Joys of small family Christmas

[Radiatelikethis]

I just wanted to put a post where those that have small families or have small Christmas's can post about the positives and happiness of them.

I'm aware that there will be loads of Christmas posts coming up and even yesterday on a thread about only children, someone posted "yikes small family Christmas"

What is wrong with a small family Christmas? There's a general theme on MN that if you don't have some huge, family Christmas with about 20 relatives minimum that your Christmas is something to be pitied, that you've failed in some way and your Christmas will be less special.

I've only ever spent Christmas growing up with my immediate family. Now that I don't speak to my siblings, Christmas is normally spent with my parents, or my husbands parents or DC. I've never cooked for more than 7 people and you known what it's fine. In fact it's more than fine. I've always had wonderful Christmases, had great memories and never ever felt I've missed out because I haven't had hordes of people to feed.

I always think Christmas is such a busy period that it's nice for the actual day to be quieter with immediate family. Having heaps of people over would in fact be my idea of hell. If you prefer a bigger Christmas that's perfect OK, but we need to move away from this thinking that those don't have as many people round our table are somehow missing out or having a less magical Christmas.

Agree with you totally. Op are you projecting, is it a touchy subject? I have a small Christmas and it doesn’t occur to me to be bothered so I don’t see this “theme”. I also am an only child married to an only child with one child if our own, until parents of only children on here informed me that they were looked down on for this that had also never occurred to me and I’d never seen it.

Here here! Totally agree!

Our DS was born in 2020 so covid times, first Christmas we couldn’t be with family. It was just the 3 of us and we stayed in our Christmas PJs and did things in our pace and time.

It was great and not too overwhelming for my then 9m old. We’ve kept this every year since.

Christmas Day itself it’s just the 3 of us, and it’s perfect. We see families just before or after Christmas instead.

Our families are 2-4 hours away so not like can do a quick pop in, and it saves us so much stress and worry around Christmas doing it this way.

Each to their own but I love our special family Christmas just us 3.

Miss out on what?

We alternate, spending it at my in laws, spending it with my family or staying home just us and the kids.
last year we went to my sisters, it was chaotic and we didn’t stay for long. It was her and her partner, his parents and sister (who none of us had ever met), my parents, my brother and other sister, then myself my fiancé and our 3 kids.
wont be doing that again 😂
Unfortunately this year my step daughter isn’t with us on Xmas day at all and my 2 go Boxing Day so they won’t see each other but with baby on the way we’ve accepted it and making sure we have all the kids at home next year.
Bur that is absolutely my limit, I love the cosy, joyfullness of spending time just us on Xmas day.

I hated Christmas as an adult because we were always travelling, long haul every second year as both sets of parents don't live locally. It was so much money and hassle to travel at the worst time of the year for what I see as a meal, purely because I felt obligated.

After the pandemic we changed our plans and now have Christmas at home, me, my husband and our cat. In the lead up to Christmas we walk around the neighbourhood every night and look at the new Christmas lights that are going up. On Christmas day we go for a beautiful walk in nature, then split the cooking between us and have a lovely meal followed by a nap and a Christmas movie in the evening. It's so cosy and peaceful and I now enjoy Christmas again. Ideal Christmas for me as an introvert.

We have a small Christmas most years, comes as standard when you live abroad from
everyone. We’ve stayed at each of our parents houses for Christmas Day and dinner and the family dynamics means it’s not that great. My parents - lovely people but they are weird about food and portion sizes, and they don’t have music or Tv on during the day so it feels very sterile at their home on Christmas Day. My husband’s parents just don’t have any Christmas spirit and when we had the day at theirs I actually cried it felt so hostile - even though they’d invited us and said they were looking forward to having their grandson over for Christmas Day. They didn’t spend any quality time with him and just avoided us, it was horrible. So now we do our own thing.
This yr, our son breaks up from school early in December so we are coming back to the UK for a week to see friends and family, go to Christmas parties and be social etc, and then we are coming back home in time for a Christmas Day just the three of us. We’ve done it several times now and it’s great - we put music on, open our presents, walk the dog together, cook with each other and watch all the Christmas TV. There’s no judgement if anyone wants to pig out or have seconds, we crack open the chocolate boxes and our son happily builds his Lego/reads his books/plays board games with us etc. I worried that our son would hate it but he loves it and is quite happy having a quiet Christmas. After a week of full on socialising it’s nice to have a chilled no pressure Christmas and Boxing Day. We invite family over to ours to stay for the Christmas break and they have taken that up a few times in the past. I love hosting and have no problem with a bigger Christmas. We just have to do it on our own terms in our own home- lots of food, music and fun , and anyone who wants to come along for the ride from our family or friendship group is welcome, but we love doing it just us 3 too.

I think there are quite a few in aibu around "do we have to host everybody again?" "Aibu not to want to travel to a big family christmas" "both sets of parents expect to see us" and so on, and they get a lot of response from people who say "oh just fit more people in" Christmas is not fun without a crowd" and so on. DH's working life meant he was often working over christmas, or at least on call which meant zero alcohol, so all our married lives we had "just us" family christmasses and socialised before and after. There is no sore point for me but its like a lot of other things on MN, some (many) people assume that their choice should be everybody's choice.

I'm not sure what I'm meant to be projecting nor is it a touchy subject. I was quite clear how happy my small Christmases were.

We all see things differently. I've seen plenty of posts especially on only child threads, with people making comments about small family Christmases. In fact my thread was on the back of a comment yesterday.

But not everyone reads the same threads, we all interpert things differently and there will be plenty things I miss on here.

On having a large(r) family and gatherings with relatives.

Just myself and my husband for Xmas....we go out for Xmas lunch on Xmas eve then have steak and chips with the trimmings Xmas day. A quiet walk out for a few hours in the morning, relaxed and chilled. Perfect....no stress, people pleasing. Those days are long gone thankfully.

I really dislike small family Christmases. The best Christmas we have had was when thee was loads of us...my DD still talks about it years later. Sadly some family members have died and moved away...it's not the same. I'm always with my immediate family...there's nothing special to me about a small Christmas at all.

i bloody love a huge Christmas, sometimes ours have been 16-20 people. I have step siblings and lots of cousins too.
the bigger the better !!!

It's so interesting that people are so different. A Christmas like that would be my worst nightmare, and would also have been my worst nightmare as a child too! I remember going back to school after the Christmas holidays and friends telling me about spending Christmas with all their aunts and uncles and cousins and everyone staying over and so on, and I always used to think it just sounded really stressful! But I know lots of people would love it. Loads of my friends get really excited about a 'big' Christmas and it's lovely to hear about how much they enjoy it each year.

By contrast, I have a nephew who is now 20 and has to spend every Christmas with his mum's huge extended family - we're talking his mum and his five siblings, grandparents, 20 aunts and uncles and about 10-15 cousins. Last time I saw him we were talking about Christmas and he confessed that he hates the 'big' Christmas and that when he was a child he just longed for a Christmas where he could open his presents and actually just have space to sit and play with his new toys on the living room floor and chill out, without random aunts and uncles treading on him and cousins getting in his face.

I've said YABU because all the threads I see are either about how people are having Christmas with "just their little family" and how much they prefer this, or how much they dislike having relatives over or going to relatives, so I really don't see the threads you are seeing! In fact I have posted a few times to defend my preference for a big family Christmas as it seems most people don't like it.

But they may not want or enjoy those things.

For a few years there was the 4 of us on Christmas day, which was lovely. This year just the 2 of us. We will see the kids over the festive season, but they are off living their own lives.
Really looking forward to a chilled day with the dogs.

Can’t imagine anything worse than a large family Christmas, but then I’m an only child and so is my husband. We’ll see our families on Christmas Eve, and then Christmas Day will be spent just us and our son relaxing at home. I love a slow day at home together where he can just enjoy opening his presents and playing with his new toys. We’ll eat a small Christmas dinner, no fuss just a small roast. If it’s dry well wrap up and go for a walk and feed the ducks. In the evening we’ll put on a Christmas movie, light the fire, and have hot chocolates. It’s my dream day.

Neither of us have family nearby so we've spent years travelling at Christmas but we both hate it - the long drive there and back, what feels like enforced jollity and a certain family member who goes on about 'making memories'. In recent years we've started having more Christmases with just the two of us at home and it's lovely. We agreed years ago on keeping it simple so we don't buy each other gifts and there's no faff. A couple of weeks ago we talked about what to cook on the day and have decided to make pizza which we're both looking forward to that so much. We've been making pizzas together for 40 years and have a good method, plus we both know exactly what we like on them, so it will be delicious. We'll light the fire, cook and then snuggle up and be quiet.

At the end of the day, everyone should just do what they enjoy for Christmas.
One year I go to my mums where my 3 siblings are their with all the grandkids (4 kids, 8 grandkids) and then the alternate year I go to DH mums and it's just his mum, me, him and our 2 kids.
I absolutely much prefer the 'bigger family christmas' the small one is just boring to me, but that's just my preference.
It shouldn't matter, and id never assume someone's christmas was shit because it's small.

I've never had a big family Christmas. Only child, no family beyond parents and often was just 2 of us for Christmas as a kid because other parent was working.

I was always made to feel like I was missing out somehow (not just by other people, but the whole media/social media pushing big family Christmas as the ideal). And my mum always apologised that Christmas was boring, although she did her best and I wasn't unhappy.

Nowadays it's usually just me, DH & 2 kids which I'm fine with - I think in my "old age" I'm resigned to it and happy with my normal! I think I'd find hosting to be fairly stressful. Thankfully DH's family aren't interested so no risk there. 😆

I’m an only child so it’s only ever been small for me and never felt like I’ve missed out but now I have 3 children. It’s still only ever us and my husband and my mum though and that’s enough for me. We visit my MIL on the afternoon and my husbands side of the family are usually milling about there.

Same here! DH’s family have the big gathering, and it’s just chaos - noise and yelling and nobody having a proper chat, loads of dishes to do and too many hyper kids. I grew up with 1 sibling, 2 parents and 2 grandparents each year, and it was lovely!

I hate hosting. Find it very stressful. I will have 4 this year. Was hoping it.might just be me and DH but DD1 is coming with a friend.

When my kids were younger we spent every Christmas doing gifts first thing then getting showered, dressed and driving 90 minutes to visit my parents/DH's parents who live in the same town, to have dinner, then go to my DH's parents for tea before driving home again at the end of the day. Although it was nice to have the big family Christmas and the family time it was very stressful and we were always clock watching, making sure we gave each set of grandparents equal time. The kids were exhausted by the end of the day. As they got a little older they became more vocal about not wanting to leave their toys and having to spend Christmas travelling and not being able to relax with their presents. So we decided that the next year we were going to have Christmas Day on our own, just the 4 of us, and that we would do the travelling to see the parents on Boxing Day instead.

That is when we all truly started to enjoy our Christmas Day. No pressure to be up by a certain time, no needing to be on the road by a certain time, no clock watching, no worrying about the kids wanting to be home with their presents. We would have a lovely dinner, followed by games in the evening, a movie and chocolates and DH would open a bottle of champers. New traditions began and we did that every Christmas from there until the kids grew up and became adults and we did our family visits on Boxing Day.

We love our small Christmas Day gatherings although our table is now graced by our DD's boyfriends also which is wonderful. 😊🎄

we usually host 6 adults, two kids, or travel to see family, where it can be up to 10 adults, two kids. This year because of how it’s fallen and work commitments, it will just be the four of us for the majority, and I am absolutely over the moon about it. We may still host over new years, or possibly the 20th/21st Dec, but for 23rd-30th it’s just us and I’m looking forward to it.
My kids are slightly older, so no longer believing in Santa, but not quite teenagers so it feels like a sweet spot.
I am expecting pub visits, walks along the river and playing games. We brought kids against humanity so they should be fun.

Historically we ended up spending Christmas Day somewhere other than our home as we were a childless couple and easier for us to travel. We did offer to host, but older parents and siblings with kids preferred to stay put.

So they were larger Christmas's and OK, but it was always someone else's house, I never got a lie in as we had to be up and travelling, couldn't lie on the sofa in my PJs, read my new book and eat chocolate. I appreciated the effort put in by the hosts, but it was too formal.

Once DS came along I started to resent this, and after extremely annoying SIL changed varying arrangements two days before Xmas, including insisting they would host again (rather than PILs who lived closer) which meant us having to do a 6 hour round trip in the car for the third year in a row, with PILs in car as well, so I was squashed up next to the car seat in the back, I put my foot down and refused to go anywhere for Christmas after that.

So for the last 15 years Christmas Day has been spent at home. PILs came to us while they were still alive, and Sister and BIL will often come over late afternoon for board games, but predominantly it's us, having a nice relaxed time, munching mince pies and drinking our tipples of choice.