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.

In the past we’ve done Christmas with parents/grandparents but last few years it’s just been the four of us and I love it, there’s no pressure or stress we can enjoy Christmas Eve and Christmas Day the kids can take their time opening presents also we’ve always stood firm in not dragging them out and about not fair on them.
It also means that we can relax over the Christmas break.

I have experienced real life negativity with this. I remember the first time when I lived long distance from my family and mentioned to my colleagues that I was just staying home this Christmas many of them were horrified. Some said that they couldn't believe I wasn't travelling to family.

The irony was that many of them couldn't stand the people they were spending Christmas with, I'm very close with my family but we prefer travelling to each other at less busy times.

We only did the 4 of us for Xmas. I don"t want other peoples' Xmas and traditions. Never hosted.
We would go and see the inlaws the Sunday before Xmas.

There’s only two of us on Christmas Day, me and DD (22). It can feel quite lonely but we try to make the best of it

To be fair I haven't read the only child thread...because I have one and I know it'll probably make me feel bad!

But I do find it fascinating how people see things differently. My interpretation of the Mumsnet view around Christmas is more that there are a lot of people who are extremely introverted and don't like socialising/dislike their relatives (especially in laws) and are so adamant that a Christmas with 'their little family' is the ideal that it sort of provokes an opposite extreme reaction from people who don't see it the same way.

IRL most people I know are in the middle...waking and going to bed in their own houses with some socialising with wider family to varying degrees inbetween.

We are a little family but have a lot of relatives who we see for a busy Christmas Day, which I do really like. However one of my favourite bits of Christmas is that we usually have at least 2 days of just us...lounging in pyjamas, watching TV, eating all sorts etc with a few games thrown in that we wouldn't usually play. I find that very joyful! We also do a walk around the local roads to look at any Christmas lights on Xmas Eve, followed by a takeaway (just the 3 of us).

Our Christmas is getting smaller. Sometimes I do miss the Christmases when I was growing up, when we had had 10+ people round the table at my DGM’s, but it’s lovely just the 3 of us. The year before last was just me & DH, which felt strange but nice.

We tend to host a medium-sized group on Christmas Day (us 4, my sibling, plus both sets of grandparents and sometimes DH’s sibling and her partner) and we have a lovely time. However I would say that one of our happiest christmases was the Covid one (2020) when BoJo brought in that last minute rule about only travelling for the day (my family and DH’s sister all live 100s of miles away). I had just been diagnosed with a very aggressive cancer a few days before, and obviously we had an enormous turkey, but we actually had a lovely lovely Christmas Day just the 4 of us. We had the normal Christmas Day big lunch, and went to a socially distanced church service, but because we weren’t hosting we had so much more time to spend with the children, and it all just felt a bit more relaxed somehow. I remember serving the lunch and sunshine was streaming in on the dining table and feeling very grateful for what we had. We did miss our folks obviously and we had this huge life-changing news just days before so we were still a bit shell shocked, but it was a really happy day nonetheless!

We were 13 last Christmas, to include 4 young kids. It was too noisy and chaotic for me. (Mainly due to 1 or 2 key culprits!). This year will be 6 - us 4 and 2 DGP. It will be ideal IMO. Personally I like to be with others and not just us 4 though, so this is a good balance for me.

I’m still surprised at you describing cooking for only 7 people being a small Christmas. It’s not easy to find joy in a small Christmas when it’s truly small

It was the most I had cooked for but seems small compared to most people.

Most Christmas's before DC have just been me, DH and one set of parents and I've loved it. One of my favourite Christmases was when we first bought our house and it was just me, DH, a loaf party food and bottles of prosecco.

There's no right or wrong way to spend Christmas and many people won't like small ones just as many won't like big ones however I wanted to start this thread for those of us that have small Christmas's to celebrate it.

It will be our first Xmas just the four of us after a fall out with pil, love seeing all the positivity 😊