If men were left to organise Christmas themselves

[Fiddlesticks32]

AIBU to think it would be an absolute disaster?

And what would it look like?

Can I change your last line from 'It all adds to the mental load' to 'It all adds to the mental'?

@Hateam 😂

It's been said a good few times already but bears repeating. You keep posting about 'women' and 'men' as if all women are alike and all men are alike. There is plenty of evidence on this thread that that just doesn't stand up. Some men are useless across the board, many aren't. Many of us of both sexes would ignore most of the items on your interminable lists because in our view they're not worth bothering with.

I don't have much patience with people who wear themselves out doing things that don't actually need doing and which nobody would miss, and then expect a lot of thanks and praise, and sympathy for their self-induced exhaustion. Much better to keep life as simple as possible and have plenty of time to relax, rest and chat.

@Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g - good points

It's great he helped out by cooking, but how about the rest?

The poster said he cooked, you called it "helped out by cooking" .
You are simply making everything women's job with wordings like that.
"Helped out". No, he "did it".

It's also bit rude imho.

If I put shelf on a wall, am I helping my husband out or am I simply putting shelf on the wall?

DH is the one who is obsessed with Christmas, especially now that we have young children.

He is doing a North Pole breakfast for 2 year old DS tomorrow and has insisted on getting him an elf on the shelf. He has been researching Christmas presents and is generally far more organised about Christmas than I am.

Christmas would be just as great if DH organised it completely by himself.

Yes, he helped pp with the Christmas organisation by cooking the meal. There's usually a lot more to Christmas celebrations than just the dinner. Although it looks in this case like that's not all he did.

But he did not help. He just did his part. That's not "helping" unless you absolutely think that Christmas are women's job only and any activity by male is helping only. Which you seem to do.

So dex based jobs at home. 🤷Am I putting shelf on a wall or am I helping out DH? Since these things are manly jobs?

I don't have much patience with people who wear themselves out doing things that don't actually need doing and which nobody would miss

I see your point @Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g but the reality is a lot of women would feel as though Christmas was ruined if they didn't pull out all the stops every year. There's an awful lot of pressure these days on (mostly) Mums to 'make memories' and provide their children with the 'perfect' magical Christmas.

If you have a household with children, then organising the presents etc might be the most onerous task, but that wasn't the case for us. And yes - I wouldn't say that DH was "helping out". He was doing it.

Once DH was no longer able to write out Christmas cards because of sight problems and a lack of manual dexterity, the most onerous task for me was writing out Christmas cards - I also had to write out the cards for my parents at one point, though latterly we agreed I'd do joint cards from the two households.

Yeah by judgy mums with lists like yours though...

Aye. When you're a team, you work together.

After his stroke, DH was frustrated that he couldn't do what he wanted to.

One time, I needed to put together a chainsaw on an extendable pole. (Bargain from Lidl's! An excellent buy.)

I managed to follow the assembly instructions*, but had difficulty with the chain. In the end, I laid everything out on the living room floor and DH talked me through it. (He retired as a teacher, but in a previous existence, he'd worked in forestry.) Teamwork.

*I'm blooming awful at visualising. Nothing to do with being a woman or doing "technical stuff" - I've always been that way. You should see me trying and failing to follow dance steps.

I’m going to have to break the mould here too @Cynic17

My dh would be great at doing Christmas on his own
Decs would be out, tree up and decorated, food and treats all sorted. Presents bought. He’s actually better than me at finding that perfect gift anyway.
Christmas cards sent ( although I’d have to give him my address book for my relatives, but if I was doing it all he’d have to give me his for his relatives )

Apart from he’s crap at wrapping presents it would all be just perfect.

ps I am not dh in disguise.

But they don't need factoring in. That's the point. If someone wants to do them, they are welcome to knock themselves out. I have no interest in any of these. End of school projects are also not my responsibility since I am not the one at school. Somehow my kiddo manages to do them unprompted and the only thing she may ask for is a lift to the craft shop.
And I have never in my life sorted Secret Santa for my partner's work colleagues or any presents for his family.
You seem to be implying that men are useless and can't deal with everything that goes into Christmas planning and at no point do I see you questioning how many of the things you think are essential aren't even your tasks to worry about. And how many of these things are ridiculous extras that surely should fall to someone who actually wants them?
Wreath-making workshop?! Give me a break.

So sex based jobs at home. 🤷Am I putting shelf on a wall or am I helping out DH? Since these things are manly jobs?

That would depend on the couple @LoveIsLikeAFartIfYouHaveToPushItsUsuallyShit. The person doing the least is the one 'helping' the person taking on the lions share of the tasks.

Social media has a great deal to answer for. I'm not on Facebook or Instagram and one of the reasons is the endless stream of pictures of things that previously went entirely undocumented. Nobody was any the worse for not seeing pictures of other people's meals and presents.

We'd have lovely decorations and lots of nice food but not many presents and Christmas would run 23/12-1/1 only. I think this sounds perfect, actually!

@Fiddlesticks32
blimey!

Anyone who buys into all that ( commercial hype ) must be exhausted and made of money

Agree
I only found out about Christmas Eve boxes here on MN.

no I don’t do them. Our Christmas sounds exactly like yours ( just with mass thrown in )

Last minute. It might all turn out OK, it might not, but DH would be like 'oh well it's not that big a deal / it's only one day / there's another one next year'.

Christmas dinner he would be able to sort no problem, although he'd probably forget / not be too bothered about the extras like bread sauce or nice cream for the pudding ("what's wrong with custard?"). Gifts..most people's would arrive after Christmas I reckon. There'd be a lot of hampers, online gift vouchers and Lynx gift sets. Wrapping paper...doubtable as he'd assume we had some. Tree...I think he'd struggle, he has no patience for faffing so the lights and decs would go on any old way.. Christmas crackers I reckon would be deemed unnecessary or hed just get yhe first nice looking ones he saw. To be fair, he has absolutely no expectation that I will buy / do all of these things either he'd be perfectly happy to scratch the presents and just have a bottle of wine and an Indian takeaway in front of Home Alone (no DCs and we usually just spend the day together no wider family).

He'd cook great food, LED flashing trees, along with plenty of fancy Belgian artisan drinks. He prefers no presents, believing physical gifts promote pollution and greed.
He doesn't do birthdays either, and says again self-indulgent nonsense past the age of 12.

Do you have children?

Well those women need to give their head a wobble.

Social media has a great deal to answer for.

Completely agree @Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g I'm not on it either.

This film is from 2016 but it gives a funny insight into the different approaches to organising Christmas by the various female characters

If women want to run themselves ragged then that's on them. I really have very little sympathy. Yes there's an added element with social media now but back in the day - not so long ago - when mine were little there was still plenty of pressure to create an entirely artificial concept of a 'perfect, magical' Christmas.

I chose not to play that game.

Our Christmases were always wonderful, and still are - simple and low key is no less magical by any means.