To wonder where 'christmas pressure' comes from?

[Freshair1]

Just...
Say...
No!

I mean, it's that simple! Am I being unreasonable to struggle to understand the absolute tizz people get themselves into? Who cares? It's like the mythical, judgy mums hoopla. Who are these real people who feel compelled to toss aside reason??

FWIW my DH feels exactly like you. It does suck some of the joy out of the season but equally I've started to see it from his pov at times.

I think there is joy to be found in appreciating the time off, a chance to do something different. I absolutely love a Christmas tree, cold walks and coming back to hot chocolate. I love lame hallmark films and watching my five year old get excited. But that's it. I cannot be worked up by it to the extent that is pushed online. I mean, let it go! Fun sponges unite!

It's brainwashing. We are brainwashed since birth to think Santa comes, we must buy presents decorate, have an Xmas Dinner, Sing Carol's etc.

It's only when you start seeing it for what it really is that you break the brainwashing habit and start to reject it.
Pure and Simple brainwashing from o e generation to the next.

stick a tree up

For some people it's not that easy. They live in really small,shitty,damp ,mouldy houses/flats and the whole stick a tree up involves a lot of work. Moving furniture around, clearing up the mould (they do anyways but now there's the extra special Xmas one, so cheerful) ,trying to find space for everything etc. That's without the fun of opening the bag and finding the xmas tree ruined , or the lights or the wrapping paper or sometimes all of it because of the aforementioned damp and mould. It's depressing and fucking exhausting.

Just stick a tree up indeed.

attend a Christmas concert if there is one

Some schools have a nativity, Christmas concert, Christmas fair,secret santa, Christmas jumper and so on. Times that by 2 or 3 kids. There's extra shit to buy or make and to remember.

Just a roast

Sure if you have a small family and never host or you only do so for a couple of extra people. Not if you're actually feeding 10 people, even in terms of strictly food just a roast is not enough, and let's face it there are expectations in general, especially so at xmas. Let's not forget all the MIL fed me two roast potatoes and a thin slice of chicken threads during the years.

Then you can have all kinds of combinations and extra stressful combinations, arsehole families (but they're too entrenched in FOG ), kids or parents with SEN and or disabilities, sudden illnesses, jobs that are 100% busier and more stressful around that time of year, separated parents with acrimonious relationships and a billion other things.

My Christmas is mostly like yours so while not pressured, I do get a bit stressy and busy but not enough to really affect me. However, I'm not that blinkered or sheltered to just assume everyone's is the same and any stress is simply of their own making.

How do you explain how my Dad was a total Grinch but I'm like bloody Buddy the Elf then?

My mum had it right. She was a Jehovah’s Witness. Christmas was just an inconvenience for her.

Fucking hate Christmas. Got enough to do as working parents without trying to get all the gifts/take child on various activities / make sure we see all close family and friends / and don’t get me started on the rod for his own back that DH has started re wrapping all “Santa presents”. Oh and all of DHs family birthdays are within Christmas week!

What's there to understand? I have a family. Older parents on both sides who would love some time spent doing some christmassy activites, which needs organising, and a nice gift, which someone has to spend time choosing and use money to buy. I have a child who expects Santa to come, and whose friends are all going to exciting Christmas events. I want to create lovely experiences for my child, because I love him. I have an extended family who all have their own troubles: widowed, illness, family fall outs. I feel that I should do something for them, like host them or get them something nice, especially because they all remember my important days and have always been kind to me. I have friends who are wonderful and also going through their own shit, and I need to meet up with them and their kids over holidays to keep our prescious friendship alive and well. I need to do all of this alongside working full time in a job I find stressful.

I enjoy these things when they're happening but the stress of organising everything and always feeling one missed mince pie away from disappointing the people that I care the most about is overwhelming.

ah… the innocence of youth

let's face it there are expectations in general, especially so at xmas

People can expect what they like. It doesn't make it your responsibility to provide it. There's almost always someone else who could also do/buy it.

If you're cooking for more than your immediate family, that means that by definition there are several people who can do some of the cooking, or some of the prep, or make the starters/desserts etc. Or you only host every few years.

If I cook it's only ever for 2/4 people but there's so many leftovers that it's exactly the same as it would be cooking for 10. I just don't cook again for 2/3 days, but if I was cooking for 10, I'd cook the same amount of food, but I'd have help, so the work would be less, but there would be no/not as much left over.

I’m old and she’s absolutely right.

I really disagree that having tough life circumstances means you need to get so upset about Christmas activities.

It's a strange assumption being made upthread that somehow these things are connected. They aren't connected. My DH died horrifically last winter, very young. I am permanently disabled by the physical weight of caring for him in poverty for 20 years. I have spent many Christmases in hospitals, not just with him. And yet still, I don't freak out over Christmas. Because these things are not in fact related.

The main reason people get so upset is because (as expressed on this thread, but also more generally) they have the idea of Christmas as being something they have to live up to: an ideal. But nothing is ideal. Life isn't ideal. It's just happening, all the time, and sometimes that time is Christmas. It's just your real life but with hats.

Of course I understand other people do things differently.

I just wouldn’t do it to my self because it’s christmas. I had elderly relatives once, but I didn’t go and see them just because it was christmas and put myself under pressure to do it all in one timeframe.

Or the insight of actually thinking?

Quite.

I know that sounds cold but when they were alive, my family were atheists. So like fuck was I going to start dashing about visiting them in a certain timeframe for something they didn’t even believe in.

When I joined MN one of the first posts I saw was a woman who was asking whether she should re wrap all the ‘Santa’ gifts because her mother had pointed out that she had used the same wrapping paper for the other gifts. The majority of people were saying she should wrap them again. Utterly ridiculous.

You don't sound cold, it just sounds like either you have a tendency to put yourself first (which is fair enough), or that you weren't doing the care on a weekly (or more) basis because suddenly deciding you're having Christmas off and leaving a dying relative alone is quite unusual if you've been there regularly up until then. Either way I think it's understandable that some people feel more pressure than you.

I love it. I invite everyone, take time off work if possible, spend far too much on the kids and agree that most of the pressure comes from myself. If it was up to DH, presents and dinner etc would still get done, just not to the extent I like. I enjoy getting dressed up and treating the people I love to nice food and drinks and making sure they all have a lovely day and don’t feel I martyr myself to it. I do strongly object to Christmas trees in November though.😁

I agree. It's just one day in the whole year (albeit a day laden with traditions) that incurs this massive buildup and hooplah for 6 weeks beforehand. And then it's over.

I think people, by which I mean women, can either choose to allow themselves to be whipped up into a needless frenzy by gendered socialisation and the media, or they can choose not to by resisting the pressures, looking at who is applying the pressure and who benefits from them feeling pressured (clue — not them), working on their self-esteem, and centring their own wishes more. Sure, that involves work, but so does the alternative.

I'm sorry to read about your DH. I can see what you mean about life not being ideal - just wondering if you had young (like early primary) children, how did you avoid feeling the pressure to keep things going for them, whilst also working and stuff? Because I'm aware that my circumstances aren't as hard as yours were, but I do feel pressure to keep things nice and normal and christmassy for my kids, care for my dad, go to work etc.

It's sort of complicated to go into, but during those times, I sometimes had young children living here, but not my own children.

What is Christmassy? It is: your little family traditions, which do not have to be expensive or complicated or stylish. Some lights, some carols, some mince pies. Probably some bonkers thing only you do. What more do you want? There's always more to want, of course, but it doesn't help the wanting to get more.

To children, whatever you do is normal, and if you do it twice, it's tradition.

It is a very firm idea from Christmas ads and from movies what Christmas needs to consist of to be magical. Also for many of us Christmas is a core memory and we’re under pressure to recreate this for our kids.

so of course we are under pressure to have the tree and the dinner and the Santa visits and presents and it’s usually a tired mum working away to get it all magical!

As a sleep deprived mum of 2 under 2, scrolling Instagram during night feeds, I was taken in by the dreamy pictures of other people’s homes, Christmas trees, children in matching Christmas pyjamas. I thought my Christmas was crap in comparison.
I think, if you’re already feeling a little vulnerable, for whatever reason, it’s easy to get taken in by these perfect images, and think you need to buy All The Things to make your Christmas look better.
The key word there is look. Because how something looks in a photo is very different to how something feels.

I feel a bit sad when I look back now and I realise that I already had everything I needed for a perfect Christmas - my lovely kids. I feel guilty for not realising that sooner.