To ask what Christmas traditions you HAVEN’T carried on from childhood?

[LlamaParma]

I don’t cook from scratch. I buy everything M&S ready made in foil tins and whack it in the oven on the day.

Simply because I have HORRIBLE memories of Christmas as a child and my mum absolutely stressing to high heaven in the kitchen from about 7am until 3pm, banging pots and at some point having a tantrum because “NOBODY IS HELPING”. Me and my siblings and stepdad would be and when offered to help would get told “No it’s FINE I’m FINE”. All because we’d usually have guests and she was adamant everyone would have a lovely ‘everything homemade’ meal every year. And TBF it tasted amazing and whilst we take the piss out of her now about it (when we all buggered off to Uni she had a Christmas Day Amnesty and declared it’s pizza and chips if we spend it at hers - good for her!) at the time I always wish she’d have chilled out and spent time with us, watched films, help us set up toys etc. Nobody needed homemade horseradish sauce and chicken liver pâté. The atmosphere would be awful, it was a running joke that the kitchen was a no-go area on Christmas Day, but as a result I don’t stress at all about food with my own family. If it’s crap then tough luck, there’s always Pudding to fall back on

What Christmas traditions or things have you not passed on to your kids from your childhood?

Turkey.

Mass too. Though in a weird way I kind of miss it. I'm a hardcore atheist so it's a no-no for my DC but it was quite nice getting dressed in nice clothes and breaking the day up. The community feel chatting to neighbours and friends after. Seeing the crib/singing in the children's choir etc. I wish there was something similar but without the religious aspect!

A misplaced sense of 'duty' to spend the day with people you don't like much just because they're related by blood or marriage.

With my parents - the abuse.

With my Grandparents - having to be dressed before presents, going to church in the morning and compulsory toy sharing of new toys. (We have a lot of people over on Christmas Day and mine are allowed to put new things away in their rooms if they wish)

When I was a kid, I hated the endless trawling around to relatives for get togethers etc.

It was always supposedly "Fun" with nice food...
It was never fun and the food was always cold left over shite that the adults ate first.

No mum, I don't want to spend my Xmas afternoon driving an hour to see some fucker I don't know and haven't seen since the last time you dragged me there for 4 hours of boredom.

I'm the opposite to you, op! But in my defence I do a lot of prep on Christmas Eve, I'm happy to have helpers or not and the kitchen is not a no-go area!
I just love the food and I prefer fresh stuffing to the packet stuff.

Unlike my childhood, we DO go to church. I love to belt out carols!!!

We definitely do NOT get dressed up (my DM still wears high heels all day on Xmas day, even while she's making lunch).

We open presents from under the tree after lunch as I remember my mum missing most of the present opening because she was sorting out lunch (in her heels).

My children are 100% welcome to bring their stockings into bed with us and we all open them together. When I was young I would just wake up and open my stocking on my own.

I love our Christmas!

Presents being put inside pillow cases.

Woman in kitchen slaving over the cooking year after year. Dh does it most years

Getting dressed up for Christmas dinner

Calling up the chimney after we had unwrapped our gifts ‘thank you father Christmas’. Not that I’m now ungrateful, but it was proper cringe to me at the time I stopped believing in Father Christmas (about 9yo) and was unexpected to maintain the charade and I’ve never got over it

and was expected

I don't do big turkey dinner either.
Gammon in slow cooker. Frozen roast potatoes and stuffing in oven, 3 tier steamer, 2 for veg and 1 for spuds for mashing. Easy peasy lemony squeezy, no hours in the kitchen for me.

As a child, we had a real tree. We have a plastic one now as real trees belong outside.

Also, we don't traipse around visiting every house and home.

My entire family used to congregate at my grandma’s on Boxing Day. My mum and her sisters would prepare sandwiches, wait on everyone, wash up - all in my grandma’s tiny galley kitchen. And the menfolk would go to the pub and come back to be fed and waited on. Different times, but definitely not one I wanted to adopt.

As a child Danta left presents on our beds. No way was I carrying that on- way too stressful.

Got rid of quite a few of my childhood traditions.

As kids we didn’t have a stocking, we had a sack that we would leave by the fireplace for Father Christmas to put presents in, Father Christmas used to take the gifts from under the tree (from family member) and put them in our sacks along with a main gift from him, new PJ’s and a selection box. I have never done this with my dc, they have stockings with small items in (things under £5), a main present from Santa and a small pile of gifts from me, other presents from family go under the tree. As they have got older all presents go under the tree.

Christmas morning was always a frenzy of ripping off paper, we didn’t have breakfast, stuffed ourselves with chocolate before my grandparents arrived, they we had to entertain ourselves whilst the adults drank and made dinner. With my dc, we get up, open stockings, have breakfast and then slowly open presents before lunch. I prep lunch the day before so there’s not much to do Christmas Day so I can spend time with dc.

We always had prawn cocktail as a starter when I was a kid (love prawn cocktail). Now we don’t have a starter as I’m the only one that would eat it 🤣

We don’t drink Christmas Day (unless visiting family then I will maybe have a baileys).

*Santa

Peeling all the veg the night before and leaving them to soak in bowls of cold water overnight. It doesn’t take us that long to prepare them on the day!
Not having lunch at 12 sharp. (On reflection, maybe the veg habit developed to facilitate the ridiculously early timetable!)

to everyone who have or have had fearful, abusive Christmases.

I was going to say:
Being made to dress nicely and 'be all grown up' and make small talk with half the street coming in for drinks
and
being made to write loads of thank you letters on boxing day.

But they are obviously pathetic in comparison with what some posters experience/d.

And the big family get togethers, no one really does them anymore and most of our family hate each other.

I remember going to my grandparents, being in a Smokey room full of adults and kids, eating quality street and dry roasted peanuts 🤣, people exchanging gifts to nieces, nephews etc…, now no one really bothers and the only time the family are together in one room is when there a funeral.

My dad was a vicar, so it was all religion and a bit regimented. I go away for Xmas at every opportunity and if we're home go all out on having a tasty dinner - my mum did well but ultimately we were quite poor so it wasn't extravagant and I like a few luxuries!

I have happy memories of most christmases but there were a couple where my parent had spent a load of money on random stuff for themselves/the house (eg one year my father had bought some expensive vintage collectables, another year they had bought some astonishingly expensive light posh light fittings which looked quite out of place in our ordinary 90s suburban house). They had clearly not really left any budget/time to sort out presents as I remember getting nothing I had hoped for (I didnt generally ask for expensive or difficult things, I loved books) and instead getting a vile jumper I didnt like, and a promotional item with the name of my fathers employer all over it, which it was clear he had got free at work.
As a result I am obsessive over putting an effort into my kids gifts. It doesnt mean spending loads or buying piles of stuff, but they get one main gift from us and I make sure its something they want and that the bits in their stockings are thoughtful.

Christmas as a child was pretty rubbish. It was really stressful in so many ways.
For various reasons, my mother struggled with any deviation at all from what Christmas had to look like and would announce Christmas was cancelled over some tiny detail several times a day throughout the week before Christmas. I hated it. We were expected to be grateful for ‘treats’ of things we’d never liked (tomato juice!). There was no space for individual likes and dislikes - my stocking would literally cause a rash on my hands every year, but changing for a different one would have been unthinkable because of tradition.

Basically, I aim for the opposite. I don’t really insist on anything for the sake of tradition and we plan stuff to minimise stress all round.

Not continued - Hidden bottles of vodka and black eyes.

Pouring wine for anyone over 5 at the Christmas dinner table.