Let's lighten the mood - what would go into your Christmas Room 101

[GlummyMcGlummerson]

For me

• family pyjama pictures - you know the ones where mum, dad, child & baby wear the same PJs - you all look like pillocks and/or like you're part of a cult.

• mummy martyrs. Women (and sorry it is women and yes I know theres bigger expectations around them at Christmas) clanging pans around the kitchen from 7am - 6pm on Christmas Day, making far too much food that nobody especially asked for, refusing to let anyone help but complaining you're doing it all on your own. Just STFU and order a takeaway if you're gonna have a nervous breakdown over sprouts.

• most Christmas specials (except the first Gavin and Stacey one where Nessa have everyone a celebration chocolate ) - although I do have high hopes for the Motherland Christmas Special!

Blue flashing lights on NDNs House (not envy)
Mince pies/Christmas pudding /Christmas cake 🤮
Christmas cards
2 hr Christmas lunch starting at 2pm. What other day would we ever do this? Eat dinner in the evening like the rest of the year

Definitely blue lights. The trees lining our streets, some of them have been done in all blue lights. Does not look Christmassy at all and very cold looking.

lasttangoinscunthorpe. I agree regarding too many chocs in offices/staff rooms etc. My birthday December and when was in the office I always bring in pringles, nuts (no allergies) and mini cheddar etc.

I opened this thread to have a good old rant but then saw that Motherland Christmas special is happening and no longer feel grumpy! Yay!

Enforced family games when all I want to do is watch the Christmas Eastenders

@sazzysazz337

those fucking outdoor blue lights that make me think it’s greater manchester police at my door at 4am every time i get up for a fucking wee!

Yes to this! We've got some across the road. I thought the ambulance /fire service were outside our house.

Christmas cards to my darling husband/wife. Sending cards to neighbours.

Fake snow on artificial trees. I trusted DH to organise a new tree this year. There's now white powdery crap every where. If I wanted mess to clear up I would I've had a real tree.

Santa stop signs. What are they all about?

Yorkshire pudding anywhere near a Christmas dinner plate.

Bucks fizz for breakfast. If you must have alcohol at that time of day have a snowball. It must have a cherry and be in a round glass.

Giving cards to people you see every day. Enforced jolly time. The constant magazine articles about how to have a fab feast and the illusion of perfection that must place a strain on people with limited funds.

Elf on the Shelf - creepy little narc

Tinsel - hate it

‘Hot choc station’ - BARF

Christmas Eve boxes - why?

Cold blue lights - I will assume you are a psychopath

Silk flowers instead of baubles on a tree - you are not Mrs Hinch

Putting the decorations up at the start of November - won’t they be tired and dusty by Christmas?!

Santa Stop Here signs on my neighbour’s front lawns. Off you fuck!

@Holothane

Oh and don’t get me started on nye, crap tv forced jollity go away, I’ll look forward when I wake January the first, knowing nights will get lighter, spring buds on trees bushes flowers again,.

How could I have forgotten Jolls Holland’s Hootenanny? Put me in Winston’s room 101 with the rats please, anything, but not the Hootenanny!

Christmas Eve boxes.

Christmas jumpers- low use and tacky.

Secret Santa- let's donate to charity instead.

Cranberry sauce. No, just no.

Eating chocolate for breakfast/all day. Urghhh no. Chocolate isn't special, it's readily available all year round.

inflatable christmas decs.

I love lights, can't stand these naff inflatable things.

agree with pjs.

hmm, mine would be Christmas crackers. I know, traditional and I'm not normally a spoilsport, but I would be happy to loose them adn their disappointing toys and their too small hats

Christmas crackers. You’re basically just buying rubbish. It all goes in the bin. All because there’s a tiny crack noise and someone ‘wins’. They win rubbish.

Christmas eve boxes!!!!!!!

What a brilliant thread! So many great suggestions

'Eat dinner in the evening like the rest of the year' - have to disagree with this. FIL does Christmas dinner for 7pm and its murder. You really do not want to be eating the biggest meal of the year about 3 hours before you go to bed

My list would be:
Every single Christmas film except Love Actually (its TERRIBLE, but I have a soft spot for it)

Every single Christmas song except a handful of bearable ones which does very much NOT include Mariah Carey and sodding Fairytale

People who cant stop talking about bloody Christmas from mid November

Christmas ads

People who make their houses look like Blackpool illuminations

Christmas PJs for the whole family- fine for kids, utterly tragic for adults. Ditto Christmas jumpers. Bonus horror points for putting photo of whole family wearing Christmas clothes on social media

Christmas smugness in general

I genuinely look forward to January every year. Yes I know that sounds weird

I do think late lunch works. My FIL does a lovely spread in a normal year and serves at 4 - works really well

The person who takes the trouble to send you a Christmas card but doesn't take enough trouble to make their name legible.

Breathy/folky/whiney singing on Christmas ads, always doing an acoustic version of big songs like living on a bastard prayer or a U2 number.

Elf on a twatting shelf.

Smug people in November "presents all purchased and wrapped"

Smug mums who basically do things for a wholesome looking Instagram pic when really you know she's shouting at them to behave or tells them to go back upstairs to play on their iPads etc once the picture moments done.

My own household at Christmas dinner I have a vegan (dp) a Pescetarian (DD) a carnivore (me) and a fussy eater who only eats anything beige (DSS).

Not all related entirely to Christmas

Commercialism/deification of money

Reality tv -esp Xmas specials

The cult of celebrity-esp the being famous for you who shag types who appear on all these Christmas programmes -this year it’s been a bit better as people with actual talent have appeared on some

Generally

Anyone who posts (photoshopped) pictures of themselves in underwear on Instagram -are they advertising their wares?

Going Christmas shopping with DD on the first weekend in December to find all the Christmas things had been shoved into a corner to make way for their spring cleaning promotion 😣

Seeing Easter egg hunt packs in same shop

Also not being able to get PS5 for 12 year old DS

Tinsel - also angel hair
Elf on the shelf
People posting pictures of all their gifts on SM
Matching Christmas PJs or jumpers
Receiving obviously regifted smellies & candles
Stop the cavalry
The colourful tights my grandma kindly gets me every year (they go to charity shop)

Felt good to get that off my chest!

-Matching family Christmas PJ's or (even worse!) onesies.
-Boots 3 for 2 gifts.
-Tinsel
-Christmas cards
-Paper Christmas hats and the people who insist that others MUST wear them and keep them on for the duration of Christmas lunch because you WILL have fun, god dammit!
-Grown adults wearing wacky novelty Christmas slippers, earrings or flashing reindeer antlers in their own homes thinking it's oh so quirky and hilarious...yes, I'm looking at you, MIL!
-Party games

• Sprouts
• This is pre-covid obviously but the school Christmas fayre, PTA Christmas breakfast, Christmas disco, Christmas assembly, Christmas concert, Christmas play all on different days which is a nightmare for working parents and means by the end of term kids are whipped up into an overtired, overexcited frenzy!

Blue-blue and blue-white lights: they’re supposed to be warm and welcoming in the dark days, not for searing onto your retinas.

The fire brigade driving their rig round all the residential streets in town setting off the sirens, to collect money: I love the idea of collecting donations, but I don’t need the faecal incontinence which perforce accompanies the sudden advent of a fire siren three feet from my front window.

My new opposite neighbours’ AWFUL outdoor decorations: including something which looks like a terrifying giant robin holding a wreath in its beak, and seems capable of savaging anyone who approaches.

Families in matching pyjamas, their Christmas Eve boxes, enormous piles of presents under the tree, and #blessed or similar: you can all get in the sea. Do it all, and more, by all means, if it makes you and your family happy. But here’s a revelation: sharing it with the world doesn’t make you a better person AND IT’S NOT COMPULSORY.