AIBU to hate Easter?

[Abeona]

My DP and I have been together for donkey's years but we still haven't worked out how to enjoy the Easter holiday. We're self-employed so can take what holidays we want, don't have children and we've been parent-free for more than a decade. We live in a lovely rural area that everyone flocks to at this time of year, as a result of which our roads are badly congested, there's nowhere to park in our pretty small town, the cafes and restaurants are full and doing anything much becomes a major hassle.

Our families live 200+ miles away and a journey that might ordinarily take four hours can take up to seven or eight, crawling along in traffic in the rain, so we don't visit them and they don't come to visit us. On a couple of occasions we've been away on holiday for Easter — once to Florence, once to Tenerife. On each occasion the airports were packed, we suffered long delays, the weather wasn't great and the destinations were packed too. We kicked ourselves for paying a premium price to go somewhere that was too crowded to be enjoyable. We've had friends to stay, but increasingly people prefer to travel when things are quieter. So since 2018 we've decided to stay at home and do a bit of gardening and DIY.

Every year my DP agrees that this is the best solution — and every year by the Monday Bank Holiday we've had a huge row, because everyone we know is out and about and having a good time in Majorca or the Maldives, or has braved the traffic and paid a fortune to go somewhere interesting and FOMO kicks in and we feel we've wasted Easter at home doing nothing because it's barely stopped raining.

Has anyone else had this experience? Have you found a solution?

If you’re self employed, work. Then take a 4 day weekend off at a later date when you can go fly somewhere when everything is cheaper and less busy.

It’s a no brainer.

You can do fun things and avoid a lot of the traffic by setting off early.

e.g. I live in London but love the beach on hot days. So we set off and head south at 6.30/7am.

To me it’s worth it.

Is there anywhere locally that is worth setting off early for you? There must be as you say it’s lovely.

Watching families walk to the beach makes you think ‘why don’t we do that?’ When in fact, you can do that… why don’t you just do it? If you’ve decided to stay home but then think actually I’d rather go to the beach… and the beach is in walking distance, why not do it? How are you surprised you are alone in being deliberately miserable and doing nothing about it?

Or is it something bigger, like sadness at not having more family near? Is a bigger change needed?

Sounds like anything you do would make you miserable OP!

Would achieving a planned goal help with the feeling of wanting to make the most of the Easter weekend? Spring can be a great time for redecorating a room, clearing out the attic, evaluating the needs of the garden (did a shrub not make it through the winter? do you want to put in any annuals? do you need to sort the greenhouse for tomatoes?).

I feel your pain. People who don't live in areas that people flock to as soon as there's a Bank Holiday have no idea, do they?

I'm stunned by the poster who had a lovely laid-back Easter weekend that involved going to a garden centre. Also a bit stunned by people who regard eight hours spent crawling along the motorway in a car when going to visit family for a couple of days as a minor inconvenience. Perhaps other self-employed people, or those who have to work over the BH weekend, will understand the psychological double-bind of being quite pleased to be spared the annual torture of Easter away while also experiencing regret that they're not participating in it.

There is no way I would travel on a BH by choice so if I were to go away it would be Wed to Wed.

I'd get a place on the coast with a nice balcony that had some space for any masses of people and one manic sunny days read a book with a glass of wine on said balcony.

Or I'd fly to Europe say Scandinavia and do day trips from a large city - would try and pick a country where things don't grind to a halt for Easter

I'm self employed, and so is DH. We live in Cornwall. I have no idea what you're talking about!

As pp have said, just do what makes you happy. I just treat Easter as any other weekend. I carried on doing what I normally do on a weekend (although I did laugh at myself when I went to Sainsbury's and it was shut, I'd forgotten it was Easter Sunday!).

Do you yourself get fomo? Or is this actually your DH's problem, which he then makes your problem by causing an argument? And how do you even manage to argue about it when you'd both decided to stay at home?

I'm stunned by the poster who had a lovely laid-back Easter weekend that involved going to a garden centre
What's stunning about that? Garden centres are a good trip out.

We live on the coast in an area that's really popular with tourists. We popped out to the beach yesterday not sure if we'd be able to park in the little car park we try to. It was half-empty and no queue at all at the cafe on the beach.

Do you get like this on other bank holiday weekends or just this one? Is there something specific about 4 days instead of three that gives you this FOMO?

Yabu. Just do what makes you happy. Get some good books in and treat it like a long weekend. I love easter as it's the start of spring. Easter is so positive.

Sounds like you have overly high expectations for what is just an extended bank holiday weekend (if you're not a Christian). Just relax a bit.

We never go away at Easter, the roads are utter madness. We usually spend Good Friday cleaning house, doing DIY, cooking etc. Then we have a clean house to relax in! The rest of the weekend we meet friends for drinks, lunches, bbqs Or go to the beach (we are not in the UK and the beach is 5 mins away and quiet), maybe have a movie day, and just generally chill out. Or chill in the spa listening to music or reading books. Its lovely, and far more fun than getting cranky in a traffic jam, IMO. If you don't fancy that then organise a trip away. It will likely be crowded and expensive, but might be better than the annual Easter row!

I'm self employed, and so is DH. We live in Cornwall. I have no idea what you're talking about!

I'm guessing you live in inland, less-touristy Cornwall and don't need to use the A38 or A390 to get around. My friends in Looe certainly know what I'm talking about.

I don't think your problem is Easter, your problem is FOMO and comparing yourself to what everyone else is apparently doing.

I love Easter and this year for the first time ever, didn't have a house-full. Treated it as a lovely weekend at home, stocked up on good food, wine and watched movies. Ventured out to church on Sunday and then hustled home for more food, wine and movies. I didn't pay attention to what anyone else was doing, this was my choice. In your scenario, you've chosen to stay at home so why then allow FOMO to infect that decision?

This. And of course, if I book a break in Wales (or anywhere else traditionally touristy) in order to escape crowds here, I'm making it worse for people like you. Here's hoping you don't get an attack of FOMO next year, @welshcakes6 !

Normally Easter for our family is centred around celebrating Easter itself - church, lunch, out for a walk or home for games if it’s raining. No extended family so just us.

I also live in a place that is popular with tourists. But I know the sneaky parking spots so it’s not so bad.

If Easter didn’t mean anything to me, it would just be another weekend. It’s the school holidays so the bank holiday doesn’t mean much to me anyway. I don’t really like NYE so that’s not something I dwell on either and it’s just another night for me.

Yep. Took me an hour to get down New Road and over the Tamar Bridge yesterday. AN HOUR!!

It's a 4min drive normally. 1.3miles through a small town on a decent 30mph road.

IYKYK.

Also this is why we're looking at selling up - getting stuck in the town, unable to get onto the A38 in either bloody direction in silly season. Had. Enough.

So the problem here is that every Easter your DH gets FOMO, throws a strop and then causes an argument with you? Maybe the solution is to next year in advance point out that this always happens and that he either decides what he wants to do, or decides to do not much but is not allowed to gripe about it at the time?!

How do you know about your friends ? Social media? Switch it off. Don’t compare your cutting room floor to everybody else’s show reels!
Think how much money you’ve saved and of the improvements you’ve made at home. Sometimes it’s nice to go away but your reasons not to at this time are valid and similar to lots of people. We pottered this weekend. Adult Dd came home, had a nice roast and walk together. Simple pleasures. Book another trip away for when schools are back and you can snag a bargain.

We never go away over Easter. This is what we’ve done w young adult DCs in the house on holiday from uni
some nice walks, life admin, DH mowed lawn. watched TV, cooked (me), met with some family friends, DC seen own friends. Has been low key and relaxing. The weather was better than expected which helped.

I'm with you OP. I had a frustrating and boring weekend. Plans fell through and I spent ages on my phone waiting for others to make their minds up. Then decide "nah". I changed plans to be with one person, who then changed their mind.

With hindsight I wish I had have got on with some DIY. I need a hobby I think.

I feel, going back to work today, really fed-up.

Hi OP. Before we had children, we used to LOVE Easter weekend. We always did some DIY, DH is amazing at that stuff. I'd go to the gym.

The we'd go to our local amazing hotel restaurant for a long lunch with wine. Then some gardening and a walk on Easter Monday.

Before I got together with DH, I used to go to Florence or Paris alone, I never had a flight delay or faced hoardes of crowds.

Surely you could fly on Maundy Thursday to avoid delays at the airport?

My parents flew to Europe for the weekend. No flight delays through terminal 5, hot sun all weekend.

Now we do have children we focus on DIY and a large roast lamb on Easter Sunday for the 4 of us. We have lovely wine and chocolate.

I cannot wait until we can go away for Easter again once the children have left home! (I refuse to go anywhere cold at Easter anymore. Too many Easter hols with small children in the lake district, Cornwall and Northern France in the sheeting rain. A holiday does not involve rain now my children are older teens! ).

I think your perspective is off. Those people are all sitting in traffic, paying for premium holidays because they can’t just book for when the kids are back. We just spent an absurd amount of money on a long weekend, because DH only has 4 weeks a year off, we have to go away during school holidays and for various reasons this was the only weekend available to us at the moment. We’re delighted to have been able to get away, but if we could have done next weekend we definitely would have!!

We live in a place where a big event happens on a bank holiday that we don’t really want to go to. It is only once a year and so we do sometimes plan to be away that weekend, and obviously everywhere is busy. But it just takes a little planning.

We are in Barbados. Travelled Thursday before Easter and it wasn’t chaos and it is awesome to be away!!

Sadly my friends in Looe are also planning to sell up and move when they retire. They moved there from the SE maybe ten years ago and have had enough of feeling cut off and trapped and unable to get to work if the A38 gets blocked.