Missing the noisy, chaotic Xmas's of my childhood

[Unglamorousgranny]

Not an AIBU but just voicing my thoughts. Anybody miss the Xmas's of the old days? When I was a child in the 70's nothing was open on Boxing Day & it was great. Instead it was a mad, chaotic day & long night round my grandparents & they loved it. Aunts, uncles, cousins, some great aunts, uncles & second cousins as well as us. Everyone used to sleep on the floor as not enough beds, plenty of "emergency chairs" as Peter Kay puts it. Now the older ones are all gone, my generation of the family are all spread out & got their own adult dc & dgc so it's too much to get together. Now the shops are rammed on Boxing Day & that extended family time seems to have disappeared. After a lot of illness this year I wouldn't even have the energy for it this year anyway. Trouble is cos of the adverts, celebs going on about having lots of family round to celebrate I get FOMO a lot! I'm grateful for who I have here on Xmas Day, (dh, ds, dm) & dd & her family in the morning. No plans Boxing Day. What went wrong, why has it all changed? Anybody else feel sad for the old days?

I had such wonderful as' as a child. I had 4 sisters to play with doting parents, Aunties and Uncles close by and Grandparents too. Not much money but loads of love and laughter. Now my parents are dead, my sister's live far away and my children are grown and living in different parts of country. I am going to one of my son's this Xmas, another son is coming too but not my dd and dgc. I am thrilled I won't be cooking for first time in over 35 years.

far too much naval gazing and consumerism now

Totally agree!

I'm just waiting for all the 'aibu to be pissed off/upset with this gift' threads that appear every Christmas.

Christmas is so much better for me and my family now that we don't bother. It's a time for us to spend time together, rather than a time to get stressed about spending money. Everybody wins! (Obviously it wasn't like that when they were children).

I have a very, vivid memory of lying under the Christmas tree alternating the different coloured quality street wrappers over my eyes so the colours changed.......kids can't even do that now. Even the quality street wrappers are shit 😭😭😭

Does anyone feel advent calendars have had their day also? I remember being enthralled with my card one with glitter as a child. The chocolate ones don't even have pics in anymore and chocolate isn't really a treat for kids nowadays.

Lollipop the cheaper ones have pics AND the Christmas shaped chocolate. DS is most put out his dairy milk one for £4 is just chocolate chunks whilst mine and dps milky bar ones for 49p in home bargains have pictures on the card flap, one behind the chocolate and a Christmas shaped chocolate

I’m a millennial so Boxing Day sales were a big part of our Christmas and a rather fond memory of mine. I used to spend my Christmas money in the local shopping centre buying absolute crap with my cousins. I don’t really shop in store now so haven’t been for years but I definitely enjoyed it as a child.

Never had the crazy family Christmases because my family is a bit of a disjointed mess.

@PutinSmellsPassItOn sounds good, I spent a fortune in the Lindt teddy bear shaped one, I came home from work Thursday and she'd eaten six days worth 🙄

I loved our Christmas as a child. We were always home on Xmas day, usually a grandparent and great uncle at lunch plus anyone who my mum knew was going to be on their own. Big lunch then huge buffet for tea with neighbours and auntie uncle and cousins playing games, and always a treasure hunt organised by my dad. Boxing Day was round to same auntie and uncle's house to repeat the whole day. How did my parents have the energy? We did similar with our kids and now have grandchildren. Cooking lunch knackers me out and the thought of preparing let alone eating a buffet is beyond me!

But you can make Christmas like that for yourselves again - maybe not the extended family part, but invite friends in - and you don’t have to go to the shops on Boxing Day! We never do.

We celebrate the full Twelve Days of Christmas, and don’t set foot in any form of shop for days until we have to. The days are full of visits with family and friends, walks and playing with toys, reading new books or maybe a trip to the panto. Ditch the shopping!

I think it’s because, as I said earlier, there are too many other (largely self created) pressures around Christmas these days. The hype is massive and starts way too early, it all creates exhaustion.