AIBU to wonder why so many women martyr themselves at Christmas?

[HappyHarlot]

All the things they MUST do or Christmas is ruined!

The children won't remember half of it. The women won't have the time or energy to actually enjoy the experience.

Why don't they delegate?

Christmas is the same date every year so plan accordingly and avoid the last minute stress.

Are they just drama llamas or am I just not getting it?

I dont think its limited to just xmas. I think alot of people are just like that. You could present them with a million solutions to their problems but they just couldn't possibly do it. Half the time the partners or kids couldnt give a shit but if they go buy a packet of pigs in blankets then they cant moan about having to walk 6 miles in the snow to the only farm shop that sells organic sausage meat and opens fir 30 seconds every other monday.

I think the women do it because they have no idea what to do with themselves in the time they eoyod have free if they werent trying to hunt and slay their own unicorn.

And the men either do it to show how much better they are than everyone else and beget annoyed no one even noticed or they donit so theres plenty of opportunity to screw up so they dont have to do it next year

@CSIblonde thats a very wise statement. Definitely something i need to try and do for myself.

Someare drama llamas... But more are not.. I think through sheer effort of delegating and righting stuff when it's gone wrong...

It's all the detailed wifework that the blokes just don't bother with...they also don't get shamed like women do...

It's wrong and we should fight it.. We need to let men fail..
And PULL them up on it...

In our particular family.... When we've attempted to get men to do a reasonable amount of the cognitive load for yule..

A meltdown as one child had gifts that were massively more expensive than their sib as the bloke had 'forgotten' ... The mum was furious and bloke was sulky and difficult for 2 days... /he didn't understand when shopping you needed to keep a note of bought gifts with a rough total....and ensure that it was roughly equal when sibs are opening gifts together. He's a chartered accountant.

The Christmas where we all arrived as the man was doing a fabulous 'lunch for everyone' .... 10 of us arrived for 130.pm... Nothing... Nothing being prepared /cooked /... No obvious signs..no food in fridge . Bloke absent... Bloke had decided on his morning church service to go out with his pals for a' drink... Yes that was hysterical witnessing the arguments of generations of family of '' who was stupid enough to believe thus 40 year old man'' at his word. So 3 of us (women) went to the luckily open shops.. (Turkish community) and cobbled enough together to make food.. That was served at 4pm...bloke rolled in and looked surprised...

The time when a different male told many of his extensive family that what his 6 year old daughter most wanted is a watch... So the daughter opened 6 different watches on Christmas morning... Idiot!

Another Christmas another brother who actually had cooked... But had fucked up somewhere along the line... The meat was actually rancid... It turned out he'd left it somewhere warm...only 2 people were too sick to enjoy the rest of christmas... Others were looking discintctly off colour.

The Christmas where the man assured everyone that nothing needed to be bought as it was all 'sorted'.... There was nowhere near enough turkey..he'd bought a crown for 15 people , he'd also forgotten the cranberry sauce (he said HE didn't like it... )... There was no gravy and he had made nowhere near enough vegetables... There wasn't enough sprouts so everyone could have even one!! (good for sprout avoiders)... He'd done enough for his usual 4 member family...

I don't do Christmas and never have. We only exchange gifts with immediate family, don't do cards and we either go out or order in stuff from Cook. Honestly, never understood all the fuss over one bloody day.

I'm a carer
So all of the cooking, washing, shopping, cleaning, entertaining etc falls to me.
in sickness and in health............even though we had a registrar office wedding.

iam that's a helluva lot of incompetent men in the one family.

The biggest madness I've seen is the advent book thing (new book every day, wtaf) and the Xmas Eve 'box' containing yet more presents, pyjamas, blah blah.

to me it is a bit of both sometimes nothing would happen unless the woman does it but a lot of the time the things done are either not necessary or even not appreciated by the rest of the family, other things are added in as extras due to commercialisation

when I was a kid an advent calendar normally had pictures behind the windows, the school did a nativity play, you were taken to see Father Christmas at a grotto in a department store, you bought a real tree about 5-10 days before christmas, you sent loads of cards, carols singers came round, on Christmas eve you hung up a stocking, Christmas day you opened stocking ( some people opened all presents first thing) at our house we went to church, had christmas dinner at lunch time then opened rest of the presents later on, we played parlour or board games then we had christmas tea with trifle and cake and more food

there was no such thing as Christmas Eve boxes, elf on shelfs, christmas pyjamas, bedding etc
most people got a stocking and 1 present from their parents plus 1 present from grandparents aunts etc, sometimes if you had asked for a small thing you might get two things like felt pens and colouring books but not even the wealthy kids I knew got 10 presents just from their parents
winding greenery around mantelpieces and staircases cooking for 10,00 etc is pointless don't invite 15 people unless you actually enjoy catering for 15, if you hate it have Christmas as your own family

my DH would have nice food and get presents for DD and put cards up and that's it
myself and DD put up tree and decorate because we like to we also do extra baking together
DH as no family to buy presents for as his parents are long dead and he is the only child of only children he has no first cousins either
I buy for my mum and dad my sisters and my niece and nephew and 1 friend
I don't do extra cleaning the only other decorations are a wreath on front door and some garlands DD made in nursery
so yes I do a few extra things that DH would not do like wrap gifts in paper not just put in a bag, decorate house but to be honest he doesn't expect me to do this as he would not mind if it was not done

The biggest madness I've seen is the advent book thing (new book every day, wtaf) and the Xmas Eve 'box' containing yet more presents, pyjamas, blah blah

Yy. I mean I think that is a prime example of people choosing to be all "look at me and look at all I've done" not like not doing it means theres no food no presents etc

Honestly I doubt all this elf on the shelf shit would even exist if we didnt have face book.

So sick of these threads. What is it to you OP if someone else is stressed? It's always assumed that it's all about Christmas but it's usually not all about Christmas. It's usually work, children being ill, people being ill, knowing you've got presents to wrap etc. How do you 'delegate' your job to others? How do you 'delegate' an ill child? How do you 'delegate' your own cold?

You'll probably find that if you got off your high horse and actually bothered to listen to people and women especially, you might find that they are dealing with about 5 or 6 things and feeling overwhelmed. So your theory is that we all bottle our stress and what? Explode? Get more stressed? Give over. Talking about being stressed is not being a martyr. It's a healthy way to ensure you don't end up mentally ill and exhausted.

I ABSOLUTELY agree with you! So much stress over a Sunday lunch. I'm making dinner for 10 of us, and I'm making what I find easiest, I'm not spending my whole day stressing in case Doreen prefers homemade pigs in blankets over shop bought ones.

My mum is a typical Christmas martyr, I've seen her cook 5 courses, including a fish course, for 16 people (no one asked for so many bloody courses). she also tries to serve food and drink like a waitress, actually putting food on people's plates and going around pouring the wine into glasses whilst her useless shit of a husband sits on his arse. We all say "sit down FFS Anne" and it's always "no no I've got soooooo much to do there's no TIME to sit down". By the end of the day, she's on the brink of a nervous breakdown, starving because she didn't have time to eat and always moaning that everyone didn't thank her enough for everything.

I wish she'd realise that everyone, including her, would have a much more relaxed Christmas if she just calmed the fuck down, made 3 courses, forced her useless shit husband to help, plonked food and wine in the middle of table for people to help themselves and actually joined us.

Just noticed you've got grown up kids.... I knew there would be a reason for your high and mighty post! You've hardly anything to do and don't have to deal with a toddler spewing all over the house and their nose running like a tap for 2 weeks every Christmas anymore or juggling the childcare or trying to give them a good Christmas. Maybe try and look back when your kids were young and how much there was to do, especially at Christmas time and in the winter with all the bugs going about and stop calling people martyrs

My mum never made any secret of the fact that she disliked Christmas and put the minimum effort in. I think I was 10 when she openly told me she hated Christmas for the first time.

So I've never had a high bar. DS is 17 and in all that time, I've hosted once and we've gone to relatives once. I put up a tree and a few indoor decorations, wrap and post what needs to be posted and get plenty of lovely, pre-prepared vegetarian food. No cards, no sprouts, no bloody home made gravy, no stress. Lovely!

We did the advent book thing. No idea why it's "madness"...

I don't put it on social media, only my family know about it and it's been brilliant. My toddler now has a lovely Christmas bedtime, has started to understand more about Christmas and most importantly what I choose to do has zero impact on you.

there was no such thing as Christmas Eve boxes, elf on shelfs, christmas pyjamas, bedding etc

I had no idea people did all this - I have a tree, cards up and a wreath and that’s it.

I have spent the past three weeks prepping the house though. It was in desperate need of a deep clean and there were a ton of jobs that needed doing. All the downstairs rooms are finally looking lovely and ready for visitors and I have to say, it does feel good! (Upstairs is another story...)

And then there are the women that come on here and tell other women...stop moaning it's easy see how good I am at it! Women are great at making other women feel shit.

It's wifework isn't it? And the expectation that Christmas is somehow a woman's domain. Not in this house, though - I expect DH to do his share. I tend to buy more of the presents as he has the imagination of a doorknob, but he will then wrap them all. Decorating, cooking, cleaning, those are joint tasks that we both do.

When I read threads about people being stressed on here, their partners are invariably mysteriously absent. 'I have to clean the whole house, cook dinner, wrap the presents, do the kid's stockings...' If you have a partner that doesn't pull their weight then yes, Christmas will most likely be a lot of work. But that's not really a fault of Christmas.

Well, DH is dead so yes I find it busy. Big, sociable gift-giving families on both sides, and I’m the natural organiser of get-togethers, and that’s not changed now I’m on my own.

I’d better get to bed 🤣

This isn't my experience. I might just be lucky but my dh has always sorted out all the presents for our boys which is the biggest stress. For the first time this year we have made a donation to charity in lieu of Christmas cards and we aren't hosting so no big stress there. When we have hosted in the past the shopping and cooking has been a team game too.
I didn't marry someone who wouldn't do his share and wouldn't be prepared to accept it now.

I don't know the answers for other but what works for me is setting expectations:

• we have two trees, 10 min to decorate each plus some fairy lights/decorative lights dotted round the house. That's it for the decorations but it looks very cozy and festive
• we are hosting just our immediate families, DH and meal plan together and order in food for Xmas day and Boxing Day, neither us want to cook
• delegate out the wine, snacks for others to buy
• we tidy together
• kids get one present from us, one from each other and one from Santa
• small gifts for the rest of the family e.g scarves, jumpers (DH did most of this)

The only thing I’ll be doing this Christmas is the cooking as i love it. DH has done everything else. Some women just enjoy being a martyr and some women don’t think their DH does it to their exacting standard.

Christmas is no doubt a busy period but I love it, despite its busyness. Some people however do only have themselves to blame. I remember when I first worked being shocked that people made their own bread sauce and cranberry sauce from scratch! Why!? If they like it fine but stop whingeing about it - jarred stuff is available! My husband generally does as much as I do so I possibly am more positive due to this. He has been out of action this Christmas (illness) so in the last few days I have understood how many women in not so equal partnerships feel.

I'm 43 and my mum used to give us new pyjamas and a mug to unwrap on Christmas eve when I was a kid. It was a good way to get us to settle down, bath and put new PJs on, then we'd sit down and watch a film with hot chocolate in our special we christmas mug, then clean teeth and read the night before Christmas. I did the same with my now 19 and 20 year old kids when they were small. I think that's pretty much all Christmas eve boxes are, isn't it?

My kids are happy with a hand cut piece of holly and some chestnuts roasted over the fire.I rustle up a hearty feast for 10 sourced from the local greengrocer whilst my husband goes out and sources a turkey from the local farmer.Don't know why all these women get so stressed.They must enjoy it.It's a peaceful time here all about family.Although I do find working in the NHS, my daughter's insistent demands/meltdowns for an iPhone and my husband's family constantly bickering and demanding does slightly effect my Christmas spirit.Added to that I do fucking everything whilst working full time for bugger all money it's amazing just how calm I am.

@YappityYapYap I have two toddlers. I still don't understand the stress.

We've all had colds. Dh has exams in jan, are hosting two days over the christmas period and are visiting two places.

We've put up our tree. We've foraged for bits for our wreath (which is now wilted and falling apart on our front door), I've bought and wrapped presents. We've seen Santa. The boys helped me make inedible mince pies. We're 100 miles away on Christmas eve and hosting on Christmas day. I'm not stressed. I'm excited.