To feel like the burden of Christmas always falls on women?

[Fallingrain]

Just that really. I do a full time job, run a business on the side and I always get so frazzled at this time of year. There is just so much to do. DH isn’t useless but I couldn’t trust him to remember stuff like Christmas jumper day at school. I absolutely accept that I’m very lucky to afford a cleaner and we don’t have financial worries but I still get to Christmas and I feel like I’ve run a marathon. The cards, stockings, school stuff, gifts for family and friends, Christmas food and planning catering etc. It’s all just too much.

It gets my goat a bit that women seem to take it all on in most households. I remember my Mum being exactly the same and I don’t want the kids to just remember Christmas as me getting stressed.

We have quite a fair division of labour in our marriage, but I’ve always taken on the vast bulk of the Christmas ‘work’ and I think it’s because I’ve always had such high standards of making it a ‘magical’ time for our family.

This year I just haven’t had the energy or inclination to do it. I said as much to DH last month and that I just didn’t feel like making a big effort this year. And guess what? He’s done it all. Presents bought. Tree up. He’ll be doing the good shop. I’ve done absolutely nothing and it’s a revelation. I don’t feel half as frazzled as I usually do by this time I’m December. And I’m really looking forward to it now, more than ever.

food shop

You choose to get stressed.

In our family, my husband does tons for the kids like laundry, meals (proactively, without me delegating it) but events like birthdays and Christmas simply would not happen if I didn’t do all the emotional labour and all the thinking. I do absolutely draw the line at presents for his family (well I bought for his parents this year because we got the same thing as for my parents) because by marrying me he did not thereby offload all his responsibilities to his own family and I refuse for that to become women’s work. I don’t send Christmas cards. He will do any job asked but I have to think of them first eg get the decorations from the loft, buy the tree, go to the butcher. What I don’t think he (and many people) get is that the planning has to start some time ahead! If the presents are going to be thoughtful and suitable then you’re not going to magically have those thoughts out shopping on Christmas Eve! And the cost might have to be spread across several paycheques. And the planning takes time - buying, wrapping, sending, ordering etc. The planning/thinking that is invisible but essential is in my experience the stuff that falls to the women.

Yeah I do practically everything but he does work, I don’t.

Not for me. We do secret Santa with my family and with in-laws, so DP buys his own for that. My dad is the main cook in their house so he does most of the cooking with my mum helping.

Me and DH share all cooking and prep (including cleaning the house) when we host Christmas day.

MIL definitely does it all in her household, but FIL doesn't ever cook, go shopping or buy gift for the other 364 days per year so it wouldn't change on Christmas day.

I guess it goes hand-in-hand with whatever you put up with for the rest of the year.

When our DDs open their presents it’s as much a surprise for DH as it is for the kids.

I frequently wonder how he gets paid to do his job but his work love him. He has no practical skills nor technical skills but he did a degree in electronics and is a software developer.
I organise the lot, he does his mum and uncle but I direct that too.

It's very much a joint effort here, I do the tree but DH does all the lights inside and out and other bits and pieces. We shop together, I buy and write the cards and wrap the presents, he cooks christmas dinner.

It is much the same in our house. I really wish it wasn’t but am yet to find a solution

I host Christmas Day every year (as my Mum did throughout my childhood and up to the point I had my own DC) and is hard work

I don’t go overboard at all in terms of gifts, decorations, catering etc but there is still a lot to remember

If we didn’t have DC I wouldn’t bother. My DH has no expectations and wouldn’t complain in the slightest if there was no tree, no decorations, no gifts and no Christmas dinner but I would feel bad for the DC if I went on strike and didn’t bother at all. I also do it for my Mum as feel like she did all this shit for about 25 years so it’s my turn now!
(I’m not a fan of Christmas, can you tell? 😅)

A lot here that resonates with me. I think essentially the problem for a lot of women is that somehow you end of taking the 'emotional burden'of it all. I dont want to ask my husband to do things, and to set him tasks. I just want him to take the sodding initiative to do it himself. This year I said I wasn't going to organise anything for his of the family and guess what - nothing sorted yet. I dont want family on his side to not get anything from us when I know full well we will get presents from them but i organise everthing else and I've had enough of thinking about it all.

On a more positive note he is great at doing all the cooking..but he always gets loads of recognition and compliments from everyone for that whilst the person doing the shopping, wrapping, cards, etc etc does not!

@hamsterchump

I think some women make a rod for their own back a bit too though. For example I don't get involved in any buying for OH's side of the family and never have, his family, up to him, how would I know better than him what they'd like? So much simpler to each do your own side, I've just never taken on that kind of wife work and I don't apologise for it. Also I don't bother with cards, what a waste of time.

My MIL buys presents for my nephew. A two year old she has met once as a baby. If you apply that to every baby she had a similarly tangential relationship with, no wonder she's worn out with "all the stress of Christmas".

It dose in our house but I’m a sahm and I absolutely love it. I get very into it and go OTT. DH dose the jobs I ask of him without complaint, but they are usually physical jobs, lugging boxes around etc... If I didn’t take control I think DH would do an all right job, especially if he had a check list. The only difference would be that I spend all year picking up bits and looking for deals where he would do it all last minute.

DH has always got the DCs ready for school, he irons his own work clothes, I think I’ve ironed once in 10 years, so he irons the DCs and gets the ready before going to work. We have a joint calendar that everything is loaded into so nothing is forgotten by either of us.

This is news?!? Of course they do (generally). Just like they take on the emotional work in the relationship.
My husband cooked the Christmas dinner, but I did everything else (I wouldn't buy his family gifts though, he did that). Decorating, cards, sorting the kids presents, wrapping, making the house presentable for guests and so on.
But, and a big but, I loved it. I wanted to decorate/ wrap the gifts/sort the cards and so on. It's when you feel you have to, rather than want to, that there's an issue.

I had this last week. I asked him what he'd bought for our adult DCS? His mother? Asked if he'd organised the Christmas food shop for 6, now possibly seven as he's dropped it on me that MIL might be here. Asked how the cards were going etc

I felt utterly unappreciated and to some extent still do. It came about because I'd mentioned my old pressure cooker, dented to buggery with only half the display working, is a bit small for 7 and I wanted the 8 liter instantpot. He muttered something about saving money etc (but he can afford his crap). I said fair enough, you're in charge of cooking the veg Christmas day.

We're a week on now and still no pressure cooker. If he gets it for a Christmas gift I'll kill him and you lot can provide the alibi.

I agree but... I love Christmas and love doing all the preparations and cooking.

Saw a meme a while ago.
Family Christmas, all sitting round the tree opening presents. You get a present with a tag that says 'love from Mum and Dad'. Mum and Dad look on smiling while you open it, and you know that Dad has absolutely no idea what's in there.

Here's a classic example of Christmas wifework for you.

When I got together with my partner, we were in our early thirties.

My partner had a great-aunt. Obviously, he had had that great-aunt for over thirty years.

He had never sent the great-aunt a Christmas card, but that had never been a problem.

But!

Once it was known in the family that he had a partner, there was sulking from the great-aunt because she didn't get a Christmas card on our first Christmas together.

This man had never been expected to send one in 30+ years but once I came along, it was expected of me, apparently, to send a Christmas card to a complete and utter stranger who I had never met and, for the remainder of her life, never did.

It's bullshit. Merry Christmas!

Yes same here OP. I do the bulk of it. I think the majority of women end up doing all the ‘life admin’ such as remembering Christmas jumper day etc, and that extends to Christmas too. It’s not fair of course but men seem generally rubbish at it, or maybe it’s just generation after generation not having to be good at it as women pick up the slack. Not saying this is the case all the time but it certainly is for myself and my friends & family.
I enjoy doing the Christmas stuff though, sorting presents etc. DH works in an industry that is snowed under at this time of year, more so than ever this year, so he wouldn’t have the time anyway and wouldn’t think of half of the things that are needed either.

Here’s how it works in our house...

DH and I sit down over cocktails and put together a list. Depending on what is going that year the list ranges from gifts to dinners/food to fun stuff.

We then divvy up the list and do our parts. Which if truth be told, he probably does more than I do.

He is a master at errand running and his work schedule allows for him to go at quieter times, and I am good at organizing and final execution.

We’ve systematically eliminated a lot of the gift giving by agreement, but he took care of his family and I took care of mine when we still did it. No little kids anymore in extended family, but we would do those together because it was fun and we’d make a day of it.

I honestly don’t understand why this isn’t more typical.

Just don't do the things then. If your DH won't take responsibility for remembering Christmas Jumper day, why should you? Don't do the things you don't care about (if you care that every member of your combined families get cards, then write them if he won't. If you don't care if his family don't get a card, write them only to your side)
etc etc

Yeah. I have a full time job that goes crazy at this time of year and involves me working all day Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. DH doesn’t work. But when I finally come home Christmas Day evening it turns out that I’ve managed to arrange dinner and presents, and a tree and decorations have magically appeared. Whereas DH has had a nap.

I left my ex after seven years of living together, working full time, supporting his flailing career, many relocations and numerous month-long in-law visits. After his first Christmas without me, he apologised and said he had no idea what was involved in running a house and organising his social life, visiting families and friends and organising everything for Christmas.

After I'd left, he'd been forced to take on a PA, gardener, cleaner and the services of a food delivery company.

He didnt even know where the Christmas trees came from or where the decorations were stored.

I think we do nobody any favours by doing it all ourselves.

Men get off scott-free, children see it as women's work and we run ourselves ragged.

Is your husband unable to do a food shop? write cards? wrap presents? If he can do that then why are you doing it?

I've been married twice and have never bought presents or cards for my husbands' families It just would never occur to me.

Christmas this year is much simpler but I still have spent more time than I would like on planning and buying stuffy. The issue for me is I really can't complain as neither DH nor DS ( now a teenager) give a monkeys if we have a tree or decorations. It is me who wants them up but I don't much enjoy putting it all up and taking it down again so feel put upon . Logic and reason don't stop me being irritated that I do most of the work for Christmas even though it is me that liked the tree and the roast dinner. I'd just like someone else to do it for me