Anyone else have no fucker who wants to bubble with them over Christmas?

[EleanorRising]

We live a couple of hours drive away from both our families but there and back in a day is doable.

Text from FIL: "love you all, not meeting up with anyone til vaccinated against this bugger. Will transfer £££. See you on the other side"

Text from MIL (they're divorced) "Jeff and Joan are bubbling with us and bringing Joan's mum so that's our bubble sorted. Easter's looking promising though"

My sisters will spend Xmas day with their in-laws so that's their bubble for the 5 days.

Anyone else not been inundated with requests?

Lucky you, no emotional blackmail

I'm not wasting my bubble on family! definitely using it as an excuse to not see various in laws.

Yes! Neither my DPs nor my ILS want us to travel to them. I managed to make all the right disappointed noises but I'm secretly delighted! We usually have to spend Christmas week doing a tour of the country so I can't wait to spend it on my sofa eating cheese and drinking baileys

My sons all having Christmas with inlaws, I understand they all live between 3 and 4 hrs away and in laws are round the corner so they see them anyway, well they will next week when we go back into tiers. DD lives in a city with very high rates and she feels it is to risky to see us so last Christmas it was 16 of us, this year 2. I'm not sure how I feel, a bit of a mixture of feeling safe/relaxed about it all and feeling a bit low and left out.

Yep. I'll be spending the day on my own

Pinching your FIL's text! It's great.

Living in fear of some bugger wanting to bubble with us!

My bubble has always been my mum despite her living 200 miles away so she’s coming Christmas Day - then I guess the other bubble is my kids dad and his partner - so no not a huge selection
I will add my best mates husband as he always brings me a cocktail dressed as an elf Christmas night 😂

Yep. Email from parents saying they don’t want to see me but ‘don’t worry about presents, the post is quite good!’ Not spoken to sibling, but they live quite far away and may well be working. Have a support bubble with friends, but they will be isolating before Christmas and then seeing relatives, so I won’t see them at all. Just me and the dog then. I’m not sure how I feel about it. Mainly like a bit of a failure for not having a ‘proper’ family of my own.

We could technically bubble with either of our parents - but we won't.

His parents aren't doing Christmas at all and have said they don't want to bubble with any of us. As they've quite rightly pointed out, three households would take it to 10 people in a small house, including school children (both primary and secondary) and key workers. His dad is very vulnerable and they haven't been out apart from to the hospital since March. It seems stupid to waste that now when a vaccine is so close.

My parents have been a bit more lax, but I have anxiety and the thought of infecting them - Dad being over 60 and Mum with asthma - fills me with dread, to the point that I just wouldn't be able to enjoy the day anyway.

So I told my family at the weekend, before the rules were even announced, that no matter what they were, DP and I would be spending the day alone this year.

I was actually secretly looking forward to it, because we've never spent the day just the two of us (our parents live in the same town so we actually go to their respective houses for the day and then I come round to his mum's in the evening as they party unlike my family all falling asleep haha).

But my dad has come up with a full day of Christmas Zoom related activities and I haven't the heart to tell him that I just don't want to do that.

How many bubbles will Mr Covid be joining? He'll be as busy as Santa Claus.

We live a couple of hours drive...
You don't live alone, why do you need a bubble?

I'm not a rabid rule follower and think that people should make decent risk assessments based on their personal circumstances and where they live (in theory!).

BUT I simply can't understand why, after all this upset and effort, people want to cram into a stuffy sitting room with numerous relatives. Is it really worth it? I'd rather sit in splendid isolation and enjoy an extra-blow out Christmas next year, or even a Spring Solstice or whatever sooner, but a crowded room with central heating blasting out and everyone eyeballing everyone else in case they cough on Granny.... no thank you.

Oh well at least you wont be the rest of the country in a trafic jam on the M3, M1,M25 etc.

My two targets are in Kent who I think will be in a higher tier by then so maybe I wont be able to see them anyone and avoid the M25.

I was quite chuffed that my sister contacted me straight after the the news. But it wont be Christmas day. We are still household of six. So many kids is like a human shield to visitors 🤣

@ghostyslovesheets

My bubble has always been my mum despite her living 200 miles away so she’s coming Christmas Day - then I guess the other bubble is my kids dad and his partner - so no not a huge selection I will add my best mates husband as he always brings me a cocktail dressed as an elf Christmas night 😂

You do know it's three households including you, and not as well as you, right?

I mean I'm sure you were joking about your best mate's husband but it made it sound as though you could have someone else.

Also, there is no 'other bubble'. It's groups of three families that make a bubble together. If you're in a bubble with your mum and your kids' dad, he can't get go and bubble with someone else, because that's already the three household bubble.

MrsJack - same position here -first Xmas with no parents .

Has been a lonely year - would just like to send the usual xmas email telling everyone what they are bringing food wise - but sadly not happening.

@EveryDayIsADuvetDay

We live a couple of hours drive... You don't live alone, why do you need a bubble?

You don't have to live alone to bubble at Christmas, it's three households. Whether alone or otherwise.

I've just written a long ranty post on another similar thread - as both DH and I have sufficient DSiblings to make it complicated (and my DPs live 20 minutes from DMIL - which are 2.5 hours from us) - I suspect we will not be bubbling with anyone either. (As they will all expect us to attend theirs, as WELL as the other).

We might drive down and back in the day on another day over the season, as we've only seen them twice since we left last NY's gathering.

But may well not see them at all, for the sake of everyone's health.

We don't mind doing Christmas just ourselves (DH, DD and I) as we do that some year - but we usually still travel down and have the larger gatherings of extended family over the holiday period, just a bit more spread out (i.e. not needing to eat 2 turkey dinners in 1 day and spend that day running and racing between houses).

@Zilla1

Would be tempted to ask your DMIL for what Easter is promising.

MIL's confident we'll all be vaccinated by February because Joan's brother has a mate who knows a bloke who is "working very closely with someone in a laboratory"

So that's COVID done away with by Easter according to MiL ... and Joan.

Chillax Linda he’ll leave the cocktail on the doorstep 😂 I didn’t think NRP’s counted as a bubble?

My parents are over 70. I'm not risking taking covid to them when life will be back to normal in a few months

It's delusional to think it's safe to spend time with older relatives indoors if people in the household are going to school or work or gyms or churches or having a social life indoors.

No bubble, or everyone self-isolating for two weeks beforehand are the safest way.

The 608 people who died yesterday were all someone's relations.

I don't want the deaths in two months to be my relations.

And my fault.

We're not "bubbling" with anyone this year. (Heaves huge sigh of relief)

Sounds like you've been let off the hook. Be grateful. Stay home, eat M&S curry (that's what we're having!), wear your Jim-jams all day and chill out.

Is it really such a huge deal?

I have 4 adult children with children. There’s no way I could choose between them so I’ve cancelled Christmas this year. I’ll be spending Christmas Day at the beach with the dog - and saving myself a fortune 😁

Merry Christmas everybody, however you’re spending it 🎅🏻

Good for you Nut but my mum makes her own choices as an adult - she wants to spend time with her grandchildren and that’s her choice to make not mine or yours - she’s 74 with a dicky heart and making her own risk assessment

I wish my parents would take your ILs approach. I'm really worried about Christmas and my parents appear not to give a shot and are determined to do whatever the fuck they like. My dad is diabetic with a quadruple bypass! They are still having my brother and sil (from high Covid area) stay and are insisting on seeing my family, despite the fact that I have kids going to school in high risk areas. It's stressing me out - I wish they'd have a low key Christmas and then I wouldn't have to worry about them dying in January. They won't be told though.

I suspect we’ll end up this way. I don’t mind having Christmas on our own one bit but it’ll smart not to be the ‘chosen ones’ on either side of the family!