If men were left to organise Christmas themselves

[Fiddlesticks32]

AIBU to think it would be an absolute disaster?

And what would it look like?

In our house there would be lots of lovely, well cooked food, and lots of alcohol. Guests wouldn't have clean bedding or bathroom and there would be a few (unwrapped) presents , not necessarily anything that anyone asked for!

God, I can’t imagine. He’s a ‘fully functional adult’, but has never ‘done’ Christmas. I do it all, always and of course it’s grown each year as we’ve had children etc. so I wouldn’t expect him to suddenly do it all. I’ve learnt over the years.

the cooking would be fine, it would be the extras that wouldn’t happen…the Eve box, all the presents, the social things, the cards, the fortnum order, advent calendars.

but it would happen in some form .

It would be the same in our house. It just wouldn’t occur to him.

i do loads of stuff, we do a European Christmas market, dinner at a special restaurant on the 23rd, a day in London with my cousin and family with brunch at the Wolsey, eve box, stockings, fortnum delivery etc etc.

but I dint find it at all stressful as I start early and do a bit all each day.DP just st doesn’t have the mindset and couldn’t be arsed!

You absolutely DID start this as a man- bashing thread!

Don't deny it just because it hasn't gone your way.

Christmas just isn't really their forte.

In your experience but not universal.

I've made sure my DS’s do their share too. Now they plan their Christmas shopping day, buy and wrap thoughtful gifts and as I said above help with cooking Christmas dinner. They decorate their own flats.

Some men may need kicking into shape…😉 others need the opportunity. I was determined that from a very young age my DS’s had none of my DF’s ‘woman’s work/lazy/selfish’ attitudes.

There would be more pre-bought food, there would be more drink, there would be a lot less fuss and hassle because there would be less pressure to make a "perfect" Christmas, more a "good enough" one.

Your experience doesn't, fortunately, seem to be the norm. In fact, quite the opposite :)

In our house I do the wrapping and cooking. My husband does the decorating and is much better at present buying for everyone.
If left to either of us alone it would be worse- but he would probably be better than me overall.

Much the same but without the four weeks of stress.

There’s an interesting tendency emerging here.

The women whose men would do it well mostly say, ‘my man can do it’.

But the women whose men wouldn’t do it well mostly say, ‘no man can do it’.

So, it’s not that they chose a man who’s iincompetent. All men are.

The main meal would be cracking.

The little extra bits not so much like stockings and crackers would be an afterthought

The booze trolley would be well stocked

The gift wrapping would be hit and miss

It would be perfect. Dh is as enthusiastic about Christmas as I am and does more than his fair share of the work. He's been ordering presents for the kids for weeks. He's brilliant.

You see that all the time on here — it’s fascinating. I think it must be to avoid admitting to yourself that your bar is low, and that you chose poorly when it came to a husband/partner. Far easier to say ‘Oh, men can’t see dirt, bless them!’ than to admit you married someone strategically incompetent (or actually incompetent) while other men are perfectly capable of working for a living while looking after their own kids, shopping, cooking, and remembering to call their parents and buy birthday presents.

In my house it would be absolutely fine. The only difference would be our tree would be put up halfway through December and not at the start 😀

Well that's a disappointingly lazy trope that gets rolled out around Xmas, just like the "men take all the credit for BBQs..." one that does the rounds in the summer.

Plan, buy and cook all the food.
Organise and buy most of the presents
Deal with huffiness of OH when they're expected to wrap half the gifts
Buy and wrap all the stocking fillers
Buy, write and post most of the Xmas cards ("Have you only written ones for your family..?!" No, I've written all of them apart from your family, because I though you might like to do that.)
Along with that, work a 40+ hour week and provide the sole regular income to the household.

But perhaps my wife is just too distracted by flowers and kittens, or organising something as important as a family christmas is too much for her delicate womanly brain...🙄

I do most of Christmas, don't blame us all if you picked a waster to marry.

Agree it's a site-wide phenomenon, it's also fascinating to me. I think there's a correlation between being stuck on traditional gender stereotypes and having a low bar (because the traditional stereotype is for a man to be judged on being a big strong provider who goes out to work but can't comprehend anything domestic). There's an implication that being able to cook, tidy up or decorate isn't masculine. And being bad at those things is unfeminine.

Which is interesting to me as DP and I are the reverse of those things. The real question for us is what Xmas would look like if I was left to organise it. We have the same vision of what we want it to be (low to zero effort on decoration/trees/tat; as much socialising as we can fit in; going all in on food for a week) but his practical execution is much superior to mine. If I tried to cook the same meals they would be sad flops, not delicious feasts.

True.
If men are so incapable of doing basic tasks then how the fuck do they function in the world? How the fuck do they rule the fucking world? How are men out there doing all kinds of jobs yet come home and apparently don't know how to boil an egg and forget christmas exists?

When some women say oh my man doesn't know what to do tee hee isn't he silly, I do all this stuff because he wouldn't know how and our children would go without... they don't seem to realise that what they're actually saying is I am with someone who doesn't give a flying fuck about things that matter to his family.

Not really a laughing matter tbh

Agreed! I don’t know why so many women seem to put up with it? It’s basically like having another child?

But that’s not because he’s a man - it’s just that he ‘can’t be arsed’?

I will admit I thought my husband couldn’t do mornings/ school runs etc. Then I started a new job where I trained away for 5/6 months.
He really stepped up, did brilliant and now loves doing what he previously missed out on as I just did it. I rarely do any school runs etc now as he wants to.

Father Xmas does a good job.

It would be lovely , chilled out, lovely food & booze .
No overspending or guilt panic buying .
He'd do a better job than me.

I think some people have an idea in their head of what Christmas should be and get upset if the person they live with has a different idea. My husband and I both like nice food and wine at Christmas time. If alone we'd listen to Christmas classical music and probably go for a walk. My husband has zero interest in Christmas decorations and mine is waning. We do cards and presents for our own sides of the family. If we're away for Christmas with relatives as often happens we'll help with whatever they plan and take some food and drink with us. It doesn't have to be a stress fest.

When some women say oh my man doesn't know what to do tee hee isn't he silly, I do all this stuff because he wouldn't know how and our children would go without... they don't seem to realise that what they're actually saying is I am with someone who doesn't give a flying fuck about things that matter to his family.

It could be they simply find it easier to not to do things and be thought of as incompetent than do them and be shouted at for not doing it the right way, her way. Sometimes we need to accept that others do things differently and just because it's different it's not necessarily wrong.