To cancel Christmas

[LiftAndLetLift]

AIBU to want to not engage at all with Christmas this year?

It's just me & DH. I have decorations in the loft but cba to get them down, it feels like another job to do!

I don't want to invite any family round, host food & drinks, worry about presents and buying stuff no one needs.

So - no roast dinner, no mad supermarket rush, no inviting people around because 'I should' - nothing, just pretend Christmas doesn't exist!

I'm not religious, I don't have small kids or any family that are enjoyable company and don't have disposable income to waste.

Has anyone else done this?

I do decorations and one lovely outing each week in December. It's just been the two of us since COVID and sometimes I do struggle a bit but it's getting better each year. This years plan is church, just me, I like Christmas hymns, walk, Chinese takeaway from M and S, then a binge watch of something. But do what you want, think of it as a rare opportunity to just rest.

After my mum died I boycotted Christmas for seven years. Only started doing it again when the dc came along.

There’s a lot to be said for going away somewhere. I remember eating pizza outside in the sun on a terrace on Christmas Day in Barcelona one year.

Christmas will happen whatever. Your DH may be very disappointed to not have any fun. I would just get on with it at some point it may get to be enjoyable and if not at least you will make other peoples day.

I'm also done with xmas. Soon as the kids move out, I'm done. I like socialising and going out. I like being off work. I'll keep that bit. I don't need presents. I liked the madness when the kids were young, but it's all done now.

I cba with decorations. So much fucking effort, just to clutter my house up for 3 weeks. I've had over 40 years of xmas songs. I'm bored of hearing them.

I'm not religious. I would celebrate the coming back of the light though, but I don't need all the shite that goes with it. I can do it by going for a walk.

I'm just tired. Tired of having something else added to an already over full plate.

Thank you for all the thoughts in your replies!

That's exactly it, my heart just isn't in it. I cant go away sadly (maybe in January!) but I love the idea of getting a takeaway in the day before.

It just all feels so false and forced.

DH wouldn't notice if we did or didn't do Christmas to be honest, he's so laid back.

Yes exactly - it just all feels like so much effort; and for what?

Husband and I are having a Xmas lunch on Xmas eve at a nearby restaurant. Xmas morning we have a walk down the beach and drink watching hundreds of people wade into the cold sea, then home for a relax watching tv then steak and chips for dinner and a few cocktails and chocolate for dessert. No visitors, perfect. I have no decorations or tree up as of yet. House is in darkness from outside. I totally understand. Do whatever suits you both. X

Sounds like my idea of heaven. I’d probably cook something I really like and rarely do, not necessarily a roast and just chill all day

OP, have Christmas your own way. There is a lot of pressure to conform and be happy and jolly and spend lots of money on total crap. Who says you have to participate? Break the mould this year, and it becomes easier every year after that. It is only ONE DAY and it drives everyone crazy.

Ignore those who might say your idea of how to spend your Christmas is miserable. It might be for THEM looking on, but I'm sure it will be bliss for you.

I don't do anything either. We've no kids and the wider family is all grown up now. Off on 16th December and back on 7th Jan. Escape from Colditz lol 😊

I think "pretend that Christmas doesn't exist" is a bit grim, it's everywhere so it's not like you can really ignore it.

If you can't afford to go away, which is the best way to spend Christmas frankly 😂, you can still have an enjoyable day. I don't understand the attraction for roast diners, but it's Christmas. If you want to eat an entire birthday cake and get drunk while watching the latest Running Man movie (unlikely it will be on tv yet) go for it.

I would take the "festive" part of Christmas and run with it.

Why is it all down to you? No wonder you cba if you’re having to carry the whole thing for some useless male who’ll sit back and let you.

Do what you like - there are no laws you have to celebrate or do anything.

The only issue I have with your op is the idea of buying presents ‘nobody needs’ - that’s just shoddy gift giving. There is always something special you can give someone, even something small, if you put some real thought into it.

sorry but how Off on 16th December and back on 7th Jan is "not doing anything?

It literally IS doing something!

Sounds excellent to me.

Ha ha, but it doesn't involve roast turkey, roast spuds, stuffing, trimmings, pigs in blankets, a tree, glitter and tat and so on. And best of all no Christmas shopping, those that we give gifts to get money now since they are all well beyond the Lego stage 😊

So you're right I do DO SOMETHING, but it's got nothing to do with Christmas stuff!

I love the festive food too much to cancel Christmas.
However, if you don’t want to do it then you shouldn’t, as long as you don’t think you will regret it when bleak (to me) January and February roll around.

Christmas doesn’t have to cost time and money, I used to put up a small Christmas tree, just the tree nothing else and I’d have the cards that people sent me on display on the shelf (I didn’t send any). On Christmas Day I would spend it in my pyjamas, bacon roll for breakfast, snack all day and watch tv. My family live a long way away and neither of us could be bothered to visit the other! You can still mark the occasion just drop out of the entertaining and present buying.

Yes we have. We got rid of all the Xmas guff 2 years ago. We don't partake in any aspect of it. No TV, no film, no shopping, no presents, cards or food. Definitely no music. I wear headphones when out in December and avoid rhe city centres and those bloody awful markets.

We are off abroad instead, us and our toddler.

We've done exactly this for years.

We love every minute of it. There is no stress at all.

Yes do it nothing to say you have to celebrate.
Make your own mind up.
You dont need anyone's permission.

Give each other the gift of not having to buy anything just because its Dec 25th.

i am the biggest grinch. For past few years i have escaped Christmas and gone away. Main thing i hear you saying is that there are none of those people that you want to see. I know i am the same. I just wouldn’t bother. This year i am not going away and my son and partner are coming for dinner on Christmas Day. I will make it nicest i can as i love them. Won’t do anything else though. Just see people you love.

Yanbu. Were going on a cruise 23rd - 29th December. No chrismas nonsense this year. Bliss!

There's just me in my house. I understand the "what's the point?" feeling especially in the last few years. However we celebrate Christmas in order to cheer up the dark of midwinter. Twinkly fairy lights and nice food and drink help us do that. The last few years I haven't bothered with a tree, but I do string fairy lights around, and go to a carol service, and have some nights out with friends. It helps to make you feel part of the whole thing, despite the adverts ramming the "CHRISTMAS IS ABOUT THE CHILDREN" message down our throats. Christmas is for everyone.

A couple of the best Christmases I have ever had have been very low fuss. But not no fuss. It’s just that the fuss and attention were arounf]do the people not the trappings.

First one was just me and my mum. I was late twenties, had been living away from home in other cities for work for a few years. Both me and my mum were working right up to Xmas Eve, so neither of us had any time to shop/cook etc.

So we ordered a huge Chinese meal the next day, plenty left for evening too and spent the day chatting and working our way through a bottle of Baileys. We got ice cream delivered with the other food and had chocolates from presents. We ended up putting up the tree quickly between us half way through the day but only put on lights and tinsel. We watched a film too and just generally relaxed. It was fantastic. No rush to go and see other people or hassle of cooking.

The second one was my Christmas after getting married. We’d done a Christmas before, tried to do everything and it was really stressful. So the second one we just got a huge steak to share and some good red wine. We’d bought Xmas bits like mince pies in the run up. But we just focussed on what we actually wanted and not what we were supposed to do.

We tried this one year only for DH (usually bah humbug) to insist on a proper Christmas dinner!