Page 7 | To think that having a quiet understated Christmas is not such a bad thing

Runningjump · 31/10/2020 21:05

@keepgoingorstop

*We've all had to make sacrifices, and those who obsess over seeing dozens of family members they would never make an effort to see at any other time of year are frankly just going to have to suck it up.

Having one smaller Christmas will not be the end of the world. It's one year!*

Hey Grinch is that you?

I see my family all year round and still enjoy seeing them at Christmas.

Fingers crossed this lock down will work and the Christmas miseries will just have to suck up visiting relatives!

If you don't want to see them, don't use a pandemic for your excuse. Just say it like it is. Don't see you all year and don't care about seeing you.

I love seeing my family and do so every Christmas. I also see them often throughout the year in normal times, so not the thought of not seeing them on one arbitrary day isn't filling me with dread.

keepgoingorstop · 31/10/2020 21:11

As do I @Runningjump, don't see your point and people just have to suck it up, hopefully not!

Just because it doesn't fill you with dread, doesn't mean it doesn't fill others with dread! Can you understand that? It'll upset some more than others?

Tell the lonely person on Christmas Day, feeling down and alone and awful, just suck it up? Full of Christmas spirt aren't you?

NannyGythaOgg · 31/10/2020 21:17

YABU very very
If that's what you want you can have it whenever you want.

I will spend Christmas alone and I am more than happy to do so but I don't think that just because it suits me it should be imposed on everyone

mathanxiety · 31/10/2020 21:19

Have ‘they’ ever thought that maybe those who don’t celebrate Christmas might not want to dance to that tune? It’s a religious festival.

I think they're thinking of all that Christmas shopping.

mathanxiety · 31/10/2020 21:22

@BluebellsGreenbells - yes, excessive.

Lightsontbut · 31/10/2020 22:45

@CrunchyNutNC

*You don΄t see that for other people this one year might be the last chance to see their loved ones, either because they are old or because they have limited life expectancy for other reasons?

It΄s just one year- but it happens to be the year my dad is still alive.*

I can never quite get my head around this. It's not like christmas is the only time you get to see people surely? I see some families have logistical issues getting people together (e.g. those with relatives overseas who only visit at christmas) but for the rest of us we see family regularly and what happens on one day of the year isn't really that important?

I know this year is slightly odd in that by the time we get to christmas we may not have had the same opportunities to meet in the weeks or months leading to christmas, but I still don't understand why meeting on 25th December is so much more important, than meeting a month later or earlier.

For some of us it's as simple as not being able to travel to see family outside of holidays as kids at school make that impossible. Next opportunity will be Easter as can't take leave in Feb as I work for the NHS and have to co-ordinate leave with colleagues.

VestaTilley · 31/10/2020 23:40

@Ponoka7 it absolutely is a religious festival - regardless of whether or not you celebrate it as such

AvocadosBeforeMortgages · 01/11/2020 00:19

Even the most basic Christmas that I can pull together (2 x parents, 1 x grandparent, plus me) involves pulling together 4 households - all single people living alone - and stuck across the English / Welsh border.

Worrying about covid restrictions has fuck all to do with gifts and general overindulgence, and everything to do with ensuring immediate family members don't spend Christmas alone.

Goosefoot · 01/11/2020 02:28

I think that in some ways there can be a lot said for it, and I think some people will feel relieved. I know a number of families that really have found the demands around Christmas are just so stressful. All kinds of special events and school things. Visit all the parents - maybe some are divorced so there could be three or four households expecting to be seen in a short time. Travel when it is very busy and expensive.

Some people may feel that it is a chance to get out of family practices they have never really enjoyed but didn't seem to have a choice about.

I think it could be good for families and organisations to use it as a chance to reassess if their usual thing might just be too much.

I think though that many people will also be sad not to be able to see their family and friends, especially since they may not have seen them in months. They may miss special events, or church services. Some people may end up alone.

A lot of people might like an excuse to have a simpler time in terms of giving gifts, spending less money and buying fewer things people don't need, but I doubt most will be able to do that unless driven to it by financial necessity. It's too easy to buy online.

malificent7 · 01/11/2020 04:47

Yanbu...i am personally ok with a quiet one.

PerveenMistry · 01/11/2020 04:54

@itsgoodtobehome

Everyone seems to be in such a panic about Christmas, and what's going to happen in the current climate. Don't get me wrong, I like Christmas, but I don't have any issue with it being a bit quieter this year. I always find it a bit stressful anyway - the tons of food shopping, presents, wrapping, the extras, who is going where, what's happening on Boxing Day etc. I quite like the idea of having a year off.

After all, it's just a day of over-indulgence. Surely we can all cope without that for 1 year!! AIBU?

YANBU.

It's the selfish, immature people who are incapable of delaying gratification who will keep us in covid for a year longer than we should have been.

Goosefoot · 01/11/2020 07:00

For people wondering why people make a special effort to see others at Christmas when they may not see them so regularly at other times:

Obviously time off is one reason, and coordination in larger families. But it goes a bit beyond that. It is like trying to exercise regularly, or anything else - often we need to set aside special times to do things, or they never quite seem to get done.

Many families have several olidays or events over the course of the year where they get together. They may only manage to see each other then, or they may only all get together then. Or maybe those are just the times they plan to get together for a real celebration. Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter, maybe some sort of big summer holiday. Some families have a reunion with a big bbq every year at the same time.

The point is that this is a time when they know ahead, without making up special plans or having to agree to dates and times, that they will do certain things. All have a big dinner, or go skating, or to panto. My family, at Christmas, typically meets at an uncles Christmas Eve, often that is the place where I know I'll see people I get to see less often. At Halloween I go to a certain aunts. In August, we have a big family picnic on the other side of my family. At New Years, I go to my sisters place and see certain cousins.

It's how people organise the flow of the year. And when people haven't been able to meet people in the normal way on a daily basis, they finding more upsetting than usual to not have these larger celebrations.

Igotthemheavyboobs · 01/11/2020 07:30

Yanbu, people will jus have to make the most of a shit situation. I don't understand all the aggro on here, if we are in lockdown and don't have a choice, you can either spend the day miserable, moping around and moanin or get some nice food, put on some Christmas movies and try to have some resemblance of a happy day.

DinosApple · 01/11/2020 07:57

Normally I'd see my uncle, my grandma, my parents, my bro & sil, BIL and MIL. With my own family that's 7 households, and I love it!

I am sad about a quiet Christmas, obviously I understand why, but everyone is getting older, highlighted by MIL's (Covid) death in May.

Whilst the small Christmas protects the family elders, I'm also highly concious that some family members might not have many left!

makingmammaries · 01/11/2020 08:00

A lockdown Christmas is horrible for anyone who might not see another Christmas: older people and those with serious health conditions.

Anyone else needs to think now about organizing a bubble, if they need one. The rest of us need to suck it up, since there is more serious stuff at stake than Christmas.

midgebabe · 01/11/2020 08:03

@Igotthemheavyboobs

Yanbu, people will jus have to make the most of a shit situation. I don't understand all the aggro on here, if we are in lockdown and don't have a choice, you can either spend the day miserable, moping around and moanin or get some nice food, put on some Christmas movies and try to have some resemblance of a happy day.

I guess the problem is that Christmas in particular reminds us of the people we haven't seen or hugged. In many cases, since last Christmas. I miss those people so much. Christmas is about family and friends for me, and I miss them.

serialreturner · 01/11/2020 08:06

I'm totally with you, OP.

I'm so looking forward to it.

user1471538283 · 01/11/2020 08:19

It's about the people not the stuff. I really want to see my family for a day over Christmas. I'm doing a meal, a tree and a couple of presents if it works out. But I want the people

Fallsballs · 01/11/2020 08:35

YANBU OP...too much fuss and drama over one day.

Frdd · 01/11/2020 08:35

I won’t see some of my kids. I’m dreading it.

WellWeAreFuckedNow · 01/11/2020 08:45

I don't give a flying duck about one day if we're throwing the economy under the bus for it.

SLAW70s · 01/11/2020 08:47

I totally understand the concern about so many spending xmas alone.

However, I do think that there are probably thousands of matriarchs across the UK breathing a sigh of relief.

I don’t like the implication by some that if your Christmas is stressful usually then that’s somehow your fault for doing it wrong. Sometimes Christmas is stressful because the responsibility for making it special lies disproportionately with one person, often without any reciprocity from year to year.

Kpo58 · 01/11/2020 08:51

@Igotthemheavyboobs

Yanbu, people will jus have to make the most of a shit situation. I don't understand all the aggro on here, if we are in lockdown and don't have a choice, you can either spend the day miserable, moping around and moanin or get some nice food, put on some Christmas movies and try to have some resemblance of a happy day.

It's not so easy for everyone to just get some nice food and watch Christmas movies.

Not everyone can afford the nice food. Sitting watching movies of people having more enjoyable time than you are when you are stuck on your own can be very painful. Some people can't watch the movies/play boardgames because they have young children with very limited concentration span who would destroy the house if stuck inside. They don't understand why you can't see granny or go anywhere apart from traipse some tiny barren park that they have been to every day since covid started.

Parker231 · 01/11/2020 08:53

Christmas isn’t stressful. The shopping and preparation are shared amongst the family.

Frdd · 01/11/2020 08:54

@Parker231

Christmas isn’t stressful. The shopping and preparation are shared amongst the family.

Not in every house.