Worst time of the year

[SHxxxxx]

Christmas should stop. It's killing parents mental health and finances. I absolutely hate it. Kids being fed a fantasy of Santa whilst we all get in debt because capitalism is battering us senseless to the awful tunes of Mariah Carey, the Pogues and Wham! I loathe Christmas and are deeply depressed until January arrives.. if you love Christmas, there must be something seriously wrong with you.

It's September mate. No Christmas rumination required.

Plan nice (non Christmas) things to look forward to in this season. Fill your life with things you actually like.

Prep a budget and stick to it.

I just do the bits I like. Decorations and stockings and Christmas cake and stir-up Sunday and Christmas music and mince pies: yes please. Christmas Eve boxes and elf on a shelf and spending ridiculous amounts of money: no thanks.

Yes, my autistic son loves Christmas. It’s his happiest time of year.

Agree with previous posters here...nobody is forcing anyone to buy into the consumerism aspect of Christmas.
I love Christmas and the lead up to it...mostly from 1st December. I start playing Christmas music in my car from 25th November and save Christmas movies until 1st December.
I like going around our local garden centre, which turns into a winter wonderland full of gorgeous lights, trees, decorations and gifts. I might buy myself a couple of things or get a secret santa gift for someone but nothing extravagant.

The Christmas tree doesn't go up in our house until my brother comes over for the holidays (so usually the weekend before Christmas) - my DD and I live with my mum and my mum likes to wait for my brother to do the bulk of putting the tree up.
It's a special time of year for me and I always look forward to it. DD will be with her dad this Christmas eve and Christmas day this year so I'm looking forward to attending midnight mass at our church as well.

I really don't get this 'happiest time of year' thing when it's right at the end of the year - do most people not spend time with their families for the rest of the year? Playing family games, watching films aren't exclusively Christmas activities - you can do them at any time of year.

I just think there's so much else to enjoy throughout the year, particularly in spring and summer, that it just baffles me that people find the generally awful weather, colds, stupidly busy pubs/venues etc and think "yes, I am happier now than at any other point in the year".

Agree with the Christmas eve boxes and elf on the shelf. That's just putting too much pressure on parents.
Christmas eve (from my childhood) involved reading "The Night Before Christmas", putting a mince pie, glass of milk and carrot for Santa and Rudolph (obviously!) then going to bed.
Elf on the Shelf...are advent calendars not enough of a countdown?

This post shows the massive influence of consumerism.

Christmas is a Christian festival and the holiday is just two days, Christmas Day and Boxing Day. It was never meant to be a festival of greed and consumerism that goes on for weeks.

We don't have to get caught up in it. All of us can make our own family traditions, including making Christmas whatever we want it to be. If you don't believe it's necessary to spend thousands of pounds, you don't have to. It would be so much healthier if more people resisted the pressure to spend recklessly and try to be like a TV ad.

But are you "snuggling"? Preferably all cosy, under your blankies, with your hot choccy?

Serious question. Why do this at all if you're not religious and you don't really care about Christmas enough to do more than the minimum? Isn't that just going along with things blindly for the sake of conformity?

When we're at home (we often try and travel over the Christmas period) we celebrate the Solstice, which is a real thing. We put up fairy lights and use ivy and other things taken from nature to decorate the house. It's all compostable, no plastics, no cost. We have a solstice feast for friends to mark the longest day and the time when the earth starts to tip back towards light. Some people exchange gifts but they're not obligatory. It does actually feel as if there's some reason to celebrate, which isn't true of Christmas itself.

You forgot that to 'snuggle' properly you also have to invest heavily in this year's on-trend loungewear fashion, thus teaching your children to be good little consumers...

Of course there is a reason to celebrate Christmas. It is birth of Jesus. Christ-Mass.

A bit bemused that people think we can just cancel the day and it isn't actually a Christian feast day.

I love Christmas because my parents made it so special, despite often struggling for money. It was the simple traditions that made it and still do, especially after losing my mum a few years ago. Losing her taught me that life is just too short and you have to make the most of what the day brings and just appreciate the little things.
However, I feel for you that it depresses you and that must be awful. But we also don't have to all like the same things and telling people that there is something wrong with them because they like something you don't is just bizarre!

If you are ready struggling and in debt then Christmas will make it worse even if you don't spend a lot. It is a stressful time for a lot of people and suicide rates do go up around Christmas so I sympathise with what you are saying. If you are already in debt then you won't be getting into debt for Christmas it's just another expense on top of already struggling.

I do love Christmas but I find it stressful because of:
Money
Huge family pressure to do what they want/ what is expected when it's impossible as I'm a shift worker so I often have to work most of Christmas. I've explained and explained to my family that I have no choice but they go mad every year if I happen to be working, which I literally can't help.
I get really tired with the Christmas jobs on top of an already too busy life.

Things I do to make Christmas fun and get rid of the stress. (Stress for me, which might not be stressful for others).
Book a day off in December to just generally catch up with all jobs so it's not too tiring.
Buy useful gifts so I don't feel like it's money wasted. For example I've just decided that every December I'm paying for my son to have a full service on his car then I'll just get him little fun bits to open on Christmas Day. (There is because he drives a lot of miles but also moves around a lot so doesn't want lots of "things")
I don't go on the Christmas do at work to save some money but I bring in some nice bits of food into work over the Christmas period when we are all working instead so I have sort of got involved but not spent a lot on a night out.
I have a Christmas buffet with my extended family on a day I'm not working near Christmas. That's nice to see everyone and literally the whole big extended family can make it as it's not Christmas Day.
I really try and limit the adults I buy for as I really don't think it's a good idea to spend money I don't have on adults when they could buy their own things. I would prefer adults not to buy me things either but my mum insists and buys me lots of things every year. Personally I find this stressful and wish she would save her money. To make this feel less wasteful I try to get a list together of things that would be useful eg most of my bowls have gradually been smashed so I'll ask for some new pasta bowls.
A dog walk is a really good family event. I don't have a dog but we walk my sisters.

So I do understand how difficult Christmas is for a lot of people (money issues, lost loved ones, no one to spend it with, pressure to do what other people want) but you can pick out the bits you do like and make the best of it.
I do enjoy it overall but have to do the above things to cut down the stress.

The Christian Christmas attached itself to solstice celebrations that had been held long before the Christian myth started up. About 10% of the UK population are actively Christian — attending church etc. About 45% say they are Christian culturally. Obviously there are people of other faiths who don't celebrate because they're not Christian, and then there are the millions of atheists, like me. It would be very hypocritical of me, surely, to participate in rituals that I don't believe in.

Just because I don't celebrate it, or believe in Christianity, doesn't mean you can't celebrate Christmas if you want.

So, when you had your baby.....why did you even introduce christmas?
There's plenty kids at my kids school who don't celebrate Christmas or gold christmas. My sister in law is a Christian and anti halloween and has never done anything for halloween for any of her children. It's a choice.

You chose to introduce christmas to your family.
You also chose to go along with santa. You didn't have to do any of this.

I don't feel any pressure financially. I buy what I can afford and enjoy the whole thing.

I don't like summer. I choose not to go on beach holidays or do anything during the summer. I spend zilch.

Is it though? I don't do crackers, Christmas pudding .decorate the table or invite 10 extra people for Sunday lunch.
And its not just Christmas dinner. Its nice meal on Christmas Eve. Its mince pies, 3 types of cream/brandy butter, cold roasts for Boxing day, smoked salmon for breakfast etc etc etc. Of course you don't HAVE to do it all but the risk of someone being disappointed that you haven't bought After Eights or Ferro Rocher or dates or satsumas is a pressure now its all so available.

It's only a Christian feast day if you want it to be. Otherwise it's just any other day of the year. Things only have meaning if you give them meaning.

I like traditional Christmas, Christmas trees and Christmas dinner and carol services, all ideally confined to a two-week period.

Modern Christmas is too much, especially the terrible, terrible music.

well I am glad you got that out of your system OP
Merry Christmas

Why the dramatic OP? No one is forcing you to participate. No one is forcing you to buy a load of crap you don't want or need. No one is forcing you to spend a fortune on food which takes hours to cook.
You don't have to listen to the radio or watch TV and therefore you can avoid all the Christmassy stuff. With Netflix etc. you can watch whatever you want whenever you want, not like 30 years ago where you had a handful of channels and they were full of Christmassy stuff.

Also, it's fucking September, there is no need to be even thinking about Christmas let alone coming on here to post about how much you hate it.

We however did not have many people around

Yep, this is it for me.

Do you never feel pressure to 'host'? This is my biggest problem. To mitigate it this year we are booking a restaurant so no one comes back to our house, but at £80 a head at such an expensive time of year, it's painful!

No one is forcing you to participate

This is disingenuous. You're ignoring all the pressure to participate "for the kids".

You can decide to what level you want to participate though. I don’t think my children have enjoyed Christmas any the less due to the lack of roast turkey, Brussel sprouts or machine pyjamas.

It’s the same people who then moan on Boxing Day that they can’t wait to take the tree down as they’re sick of seeing it and it’s cluttering the house. Then post a picture on facebook of their living room a few hours later saying “That’s the tree down, Christmas over and back to normal now”!