Christmas being “cancelled”.

[Stuckhere2021]

Disclaimer - my DCs are now young adults so we are past the “must have” toys for Christmas but have done the queuing in the rain for 4 hours to get a full set of telletubbies/Tweenies/Paul Smith bag etc.

Would it really be so bad if we had to go a bit more “basic” this year? Say we only eat food and veg produced locally/regionally. Everyone makes do with fewer gifts. More time spent playing games.

YABU - Christmas is special and after the shit 18 months we’ve had, we should have something to look forward to.
YANBU - Christmas is what you make it and shouldn’t be all about the gifts / spending.

Sorry I've just seen your OP begins with you saying your DC are young adults . Must learn to read the OP properly !

Lightisnotwhite
We don't buy any of that stuff you just listed. I don't know why you think 'everyone' does.

Marguerite2000

Because the food shops are rammed from November onwards? , Delivery slots are sold out months in advance? People in general talk about having friends over for drinks, going for drinks all December, their Christmas Eve food, their Boxing Day food, their bit in between food.

My senario is 100% more accurate than people who just buy a turkey and trimmings for lunch and eat nothing else different.

@Lightisnotwhite

Marguerite2000

Because the food shops are rammed from November onwards? , Delivery slots are sold out months in advance? People in general talk about having friends over for drinks, going for drinks all December, their Christmas Eve food, their Boxing Day food, their bit in between food.

My senario is 100% more accurate than people who just buy a turkey and trimmings for lunch and eat nothing else different.

Lots of people still don't do any of those things though. Your scenario is accurate for people that you know, perhaps. I don't know anyone that does. Many people won't be able to afford it, now or in the past, or just won't want to. Our local shops are nowhere near as busy as they used to be, now that they open on Boxing day or the day after.

I never queued for any presents, not even the full set of tellietubbies. But then I didn't wait until December to buy them!!

Christmas here is about everyone pitching in and spending time together. I did the whole one person slaving away in the kitchen once and refuse to ever do that again.

No-one likes Turkey so if there's none available not big deal. And not like this would be the first year of a shortage, the last one was around 10 or so years ago.

It isn’t cancelling Christmas is it, it’s just scaling back. I’d love to do this but worried about disappointing my DC who are all under 12.

What will the other 40% of people eat? Britain only produces 60% of the food that we consume.

@Lightisnotwhite - like you, I find the "its just about turkey" crowd odd, everyone I know is hosting or going to others several times over the Christmas break, we will see family on boxing day and usually a day between Christmas and New year. There will be drinks at friends houses (and yes, nibbles if not full buffets served) usually go to 3 or 4 in December. I will have a work do, a class parents night out, there will be Christmas parties for mine and dhs clubs and groups we are in. He'll have work party plus be invited to client and supplier events.

Apart from anything else, we saved money last year from not paying out for all the babysitters.

MNers do seem to be an oddly antisocial bunch. I guess if Christmas is just your immediate household having a big roast dinner it wouldn't seem all that big a deal. I hated how dull it was last year. Its often just the 4 of us on Christmas day, but that's in the middle of a full season of fun.

[quote MargosKaftan]@Lightisnotwhite - like you, I find the "its just about turkey" crowd odd, everyone I know is hosting or going to others several times over the Christmas break, we will see family on boxing day and usually a day between Christmas and New year. There will be drinks at friends houses (and yes, nibbles if not full buffets served) usually go to 3 or 4 in December. I will have a work do, a class parents night out, there will be Christmas parties for mine and dhs clubs and groups we are in. He'll have work party plus be invited to client and supplier events.

Apart from anything else, we saved money last year from not paying out for all the babysitters.

MNers do seem to be an oddly antisocial bunch. I guess if Christmas is just your immediate household having a big roast dinner it wouldn't seem all that big a deal. I hated how dull it was last year. Its often just the 4 of us on Christmas day, but that's in the middle of a full season of fun. [/quote]
We go to lots of Christmas parties etc but they don’t involve us buying anything different, apart from a bottle to take with us if it’s at someone’s house. We don’t tend to host big gatherings at the moment as we have 3 very young children and it’s more stress than it’s worth.
We genuinely don’t buy much more food than usual at Christmas. There’s only a certain amount that people can eat! The biggest difference is that we buy some really nice meat from the farm shop (rib of beef/venison etc), and a really really good cheese board and nice crackers that we have in the late evening on Christmas Day. We don’t buy things like tins of chocolates. I like mince pies but no one else in the house does so my grandma usually makes me a few!
Obviously shortages affect everything though, so for example I usually go for a champagne brunch with the school mums at Christmas at a local restaurant… if they’re struggling with supply, things like that might not be able to go ahead.

In other words, we’re very social, just not at our house! We do go out far more often around Christmas though, to restaurants etc.