People who pretend to hate Christmas

[MoaningMyrtle202]

Anyone else know one of these?

I know a couple of them. Say they hate Christmas for whatever reason, yet still kick off if they’re asked to work it, go all out with decorations and involve themselves in Christmas family dramas when they could just ignore the whole thing.

One Christmas hater I know, says they can’t stand it and doesn’t care a jot. Yet her house it lit up like Blackpool illuminations and has kicked up holy hell being asked to work Xmas eve. She has no kids or anything either so not for that.

Another Christmas hater I know says to him it’s just another day and it’s all capitalist bullshit, yet he’s just given his DP his Christmas list of what he wants.

Lastly a good friend of mine also claims she can’t stand Christmas yet today is the third time I’ve visited and she has Christmas films on. Not ones that just happened to be on the telly, but ones she’s purposely selected on Netflix.

Im starting to think it’s just people thinking it’s ‘cool’ to say they hate Christmas. I don’t get it. Why not just say you like it?

Anyone else know one of these? It’s bizarre!

I hate Christmas in some ways. It makes me really sad for various reasons.
I over-compensate as a result so it might look like I'm lying to outsiders. Actually I'm just desperately trying to get into it, enjoy it and make an effort for others.

I always love a reason to post this.

OP show them this video

@catsonahottinroof agree with everything you've said and yes it's every bloody year! If it was every 4 years like the world cup or Olympics then there might be a little bit of excitement.

And also for me Christmas lunch is the worst meal of the year. I'd rather have an Indian or mexican or Vietnamese or Thai, anything tasty basically!

I was going to say I’d never encountered such a specimen - but - I bet MN is RIFE with them, and sure enough!

Bam - from the very second post, you’ve flushed them all out of the woodwork, OP. Well done!

I love Christmas. I’m clearly the least cool of all.

I hate the commercialisation, the expense, all the hype. I am sick of doing all the grafting and getting nothing in return (no presents for me for last 2 Christmas’).
I have been known to put the tree up on Christmas Eve and take it down Boxing Day. It doesn’t help having a birthday 3 days before (no presents for that either) This year I have bought myself a number of things!
DH does bugger all to help.
Quite frankly I would be very happy to totally ignore it every year.

I don't celebrate it at all. No tree, food or gifts (for me). I send gifts to adult DS. Just a normal day for me and I always work although we are not required to work on the bank holidays.
I will be painting my hallway this xmas day.
I will however clebrate the Winter Solstice at Chalice Well with fellow pagans but it's not one of our major festivals so it's just a visit to the well and that's it.

My mum died when I was quite young and I really didn’t feel the Christmas joy for a good few years until I had my own kids really. Still went through the motions and decorated etc
But now I have kids it’s lovely and exciting again but there was a good few years I could have gone without it

It’s perfectly valid not to like Christmas
Some of the excessive spending not so much,but love spending time with family and friends
Particularly after last few years

I suppose I'm one of the people OP describes.
However, it's because there are many aspects of Christmas I dislike that just put a dampener on it.
I generally love Christmas but HATE:

• All the money spent, it's just daft
• The amount of stuff people buy, presents and food, completely OTT
• Christmas seems to begin at the end of October
• Choker block in all the shops with people in a world of their own making it a nightmare to navigate
• people getting stupidly pissed on nights out - because it's Christmas
• The 'need' to do Christmas parties, secret Santa, Christmas jumper day, buffets - because well... it's Christmas
• What do you want for Christmas? - Nothing, honestly - no need to buy. Well, I've got to buy you something because... you guessed it... IT'S CHRISTMAS.

Frankly, it just gets exhausting and the pressure and expectation are a pain.

I do bow out of many things so I can enjoy it the way I like, but flipping the responses I get from people can be just silly and well that's a whole different list; no wonder people feel pressured into just doing it all anyway.
I just shrug, say no and enjoy it my way.

I know the type you mean, OP.
They don't hate Christmas. They juSt hate how they do Christmas because they can't put the adult pants on and make them as they want.

I used to be like this. Hated the build up and the rushing around and the work related stuff but enjoyed the day itself and the lovely quiet days after. Now that I am retired I enjoy the build up more and love decorating the house.

A lot of people find Christmas emotionally triggering in various ways: they may have had bereavements at that time of year or a relationship split or came from an impoverished home where Christmas excess was out of reach.

Then add in the cost of living crisis and the ever increasing financial and social pressure. And the general sense of forced (and sometimes toxic) jollity. It’s no surprise that people end up feeling confused about it.

I personally love Christmas but it doesn’t take a huge amount of empathy to understand that it might be complicated for other people and you need to cut them a bit of slack.

My ex was one of the self proclaimed Christmas haters (he came from a very troubled family in a poor country) and yet would still get angry if he thought he wasn’t getting the gifts he deserved.

He was an arse about it but I can still relate to this ambivalence that a lot of people have,

My dad used to tell me he hated Xmas as his dad would get drunk and be horrible to his mum but then he used to go all out for us when we were little. Same with my dd. I think he was trying to make the effort and I appreciated it but not sure why he used to say I hate Xmas to me a lot.

My stepdad "hated Christmas". He was just grumpy about anything family oriented or fun in general.

All his grumpiness did was suck some of the enjoyment out of Christmas for the rest of us. We didn't even go overboard for Christmas, just a tree, nothing else. And he certainly didn't do any of the donkey work of Christmas. He just liked to complain.

Now as an adult, I just think how sad that he couldn't enjoy family time without being negative. He's in his 70s now and possibly has never had a Christmas where he's happy and enjoying the day and people are happy to be around him.

Just to say though that I think it was lovely how much effort he put into Xmas even though he didn't like it

Peer pressure / cultural expectation is a big thing to step aside from. The reason many of us find Christmas stressful is the present buying, shopping, catering, hosting etc, many driven by peer pressure and especially commercial marketing.

Yet we do it. MN kids get a Christmas Eve box (new since my childhood), oooh, my kids need one or will miss out.
Elf on Shelf? (Also new) ditto.

I guess some of the people you talk about just feel caught up, stressed, pressured, etc, but haven’t got the confidence to step right out of it and do their own thing.

In my early 20s I ducked out, did Christmas with friends in our new work town, all very alternative. But then years of kids, family, and it’s hard to say ‘Nope, this whole thing is not for me’ unless you have an alternative community who feel the same. E.g being a Druid.

There are many things I have put a stop to on grounds of environmental responsibility. Disposable advent calendars with all that packaging. Crackers. Bloody hell , imagine all the banks of boxes of crackers in every shop in the land… all in the bin by the 28th. It’s obscene.

But we are lucky to have an extended family who enjoy each other’s company and manage disagreements well. So many people are under great pressure to make difficult people happy at Christmas.

I love Christmas. I specially loved it when my DDs were small and believed in Santa. However, there are aspects I don’t like so much: the cost and the effort involved especially when having to host family. I find my MIL hard work, though I wouldn’t dream of complaining about inviting her. (I’m glad she’s going to my BIL and SIL this year, however!) I always feel relieved when it’s all over.

So I can understand people saying that they hate Christmas. However, I understand the irritation if they still expect to be given gifts/invited to Christmas lunch!

You seem to be fixated by whether a poster has children or not and it "pretending" in order to be cool...

I've tried playing along and pretending to love it, but I dont. I fucking hate Christmas. I did as a child and I do as an adult.

The tree is up with some lights on because DH did it. That's all. He's written some cards too.

I don't even like the food.

<bah, humbug>

I don't hate it. I love the Christmas lights everywhere on a dark, cold, short day.

I don't do religions so don't like it being exclusively linked to one.

I don't like all the hype kids are exposed to at school from v early on. My young dc has v high expectations and is almost everyday disappointed that there are still not presents under the tree.
All the singing at school is great but there has been v little actual learning at school since the end of October - it's all about Christmas.

I tried to explain to dc that there are other festivals celebrated around the world at this time of year too- he said that next year at Christmas he'll do a Channukah nativity 🙃

I'm a bit like that, in particular I can't stand adults getting excited about it in November. What I do love about it is all the lovely food. I'm on my 3rd box of mince pies already and am eating Heroes galore. I also love the festive drinks (made the most of my half price Pret subscription yesterday!). And the time off work is great. I like the atmosphere the week beforehand with most people in a good mood. But I hate the commercialism of it and companies trying to tell you that it's not Christmas without some very unnecessary gadget/expensive food/drink etc so that does make me grumpy

I think for some people, venting about negative things is their way of dealing with them. So maybe they do like aspects of Christmas and in some way, being negative about it is what allows them to actually enjoy it.

Christmas itself is lovely... the commercial side is shite.

I don’t hate Christmas, but I suddenly understand people who do. We’re moving house next week. We haven’t got any decorations up because we’re knee deep in crap and packing as it is, and totally snowed under trying to get organised and work at the same time. And colleagues banging on about Christmas fucking jumpers is just driving me nuts, it’s so far off my radar I couldn’t care less but you can’t get away from it. It’s really adding to the stress!

I don't really like Christmas and didn't much, even when I was a kid. Aged six, an elderly great aunt gave me a knitted set of orange nylon "wool" underpants, which I didn't like, so I was forced to parade round in them, in the living room. For some reason, I cried and my dad did the Vulcan death grip on my shoulder and told me not to be a weed and ungrateful one.

They weren't all as bad as that, but we always had at least one awful relative; yes, Uncle Dick (aptly named) I mean you, you horrible Thatcherite shit. Pissed, shouting, going mad if anyone dared to have a different opinion.