his mum are the only things he’ll buy). I used to love Christmas but now I just dread it. I’m lucky the kids aren’t aware that it’s Christmas so have no expectations - this is probably the last year I can get away with it being like this.

He seems to think Christmas just happens - he hasn’t spent a second thinking about what to get the kids, what food we need, ordering the food, arranging plans with family, decorating, properly cleaning the house, etc. When I speak to my friends, even those with very equal partners are doing the vast majority of the extra Christmas-related work.

I’m now wondering if he thinks that presents just magically arrive fully wrapped, food just arrives, decorations just exist in the loft ready to be put up... does he still think santa is real? It’s the only possible explanation for so many men being so completely shit at this time of year.

I’m sure some will tell us lovely stories of their partners doing the bulk of Christmas, cooking Christmas dinner; wrapping and buying all the gifts etc. I’m sure men like that exist but AIBU to think this is not the case for the vast majority of couples? Considering a strike for next year TBH. I just don’t understand how men who don’t usually practice this level of strategic incompetence, and who are usually not oblivious to what needs doing, are suddenly completely blind to these things because it’s christmas-related.

(And yes, I have spoken to him about it but he says deeply annoying things like “I don’t know what to buy”, as if I haven’t had to spend ages figuring out what to get, or “you should just ask for help” as if he doesn’t know that people need gifts, Christmas means a Christmas dinner, or that the tree needs to go up. It’s not “helping” me because it shouldn’t just be my job!)

[YouretheChristmasCarcass]

Especially the one this year for Chanel with the abandoned lover shouting "CoCO, CoCO!" out the window. He sounds as if he's calling after some fleeing pigeons or something. It's COco, ffs. (At least it is in the US)

And the ads where the actresses fleeing their erstwhile lovers are actually married in real life. Shame on them, shame!!! 😆

[YouretheChristmasCarcass]

We frequently find ourselves playing a little game of 'Perfume or Car?'

This really made me laugh (although I didn't laugh enough to 'spit tea'). I've always thought 'what the hell?' at those ads but figured I wasn't their' target demographic' (being, ya know, old and stuff) so I probably just didn't 'get it'. But no, those ads really are stupid, aren't they?

[WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll]

I can always tell it's perfume when I'm asking what is this for and why is she skinny dipping in a sheet?!

We frequently find ourselves playing a little game of 'Perfume or Car?'. The number of times I end up exasperatedly imploring the telly to "Just tell me what you're trying to sell!" Sometimes, it's not even a product but a trailer for some programme or other.

Maybe those late-night infomercials are getting it all wrong, actually showing lots of examples of people USING (and talking about their experiences of using) the tape measure made out of string or the little table-top grill that looks like a teddy bear toilet.

If they ditched all that and just had a 30-second clip of some trendy smooth lantern-jawed mean girls jeering at a dowdily-dressed contemporary and saying "Well, its clear that she isn't sophisticated enough to trim her beard with a NoNo!" they might start shifting enough units to enable them to afford a standard slot in the middle of Coronation Street.

[Phineyj]

As an economist I've always assumed it's to do with getting the brand name and values into people's heads and to distract from the fact you're basically getting a tiny amount of essential oils in an oddly shaped bottle, whichever one you buy (can you tell I don't use it ). I can always tell it's perfume when I'm asking what is this for and why is she skinny dipping in a sheet?!

[NemophilistRebel]

Yes what is even the point in perfume adverts?
It can’t make anyone want to buy one. You have to smell it!

The ones this year were absolute shockers - Chanel , I’m looking at you!

[WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll]

And yet the advertising for perfume starts in October and goes on and on and on. Now we know why - it's pre-programming desperate men for panic buying on Christmas eve.

To be fair, they don't really advertise it in any useful way. They don't attempt to tell you what it smells like, just jump off piers or have an overload of sensuous or 'erotic' images which they somehow want you to associate it with. Most perfume ads could easily pass as adverts for exclusive 'escort' clubs or swingers' balls if they didn't flash up the bottle at the end.

[Vanhi]

And yet the advertising for perfume starts in October and goes on and on and on. Now we know why - it's pre-programming desperate men for panic buying on Christmas eve.

[Butterymuffin]

Isn't there a statistic about how 50% or more of all the perfume sold in a year is purchased on Christmas Eve? Male buying pattern in a nutshell.

[Zaphodsotherhead]

Interesting, Webuiltthisbuffet. Maybe the question should be asked as to whether Christmas is more 'equal' in homes where there are no children? Or more frequently equal?

I know, when I worked in industry, the 'just in time' solution to production and delivery was being touted as the way forward, and I wonder whether Some Men have taken this on board as a way forward with household problems too? I have a friend who hoovers every day at 10am. I hoover when the house looks as though it needs hoovering. Which one of us is right?

[WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll]

I used to work in a chemist's shop that sold toiletries, and you wouldn't believe the number of men who rushed in on Christmas Eve, looked round wildly, and said "I'll take that'. No thought at all.

That is bad and must lead to a lot of very disappointed wives, who have put so much thought and effort into everybody else's gifts.

I suppose it's a measure of how much interest things hold for individual people and whether they see it as a huge joy to be meticulously planned and executed so as to bring huge pleasure or just fulfilling a basic function.

I daresay that, for some men, actually remembering, taking the time and making the effort to go to the late-night chemist or the 24-hour petrol station to buy any old present is them genuinely showing how thoughtful and caring they are, as they otherwise wouldn't bother at all, but they know 'it's important to the wife'.

For want of a crass description, I suppose you could see it as a 'hobby' that either thrills or bores somebody. Look at the hours of research some people (mainly men) will put in to deciding exactly which car they want to buy, all the minutiae and tiniest little details comparing the relative specifications and trivial options, whereas others (mainly women) will turn up at a big car yard and say "I need a decent-sized family hatchback" and take whatever the salesman suggests after a cursory look and a quick test drive. Neither way is right or wrong - it's just where your priorities lie.

Hair is probably the starkest indicator of this. Of course, there are men who are greatly into the intricacies of different styles and there are women who couldn't care less, but 95% of women see their hair as something to be looked after, thought about, carefully styled and worth spending a lot of time, money and effort on. 95% of men will ask the barber for a short back and sides, pay and walk out thinking 'job done for a few months' - or even just get the razor out at home and give themselves a 5-minute buzz cut.

If we're honest, for many things, there's a very broad spectrum of ways to do them and, to an extent, you can put in as much or as little effort as you like and not necessarily end up with a hugely different result. Not to say that you do the bare minimum, but you also don't have to feel bound to perform 'the work of a moment' like the crazy shop assistant in Love Actually.

Unfortunately, though, the difference is that many hobbies are 'selfish' things - not in a bad way, but designed for the individual to enjoy and take pleasure from.

Christmas is usually a family event and it isn't just about what suits you best. If you have children, it's an intense snapshot of daily family life. Just because you as an adult couldn't care less about Paw Patrol or potato printing art, it doesn't mean that these things are never enjoyed in your home, where there also live people who do love them and to whom they mean an immense amount.

That said, if children aren't involved, I don't see why one member of a couple automatically gets to say how it 'should' be done and criticise the other for seeing things differently.

[sueelleker]

I used to work in a chemist's shop that sold toiletries, and you wouldn't believe the number of men who rushed in on Christmas Eve, looked round wildly, and said "I'll take that'. No thought at all.

[Zaphodsotherhead]

I also think that the degree of planning and forward thinking that goes into Christmas escapes some men (yes, SOME men, not all, but there is a very high proportion of them included in this). They seem to think that you can slip out on Christmas Eve, get all the things you want from the local shop, (presents, food etc), sling up a bit of tinsel and hoover round and there it is, done! They've never had to source essential sprouts when everywhere locally has sold out and you don't have a large supermarket for thirty miles.

It's the 'just in time' mentality, which is fine in many a work environment, but just doesn't wash when your 8 yo wants this year's Must Have toy (which you need to buy in October to be able to get hold of) and most Christmassy food is sold out of in smaller shops before the day before Christmas Eve.

I think this is why SOME men think women over-fuss for Christmas. Why can't we just leave it to Christmas Eve, do a big shop, run the hoover round and then wrap presents to Christmas music while the kids are in bed, in time to be Father Christmas by midnight?

You can tell them until you are blue in the face, but to them you are just 'making it difficult'.

[GrumpyMiddleAgedWoman]

Haven't RTFT (no time, about to go to work) but one year when the DC were young (oldest about 8), I was stressing to DH about how much I had to get done in the next month. 'Just don't bother with Christmas, then' he said.

That's the male view in a nutshell. He just didn't grasp the idea that there is a lot of pleasure in Christmas provided all the work doesn't land on one person.

TBF he has improved over the years. He has cooked most of Christmas dinner for the past decade (though he can't have arsed with pigs in blankets and stuffing, I do those...)

[WobblyAllOver]

After we split up and later divorced I get an email from his sister wanting to know where the presents were for her grown up children.

It worries me how many women actually believe that this domain is purely for women to own. So glad you put your foot down nannytothequeen

[nannytothequeen]

I used to sort all the presents for my ex husbands family. After we split up and later divorced I get an email from his sister wanting to know where the presents were for her grown up children. I pointed out that this was now her brothers domain. She replied that she didn't see why her kids should suffer because of our petty squabbles - so pissing off with my friend and generally behaving like a twat with a midlife crisis was a 'squabble'? I forwarded the email to him and informed him it was very much his time to sort Christmas for his own family rather than rely On his ex wife.

[Back2Bali]

Every year I sort out both sides of our family... he sorts out ds main presents.....boy shite! And I do his stocking but I sort out everything else.. wrapping, cards, food, decorations, the big xmas clean, it is annoying sometimes like this week he has been glued to his tablet and out in his car sorting out last bits and ive been going about like a headless chicken not knowing my arse from my elbow...seemingly not crossing anything off he list that keeps growing ..... but then he redeems himself by shuffling me to the bathroom with a hot bath poured, candles lit, my favourite products to hand and tea in my favourite mug usually says something along the lines of, I don't want to see you for a while relax, he will come through give me a shoulder rub... tell me to slow down its one day, then when I get out dinner is made too..nothing fancy usually something simpler out of the freezer... he helps on xmas eve with the food prep always does most of the dishes xmas day he can be a right pain in the arse this time.of year... but he is very thoughtful he takes notice that I'm getting stressed and makes sure I take time out for me so I cant complain really in all fairness...

[MsTSwift]

Oh god I am actually a man. Dh is mr Christmas

[CosmoK]

It depends though....both me and DH are 'list people'. We both work full time and are really busy. We have a ongoing Christmas list which we both add to and are responsible for.



But yes, it is amazing how many men are capable of holding down very complex and important jobs yet the organisation of relatively simple household tasks appears to be beyond them.

[Instagrump]

I also disagree with making lists. You're still having to do work on it and it's unfair. The majority of these men in question are usually fully capable of executing difficult tasks at work. They can run offices, run building sites, create small businesses or even multimillion pound corporations yet they're unable to buy and write Christmas cards for their families? They don't know that a turkey needs bought for Christmas Day?

[Phineyj]

@theWarOnPeace I only noticed how bad things had got in our house the year I was doing a very demanding job (about 70 hours a week, lots of evening work & only getting Sundays off). It really brought into focus all the 'little' things I do to keep things running. As an example, every Saturday I'd get home from work about 3ish and we'd have an argument about something like the undone laundry or who was more tired. If he'd been working those hours, fair enough, we'd probably still have had the competitive tiredness argument, but I'd have just got on and done the laundry without a reminder!

At that point I decided there was no use in seeking any further career advancement as I didn't have the energy (and don't earn the kind of sums where a nanny would be worth it).

Tbh Christmas is just the tip of a very irritating iceberg. And the solution is NOT making lists for the other person. I honestly cannot imagine 'doing' Christmas with a female friend or relative and needing to make lists.

[Beastieboys]

Because it is alot of men!!

[PeggySuehadababy]

My contribution to Christmas is making a tiramisù and making sure we have Baileys . And going to church sometimes.

When I was little it was exciting receving presents we wouldn't normally buy (like clothes and toys) but these days we buy everything we need more regularly, we have Asda and amazon etc.. so it has lost a lot of magic.

[moimichme]

My take is that perhaps some of these men never had to lift a finger at Christmas during their childhood (apart from choosing a few gifts for close family members?) and so they subconsciously expect that to be how it works in their own family...? I've made the work (any cards, buying food, baking, wrapping gifts) more collaborative and public from day 1 with DH and also with my son. So they can see it doesn't all magically come together (though obviously ds isn't involved in everything!), and means the load is more evenly spread out over time and fairer, and hopefully seeing what is involved will mean ds will do his share when he's in a family of his own someday.

[Nomorepleaseeeee]

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3770830-So-many-martyrs-at-Christmas

[Instagrump]

@Zaphodsotherhead I fully agree with what you've said. That is definitely how it happens in a lot of cases.

My own DH is as invested in a proper Christmas as I am, if not more. We shop for gifts together and I actually have to rein him in because he always feels we haven't done enough. We work together with absolutely everything except cooking the dinner which is on me (though if I hand him the tatties or whatever he's more than happy to get peeling) BUT what you said rings very true with other things. He does do birthdays, cards and everything but I noticed this year that he must think school uniforms appear like magic. Somehow I was the one who had to pick, buy and label them. It was only when I was standing there at 10pm before school ironing them I though, "WHAT THE HELL?!" while he was on the xbox. I did tell him that next years are to be done by him. Only when thinking about it did I realise I've always had to do it. Funny, that.