Page 9 | To think Boxing Day is for family and not football?

Felicityfennel · 2023-12-17T19:38:47+00:00

So sick of it! Every year, DH and DS want to go to DH’s hometown to watch the Boxing Day game. Plans have to be worked around this and given it’s an 8 hour round trip, it’s pretty much an overnight stay. If we’re with the in-laws for Christmas, fine, crack on. But when we’re in our home town and have other family to see, really?! It also means an early night Christmas Day as they want to be up and out to get to the game on Boxing Day the next morning 😭

VickyEadieofThigh · 18/12/2023 11:17

FictionalCharacter · 17/12/2023 19:42

Personally I’d much rather go and watch the football than stay home doing nothing or endure a dull day with extended family!

Gawd, me too!

ilovesooty · 18/12/2023 11:24

VickyEadieofThigh · 18/12/2023 11:17

Gawd, me too!

Show quote history

Me too. @MargotBamborough can interpret that as she wishes 🤣

And strategically inviting people over without consulting with your spouse is controlling in my opinion.

gotomomo · 18/12/2023 11:33

Surely it's only every other year at home as they will play away, this could be even more inconvenient I admit

MargotBamborough · 18/12/2023 11:36

gotomomo · 18/12/2023 11:33

Surely it's only every other year at home as they will play away, this could be even more inconvenient I admit

So this means it is "only" bloody football every bloody year then.

This is precisely what the OP doesn't want.

She's already said it would be OK it it was a year they were going to be spending Christmas in that neck of the woods.

RobertaFirmino · 18/12/2023 11:45

Me and my late Dad would go to a match on Boxing Day too. I'm red, he was blue so someone was usually playing at home. If neither team was at home, we'd nip over to the other side of the Mersey and watch Tranmere! Those matches are some of my most treasured memories.

Comefromaway · 18/12/2023 11:51

Boxing Day football is very traditional. It's great going to a match.

Daisies12 · 18/12/2023 11:53

YABU. It's a tradition. And it's a father and son going together - literally family time. There's plenty of other days. And why would you need an early night?

MargotBamborough · 18/12/2023 12:17

These tone deaf comments from people who enjoy football are very tiresome.

ManateeFair · 18/12/2023 12:18

If Boxing Day was 'not for football' there wouldn't be football matches on Boxing Day. Boxing Day football is a tradition in this country going back about 150 years to the earliest days of Association Football and even before that, lots of towns and villages held their own informal sporting fixtures (often madly dangerous ones involving teams of about 50 people on each side grappling for a ball in the street with no rules) on Boxing Day.

Just because you have decided Boxing Day is 'for family' that doesn't mean that's the rule. For some people it's going to football, for some it's going to the races, for some people it's getting up at 5am and going to the sales (personally I'd rather die than set foot in a shop on Boxing Day, but each to their own).

I just want a family day with us all lounging around in PJs and eating chocolates!

But your DH and DS don't. I don't see why it's a problem for you and your other kids to have a pyjamas-and-chocolate day while your DH and DS go to the football. You don't have to do everything together all the time. Some people would always prefer to get out and do something and be outdoors after a day of stuffing their face indoors.

You don't say who your DH supports, but most teams don't have a Boxing Day fixture every single year, so there will likely be years when you can keep him in the house and force-feed him chocolate in future.

By way - until the 1960s in England and the 1970s in Scotland, there were football matches on Christmas Day and. Boxing Day. Christmas football has been a tradition in most of the UK for well over a hundred years. Working class people rarely stayed at home all day at Christmas in the late 19th/early 20th century because it was a rare day off when they could go out for some entertainment and they didn't have the money or space for a cosy celebration at home. So football and cheap Christmas panto/music hall shows were the norm on Christmas Day and Boxing Day back then. Your DH's Boxing Day is more traditional than yours.

Goodlard · 18/12/2023 12:20

MargotBamborough · 18/12/2023 12:17

These tone deaf comments from people who enjoy football are very tiresome.

The tone deaf comments from lounging round the house eating chocolate people are also tiresome.

ChocolateCinderToffee · 18/12/2023 12:22

When I was a child we always spent Boxing Day at my least favourite relative’s. I’d much rather have gone to a football match. And I hate football.

ManateeFair · 18/12/2023 12:26

MargotBamborough · 18/12/2023 12:17

These tone deaf comments from people who enjoy football are very tiresome.

No, they're not. You're just weirdly uncomprehending of people liking something different to the things you like.

MargotBamborough · 18/12/2023 12:26

Goodlard · 18/12/2023 12:20

The tone deaf comments from lounging round the house eating chocolate people are also tiresome.

Show quote history

I'm not a lounging around the house eating chocolate person. I just recognise that Christmas is a special family time for a lot of people and one of the only times when everyone is off around the same time. I'd absolutely hate it if our family Christmas was hijacked every year because of something only two people in the family were interested in, and which happens pretty much all year round.

Boxing Day football is only traditional if you happen to be one of the minority of people who goes to the football on Boxing Day. If that's your whole family and you all like to do it together, great. If not and you're prioritising a silly ball game at the other end of the country over family time when you have a wife or a mum who wants to spend time with you, it's a bit shit and selfish.

ManateeFair · 18/12/2023 12:30

Felicityfennel · 17/12/2023 19:50

@beanontoast - I wouldn’t ask them not to go for no reason! But I would like them to be around so other relatives can call in, we can see my family and do family events with them, not have to have Christmas Day with the prospect of an early start on Boxing Day and then probably not setting off home until the 27th as they’ll inevitably decide to stay with PIL for the night.

Other relatives can call in whether your DH and DS are there or not, though.

Also, I thought you wanted to lie around all day in pyjamas eating chocolate? How do the visits from relatives fit in with that?

It's almost like you just resent the fact that your DH likes football.

MargotBamborough · 18/12/2023 12:33

ManateeFair · 18/12/2023 12:30

Other relatives can call in whether your DH and DS are there or not, though.

Also, I thought you wanted to lie around all day in pyjamas eating chocolate? How do the visits from relatives fit in with that?

It's almost like you just resent the fact that your DH likes football.

Show quote history

Damn right I would be resentful if my husband decided to prioritise his hobby over spending time with the rest of us at Christmas. Especially such a tedious hobby that happens almost all year round anyway.

ilovesooty · 18/12/2023 12:34

Special family time for everyone whether they'd rather be elsewhere or not.

ManateeFair · 18/12/2023 12:40

MargotBamborough · 18/12/2023 12:26

I'm not a lounging around the house eating chocolate person. I just recognise that Christmas is a special family time for a lot of people and one of the only times when everyone is off around the same time. I'd absolutely hate it if our family Christmas was hijacked every year because of something only two people in the family were interested in, and which happens pretty much all year round.

Boxing Day football is only traditional if you happen to be one of the minority of people who goes to the football on Boxing Day. If that's your whole family and you all like to do it together, great. If not and you're prioritising a silly ball game at the other end of the country over family time when you have a wife or a mum who wants to spend time with you, it's a bit shit and selfish.

Show quote history

you're prioritising a silly ball game

It's a silly ball game to you. It's not a silly ball game to the people who love it. You clearly don't understand what it means to some people.

The fact is that you and the OP think that 'family time' means forcing everyone to do what you want to do. By contrast, the OP's DH isn't trying to make anyone else go to football with him - he and his son are totally happy to go on their own while the OP and the rest of the family do their own thing. He isn't trying to enforce an activity on the OP. But the OP is trying to enforce an activity (or rather, a lack of activity) on him. If all the OP wanted was for her family to be together, they could all go to football. But what she actually wants is for everyone to do the same thing she enjoys. Personally, I think that's a lot more 'shit and selfish' than her DH and DS doing something they like without trying to make anyone else join in.

ManateeFair · 18/12/2023 12:43

MargotBamborough · 18/12/2023 12:33

Damn right I would be resentful if my husband decided to prioritise his hobby over spending time with the rest of us at Christmas. Especially such a tedious hobby that happens almost all year round anyway.

Show quote history

Can you show us on the doll where the football hurt you?

Goodlard · 18/12/2023 12:44

@MargotBamborough you're a Man U fab aren't you? Honestly, it's a bad season but no need to be this upset!

MargotBamborough · 18/12/2023 12:53

ManateeFair · 18/12/2023 12:40

you're prioritising a silly ball game

It's a silly ball game to you. It's not a silly ball game to the people who love it. You clearly don't understand what it means to some people.

The fact is that you and the OP think that 'family time' means forcing everyone to do what you want to do. By contrast, the OP's DH isn't trying to make anyone else go to football with him - he and his son are totally happy to go on their own while the OP and the rest of the family do their own thing. He isn't trying to enforce an activity on the OP. But the OP is trying to enforce an activity (or rather, a lack of activity) on him. If all the OP wanted was for her family to be together, they could all go to football. But what she actually wants is for everyone to do the same thing she enjoys. Personally, I think that's a lot more 'shit and selfish' than her DH and DS doing something they like without trying to make anyone else join in.

Show quote history

He's depriving the OP of family time for the sake of a game which is played almost the whole year round.

That is the case whether she gets frogmarched to the match or not.

Goodlard · 18/12/2023 13:00

*I'm not a lounging around the house eating chocolate person. I just recognise that Christmas is a special family time for a lot of people and one of the only times when everyone is off around the same time. I'd absolutely hate it if our family Christmas was hijacked every year because of something only two people in the family were interested in, and which happens pretty much all year round.

Boxing Day football is only traditional if you happen to be one of the minority of people who goes to the football on Boxing Day. If that's your whole family and you all like to do it together, great. If not and you're prioritising a silly ball game at the other end of the country over family time when you have a wife or a mum who wants to spend time with you, it's a bit shit and selfish.*

You may not realise this, living in your stereotypical bubble, but women also like football? Women's football is becoming increasingly popular, so im not sure why you think it's just men that want to go to the "silly ball" game.

You'll not realise that we have our first ever female premier referee, although I assume that you would expect her to be free from referring games on a Sunday or Boxing Day, because they're family days and not days for her silly ball game.

You sound extremely controlling and happy to enforce "you will stay in all
Over Christmas and look jolly about it", not someone I would want to miss a football match to be with, to be honest.

Goodlard · 18/12/2023 13:01

@MargotBamborough family time can be any time of the year......

MargotBamborough · 18/12/2023 13:12

Goodlard · 18/12/2023 13:01

@MargotBamborough family time can be any time of the year......

Oh, I forgot that there are clusters of bank holidays all year round.

Goodlard · 18/12/2023 13:13

@MargotBamborough

Easter
May x 2
August
January

But of course Boxing Day is the most important and you just be sitting with the nan and grandad who you can't be arsed to see the rest of the year!

Skyblue92 · 18/12/2023 13:22

MargotBamborough · 18/12/2023 12:53

He's depriving the OP of family time for the sake of a game which is played almost the whole year round.

That is the case whether she gets frogmarched to the match or not.

Show quote history

You are aware that the family time OP wants of lounging around in pjs eating chocolate can also be done anytime of the year. She wants to force her family to do ‘family time’ on Boxing Day her way ignoring what the rest of her family want.

you clearly hate football and don’t want to entertain the idea that others do enjoy it and enjoy watching the match in Boxing Day. If she wants family time that bad she can join them but this isn’t about family time, it’s about getting what she wants yet again as for the last couple of years he hasn’t gone to the match on Boxing Day and has done it the way she wants. It’s time he can spend it how he wants with the eldest child. Is that okay to you know allow him to spend one Boxing Day how he wants or are you like OP and need to control it and dictate it happening in a certain way.

you say you’d be resentful of your husband wanted to watch the football instead of doing what you wanted to do. I’d imagine he’d feel the same being forced into doing something he didn’t want to do just because you decided it’s ’family time’ but only how you want it

so glad my mum who hated football actually saw the fact that a Boxing Day match was family time for me and my dad regardless of where it was, shame you and OP are that rigid and demanding and can’t do the same. Pity