To not understand Christmas burnout?

[EmptyYoghurtPot]

Lots of discussion online re:the M & S Christmas advert. Many referencing ‘Christmas burnout’ and how hard it is for women etc As a self confessed crazy Christmas lady I can not get my head round why it’s so stressful? I can understand if people are struggling finance wise but the discussion I saw was on The Guardian page so the concerns were all about buying and wrapping presents, decorating the house and cooking the dinner. I just don’t see why any of that is so stressful. Surely Christmas dinner is just a scaled up version of Sunday lunch? And shopping is fun - can do it online if you don’t like going out. Wrapping presents can be a bit boring but stick a film on, grab a wine and it doesn’t take that long. Am I just blinded by the twinkly lights or does everyone else just long for Boxing Day?

I'm an organised person, like being busy and always on the go and I hate the build-up to Christmas. Mass consumerism, the expectation of it all, the worry of if people will like what you got them, being told I have to want presents and gifts because it's Christmas and people have to get me something - no, actually they don't they are just getting carried away with things because its Christmas. The parties and drinks, because it's Christmas. It all seems like forced fun that people do because it's Christmas.
When you say you want to bow out because it's just not your thing, it's "Why, I dont get it its Christmas - oh go one you bah humbug". So you cant even do that quietly with out an earbending from the Christmas brigade.
I could go on and on........

I do a fair bit of work for Christmas. I don't mind those activities in isolation but I find fitting them around work quite tiring. DP pulls his weight with prepping for visits and gift admin but we both get tired out. It doesn't help that I don't enjoy my job/working at all - 5 days in office with a 90min commute each way- so I resent it pushing out the things I like doing and would rather be able to prioritise. It's the double load that's the joy killer.

I also now like Christmas Day least since I've had it with just DP. We both like a relaxed-ish Christmas Day but have quite different ideas what that looks like. I can happily wait to open gifts til 4pm after food and meal clear up and some small but necessary daily household crap done so I can savour and enjoy my presents. DP likes to rip into his as he wakes up and pressures me to do the same. We are child-free so I find it weird and it feels like the whole day is stretching before me a bit empty and pointless and back to front tbh. All the "jobs" of Christmas but none of the joy because the novelty is over by 9:30am and it's just a day. DP then struggles with how little enthusiasm I have for the day. The day that is basically over before I've even had a chance to shower in my eyes.

Just out of interest OP, were you one of those people on here who ‘didn’t understand’ why anyone found the Covid lockdowns stressful/unpleasant? And gave out advice like ‘just bake banana bread, listen to birdsong and enjoy the slower pace of life, it’s fun’?

Goodness me, isn't it strange that people are different.

Very sensible advice, @BarbaraofSeville. I do generally enjoy giving presents, especially when I think I’ve picked the perfect gift for someone, but if it’s not happening this year, why push it?

I'm in the middle of making the Christmas cake and now realise why my mum wanted help. DH and I split the tasks, me doing the cooking apart from Christmas dinner and him doing the decorating although we both do the tree, I decorate it and the he moves stuff around. Shopping is done by both of us both presents and food.

It shouldn't be a one (wo)man show.

We are lucky that our Christmases are pretty straightforward and the extended family is aligned in terms of gifts, food etc. Some of the scenarios others experience sound exceptionally stressful

I would suggest to everyone who finds it stressful to try and do just one ‘medium-sized’ thing differently this year. Maybe take it as a challenge, and see if you can do it. Then reflect in Jan whether it was worth it or not. Did the world end or was it actually quite nice? And then make a change every Xmas. It’s a shame to put others over yourself every year and be unhappy and stressed.

This is not even close to the same thing. Lockdown was forced upon us. Christmas is not.

Pssst!🤫 Or op gonna have a shock of her life.🤣

@RagzRebooted , even though I really like Christmas* and enjoy the run-up, I still dream that a) it’s 4pm on Christmas Eve and I’ve forgotten to buy any presents, or b) it’s Christmas Eve and I’ve forgotten to buy a tree and there are none left anywhere.

*though actually I think I enjoy the run up - carols, mince pies and mulled wine - and the week after, even more. No sodding shopping the week after - or hardly any - and lots of lovely leftovers, chocolates, etc. to eat up.

I don't really get it either. No one says you have to spend loads or wrap tonnes of presents or go crazy decorating. And if you do want to do those things, why not do it as a family especially if kids are older? Surely people can make it as high stress or as low stress as they'd like it to be.

Love all of it, planning ,making cooking BUT I'm older, loads of time to devote to it all, a little more money and almost 45 years of practice! Plonk 3 kiddies with me, a tiring job and less spare cash and I'd be a quivering wreck. A beautiful 'Homes & Gardens 'Christmas will never be truly magical, a Christmas with kiddies always is. xx

This is not even close to the same thing. Lockdown was forced upon us. Christmas is not.

I’m not suggesting that Christmas and lockdown are the same. I’m suggesting that lack of empathy for others, and lack of appreciation for their different circumstances and experiences, might be a feature of the OP’s character.

I feel happy this Christmas, probably because it feels miles from covid hell

What a ridiculous question. FWIW I found lockdowns very stressful, (I buried both my parents in lockdowns, so I was as stressed as it gets), but as I said upthread I don't find Christmas stressful at all.

It was stupidly stressful when kids at school. It was the miracle of Christmas just trying to meet expectations.
Christmas plays and activities presents cards food batteries. Wonderful times I know, now beautiful memories.
Now Dds are working adults and do own thing I am much less in demand as a taxi.
Always been self employed so office party just me and the dog.. Have lovely extended family so either all 10 of us at mine or at theirs. No fights no bickering. Got rid of dickhead DHs many moons ago. Life just simple and happy.
My motto is to be organised as fuck and try to see things from other point of view.

What a ridiculous question. FWIW I found lockdowns very stressful, (I buried both my parents in lockdowns, so I was as stressed as it gets), but as I said upthread I don't find Christmas stressful at all.

But are you capable of understanding that other people didn’t find lockdown stressful because they had different circumstances and experiences to you? If I said to you ‘I don’t understaaaaaand why anyone found lockdown stressful, I baked banana bread and enjoyed the slower pace of life and wittered on about birdsong’ I imagine you’d probably tell me to fuck off and come back when I’ve buried both my parents in a pandemic.

My point is simply that OP’s posts suggest that she is the kind of person who has trouble understanding that different human beings have different experiences of life due to their circumstances, and therefore might have been the kind of person to post that kind of crap during lockdown.

You don’t find christmas stressful. Neither does OP. That’s great. But other people do, for any number of reasons.

It's the unwanted guests who come for a week's holiday at my expense. I'd love to tell them to fuck off and not come every year. But if I did, dh would not see his family as BIL/SIL live too far away for us to easily visit and we are not welcome at MIL's house as per her partner (dh hasn't been to his family home in best part of a decade). They also only see each other at Christmas at our house for the same reasons (BIL/SIL too far for MIL to travel, but they aren't welcome at MIL's house). So it's fairly compulsory to host every year. Even me having bloody COVID didn't scare them off last year. They still came, and sat around, and expected to be watered and fed for a week while I was on my knees.

They truly do treat it like a hotel. There's no, oh let us take you out to dinner to say thank you for feeding us for a week and buying all the alcohol in the shop to keep us happy. There's no contributions to food. They might bring a case of beer and a packet of crisps. Then they sit at my table and expect 3 meals a day, plus snacks, and puddings, and chocolates, and alcohol...and they drink A LOT. Dh and I compete though over who does the food prep and who has to entertain them. I refuse to entertain them. Dh doesn't really want to interact with them either, so I cook and clean up. Dh hides trying to do DIY. It's not relaxing, at all. It also costs a small fortune. Half our monthly mortgage for a week's worth of food and alcohol (and we have a big mortgage). We can afford it, but just.

Cooking a meal, and buying presents, and generally doing festive things is simple and I don't mind that. It's the running a hotel and gastro pub with daily excursions that I resent at a time when I should be relaxing in my own house in my pj's during a very rare week off with my kids.

They truly do treat it like a hotel. There's no, oh let us take you out to dinner to say thank you for feeding us for a week and buying all the alcohol in the shop to keep us happy. There's no contributions to food. They might bring a case of beer and a packet of crisps. Then they sit at my table and expect 3 meals a day, plus snacks, and puddings, and chocolates, and alcohol...and they drink A LOT.

You need to stop pandering to them, and ask for help - to clear the table, wash up/dry dishes etc.

Don't buy much alcohol, don't rush around after them, don't provide snacks, chocolates and puddings if you don't nomally eat snacks, chocolates and puddings, don't cook gourmet meals. Do sandwiches for tea a couple of nights or suggest that you go out for a meal, but you aren't paying for them. Say thay can stay for a few days this time. If they expect cooked breakfasts - tough. Just provide the bead and point them in the direction of the toaster.

It isn't difficult to do all of the above. Please don't martyr yourself.

They take advantage of your kindness because they can.

Big arguments last night with DH. He said not to worry about Christmas as it all just falls into place. What he doesn't realise is that the Christmas Fairy makes it all "fall into place", and that Christmas Fairy is me, and telling me to chill doesn't take the stress away!

So just do what he does and 'let it all fall into place' or not, obviously.

Don't mention it unless he says anything about presents, food, guests etc. I suppose if you have DC, you'll need to get them some presents, but everything else can be left to him when he's ready. Let him take the lead.

What's the worst that can happen? You spend a day in front of the TV or going out for walks, and eating whatever you have in the house because all the shops and restaurants are closed?

For me it was working full time plus all the children’s activities, Christmas fairs, school plays, December birthdays (loads in our family), raffles, church events, shopping for gifts and food which you have to go to several places, big clean up and wrapping not only for my own family but for my staff team and extended family. Etc etc.

Lists of lists of lists…

Fitting in everything was exhausting even with a husband who more than pulled his weight. I was definitely burnt out by Boxing Day and was often ill over Christmas because of it.

Maybe it's not stressful for you, but those things can be stressful for other people. You think 'shopping is fun' but I know loads of people who absolutely loathe it - we're all different. I sometimes find shopping 'fun', but when I can't find the right kind of gift, or need to spread the cost over a few months, then I don't find it 'fun' in the slightest.

I'm a good cook and I don't find cooking Christmas dinner to be particularly stressful, but that's because I have two ovens, and my kitchen's open plan so I can still chat and have a laugh even while I'm cooking. When I had one oven, a minuscule closed off kitchen and seating people entailed unfolding a dining table in our living room and getting chairs down from the loft because we didn't have a dining room, I found it considerably more stressful than I do now, I can tell you.

Personally, I really enjoy wrapping presents. I like settling down with an audiobook and bottle of wine and getting on with it. But I find wrapping things really easy, whereas DP is useless at it and finds it really annoying and stressful - again, we're all different, aren't we? I also have friends with kids who regularly end up having to fit their wrapping in late at night while utterly knackered when the kids are in bed, or are trying to find the time to wrap presents for a huge family while also working night shifts as a nurse, and I imagine that sitting down with a jolly film to wrap stuff is less of an option for them.

The most stressful thing for me about Christmas is actually the logistics. Elderly parents on both sides who live 200 miles away from us (but nowhere near each other) and don't have the room/ability to host us, but also can't manage the train to get to us when we host them, means that we spend a lot of Christmas doing four-hour motorway journeys back and forth while siblings are also wanting to know when we'll see them or whether they can drop off some presents etc - it does all get very complicated and the more time we spend on the motorway the less time we have to prep food in advance, get the house guest-ready etc, and it's also heavily reliant on what annual leave we can manage to get. So while I find some elements of Christmas fun and easy (cooking on the day, wrapping stuff up etc) I find some elements very stressful (some of the shopping, the logistics, the cost).

Whenever I read threads like this, I am especially appreciative of the fact that we Americans have Thanksgiving, which takes a lot of pressure off Christmas. In my family, and in lots of families I know, Thanksgiving is the traveling, getting together with extended family holiday, and for Christmas, we usually just have immediate family, and the meal is less elaborate than Thanksgiving. And Thanksgiving is mainly about food, no presents, just cooking, eating, and spending time with family and friends. It's my favorite holiday. It also simplifies things for divorced parents, often taking turns who has the children for which holiday.

Whenever I read threads like this, I am especially appreciative of the fact that we Americans have Thanksgiving, which takes a lot of pressure off Christmas.In my family, and in lots of families I know, Thanksgiving is the traveling, getting together with extended family holiday, and for Christmas, we usually just have immediate family, and the meal is less elaborate than Thanksgiving.

But surely having both (one holiday with travelling, extended family etc and one holiday with just immediate family) is still more effort than just having one?