To think life would be better without Christmas

[MyDogsPaws]

I really hate Christmas, I know I’m probably in the minority but it’s October and I’m already worried and stressed about it and I suspect I’m not alone!

If it was just a case of putting a tree and a few lights up and having your family round for dinner in the 25th I would absolutely love it, I’d start thinking about it in December and look forward to having a nice day with my family. Unfortunately it’s not like this, there is fucking Santa and all that entails, school Xmas shows and needing to get time off work for it all, the cost of everything and being skint for the entire winter because i have to spend every penny I earn on presents or visiting Santas ducking grotto, or buying outfits for Xmas parties, and all the rest of it.

Yes I could just tell my kids there’s no such thing as Santa and all they’re getting is an orange and a book this year but that’s not going to stop them feeling left out when everyone else in primary school got a iphone 15 or whatever.

I really believe that Xmas makes life less enjoyable, not more and I’d quite happy ban it it, tinsel and all, for the rest of eternity, AIBU?

Christians would rather it wasn't abolished!

this made me laugh.

op I love Christmas but put no pressure on myself.

1. start celebrating the whole season. Christmas is not just a day, it’s a feeling. It’s about being overly emotional, indulging and allowing yourself to believe in something magic.

2. hot chocolate.
   Gather the whole family and make a thing of it. Only takes some mini marshmallows and a kettle but is so nice. You must play Christmas piano music or while you have it.

3. cosy socks and blankets - gather the ones you have or buy some cheap ones from b&m or somewhere. Just force yourself to sit down and chill out with wine/tea/tv.

4. go for an evening walk round your neighbourhood to see Christmas lights when they go up. Or drive to where they have good ones. It’s free and lovely.

5)decide how much work you want to do Christmas Day - if you hate cooking don’t cook. Go to a pub. If you don’t want to spend money, get a few frozen pizzas and have them for your Christmas dinner. If you want to make it “traditional” put some frozen roast potatoes in the oven and whip up some gravy.

6. make a massive effort and decide to make your own traditions. Like literally think of something you find fun or relaxing and say “let’s make this a tradition!” Your kids will love it. Like Mexican takeout on Christmas Eve…”it can be our tradition!” Or “watching films and eating Mac and cheese is our Christmas Day tradition” Don’t need to do what everyone else does.

7. presents are expensive so just don’t do anything extra. (Like the meals) Just put off going to see Santa and the kids will literally forget come January. The school play might be a pain but there’s only a few of them in your whole life you have to go to so think of it that way. And definitely just don’t go to any parties you don’t think you’ll miss. You should be excited about things if you’re going to do them.

basically just don’t do anything you don’t want to do but indulge the little things. Go ott on it. Go ott on being snuggly and cosy. And be twee as fuck. Get the kids to make Christmas decorations if you don’t want to but they do and just stick them up everywhere even if it ruins the decor vibe entirely. They’ll come down soon enough.

christmas is lovely. But you have to choose to have fun with it.

I'm not that bothered by it anymore although I run a company selling Christmas lights so I should probably be completely sick of it 😄

My kids are late teens so now it is just a roast with family and a few gifts. I only buy for my kids and MIL - with everyone else we have had an agreement for years to not buy each other stuff as I hate the waste of money on what is usually a load of tat! We do xmas day and then see my parents in the new year as they are very busy working at during the festive season (due to their work they also get sick of xmas so we don't celebrate it as such).

I like the rest at that time of year as I close the business for 10 days and I enjoy NYE as we always go to a friends house for drinks with the kids. Sometimes we do something in London too as we are close and there is a lot going on.

I think it can be what you want it to be though. Nobody really cares that much about most of the crap people do - I mean the 1st December and xmas eve boxes parents do now seem crazy to me! I did used to do Elf on the Shelf - that was bloody stressful!

I love Christmas but I do get where you are coming from. I love lights, smell of Christmas trees, decorations, festive food but I absolutely hate all the other stresses around it. Yes, you can scale it down but some things are difficult to scale down : I’m SAHM so no office parties for me but I remember the horror of them before DD, I was never a fan. We don’t have family in UK so no problem and expenses with visits and presents but otherwise it would be a nightmare.
My DD has health issues which are usually worse in December so for us it’s : booking activities and then she’s unwell or not booking and then she’s upset.
I also struggled with all events when she was at primary school: Christmas fair, Christmas concert, Christmas cake stall, Christmas jumper day…
I think if you function at a capacity money, time and energy wise even a joyful event like Christmas might be too much.

No other celebration or festivity in the world seems to go on for as long as modern day Christmas does. October-December it just feels non-stop.

@ginandtonicwithlimes I have total respect for this, of course.

I just wish it were a ‘dial in’ as opposed to a ‘dial out’ for those of us nonsecular - similar to many of the holy days of those religions prevalent in the UK. I like to see the Eid celebrations, to know about Ramadan, acknowledge Yom Kippur, Rosh Hashanah, Diwali but I don’t need to be emotionally or commercially attached.

Christmas has an emotional ‘pull’ different to those mentioned above and whilst I respect its place for Christians, I dislike and resent its omnipresence for those who are not.

I don't like some things about christmas either, but some of your complaints are under your control. How old are your kids for a start, they are either at the santas grotto age or the want an iPhone 15 age, it can't be both. Christmas outfit? Just wear normal clothes. Christmas dinner? It's a roast dinner, or any dinner you want.

Cut way down on the presents to save money and time. I only buy a couple of presents for my kids, and I don't buy or recieve any from anyone else. Anyone who "fills the living room" with gifts for their children or buys for their whole extended family is doing it wrong imo.

Fuck yanbu.

We do lovely cathedral mass on Christmas eve and all the school evening panto things and tree decs are achievable but oh my god thinking up what to get everyone occupies me from September on.

I do literally everything on pennies 😭 So much thought goes into everything.

If I could sit on my fat arse and just order off the internet beautiful magical items without worrying about the credit card bill come January I bloody would.

So thoughtful and yet cheap and astonishing is the goal every fucking year. Exhausting.

(I do accept the Pagan ‘light in the darkness, trees to remind us of growth’ concept though. Can get on board with with this).

I suspect that abolishing Christmas would have a significant positive effect on the environment.

I’ve had my share of crap Christmases. One of my grandparents died on Christmas morning. Another year, one of my parents was diagnosed with cancer two days before. And this is much more trivial, but another year, I was upset because the bloke I was seeing didn’t bother to wish me a happy Christmas and then my family got upset with me for being in a mood. The most wonderful time of the year? Pull the other one, it’s got bells on it.

That said, it would be lovely to have a short build up to Christmas, complete with the school nativity play and small stockings on Christmas Eve. Then Christmas could be a modest family day with a nice meal and a few presents. No Christmas songs in November, no houses covered in flashing lights, no Black Friday and no avalanche of plastic tat.

Never liked christmas as a child still dont like it as an adult.
Never got the gift buying for people we dont see or talk to that much throughout the year.
The parents trying to out do the next parent.
Christmas dinner is a sunday roast to me with extra veg.
Waste of money and time.
And the family get together that leads to some sort of drama.
I spend my day as normal or i go on holiday leave on the 22 come back after new year.

Don't make the focus of Christmas Santa.

Everything you dislike is about a secular Christmas. Don't do that.

Have a traditional Christmas. Observe Advent. Celebrate from Christmas Eve until Twelfth Night. Do it all simply.

Honestly if not liking Christmas is the top of you worries, then you really don’t have worries…

I have always had zero attachment to Christmas as I flinch from forced religious participation (I know this will induce eye rolling but I was literally only allowed Christmas dinner if i joined my freaky folks at church, do i stand by forced) and WORSE forced jolity. I'd happily restrict it to die hard church goers, once a year and generally see it as a bit niche and specialist. Most kids would be happy enough if we raised them to get a big gift at new year, you can party then too, it'd stop it being a whole slog to get through. Restrict it to the end/ beginning of the year, not this weird month long slog (though maybe kids could have a countdown calendar. It'd save the cringing awfulness of kids being forced to sing songs that mean nothing to them or their lives too.

We don't celebrate Christmas since my parents died, and my children got to the teenage years. We don't buy gifts for others or send cards, and don't get much in return (as we want it). It was a joint decision of parents and children, and guided by ecology rather than finance. I hate hoovering up plastic tat, dumping unwanted presents in the charity shop and my kids are not materialistic. We go on holiday instead, as it is their preference over turkey and TV. I overheard a woman discussing with her family in a supermarket about how she had been saving up since last July to pay for her grandchildren's Christmas presents. She seemed stressed about it already, in October. I think the true message of Christmas has been drowned out by the relentless marketing from November each year. My children's father is an Orthodox Christian. In his country, the focus is on religious observance, a meal with family and a visit from Santa for younger children (a small stocking). I prefer that to what happens in many Western countries these days as they value time spent together rather than who has wrapped the biggest present for social media.

This year is the first year I've been able to throw a bit of money at Christmas in a long time. DD isn't that bothered about presents, she's autistic and only likes/eats/wears certain things. I will be in hospital this year for 3 days or so just before Xmas day, so DD is very upset that Christmas Day will be different. I've used the extra money to prebook some days out from mid Nov onwards which I know she will love and included an overnight stay for each as she loves hotels too.

I love Christmas. Literally the best part about it is the free stuff (or cheap)
Being all cozy by the Christmas tree and watching family Xmas films.
Laughing til I cry at the stupid, funny antics of family members when we're playing cheesy games on Christmas and boxing day.
Seeing how happy and excited my kids are.
Feeling incredibly lucky every year that both my parents are still with us for Christmas and making the most of it.
Remembering Christmas's past and thinking about how much my grandparents loved spending Christmas with us and how much fun they made it.
Bucks fizz at breakfast and Christmas Dinner!
I can't wait bloody wait now!

Christmas has gotten out of control. It’s the shops fault. Having all of the Christmas crap by September. It really puts the pressure on. I know they need to flog it (want to more like). But, I like feel it just spoils the magic now. I’d like to just enjoy December & for Christmas to be a Christmas time like before…

Yanbu

The simple, traditional Christmas you'd like sounds ideal to a lot of us.

However, the commercial, materialistic people will soon be out in force with their photos of 'stashes' and 'piles' of crap destined for landfill and electrical goods, asking if it's enough.

The advent calendars (no longer a simple affair), the Christmas Eve boxes, elf on the shelf. It's empty and joyless and latched onto by the same sort of people. The trees up at the beginning of December, if not sooner, and they're down by Boxing Day as they're so sick of them after having them up for a month already at that point, because they couldn't wait.

I could go on 😀

Nothing traditional and it's everything I dislike about Christmas.

If it was just a case of putting a tree and a few lights up and having your family round for dinner in the 25th....

That's how we do Christmas in our family. We love it.

Didn't everyone get a stocking full of satsumas growing up? With some socks and pants from Santa and the reindeer 😂

I recommend starting later and scaling back. Presents only for kids and keep them minimal. I enjoy the other stuff around it - carol services, hot chocolate, lights, mulled wine, crisp walks, etc. But that's all free or inexpensive. Visit family if possible so you don't have to cook Xmas dinner very often.

YANBU the older I get the more I wish I could opt out and jet off somewhere sunny instead.

Christmas is like another part time job for me for 3 months

I found Christmas very stressful when my kids were little. Buying everything and seeing everyone was too much. I have scaled it down now. We stay home on Christmas Day, if family want to see us they know where we are. We don’t celebrate with a hot meal every day for a week so we can have Christmas with everyone. I just say no to a lot of stuff. Now I love Christmas.

Surely you can just ignore all the materialistic/commercial side of Christmas ... just don't get sucked into it? Like others on this thread our Christmases have always been 'low key' ... we do focus on church activities (as we do all year), long ago agreed a 'no gift rule or modest budget' .. if people are offended then just accept it, I don't accept invitations to events I'm not interested in ... and have never bought a 'Christmas outfit'. I do recycle the same old Christmas jumper that I bought in a charity shop years ago. I enjoy Christmas- but keep it simple. Never travel long distances or expect people to travel to see us.

We stopped doing Christmas once the kids were grown up. It's fantastic.