Where are our British Christmas traditions going?

[RabbitsNBears]

I can’t help but feel ever so sad about the wonderful Christmas traditions we grew up with are disappearing. It's like we are raising our young ones in the USA. Who is “Santa”? In my day he was called Father Christmas. What is this elf on the shelf nonsense, as far as I can tell he teaches our grandchildren that misbehaving is amusing, not the old fashioned lessons of behaving as Father Christmas knows if you’ve been good or bad. And don’t even get me started on how my DIL had the grandchildren leaving “Santa” cookies and milk. What’s wrong with a glass of brandy and a mince pie?

I felt the same the first time I did Christmas with my DH family. It was (and still is) really strange to me that the women spend all their time cooking and don’t spend it with the family together. I just hated it and the next year, DH saw what my family do and we agreed we were never going anywhere else again, but would figure out our own Christmas!

The big man is Santa in Scotland and always has been.

My gran would have told me Father Christmas was for the English.

we leave a glass of whiskey and a mince pie out for Santa and a carrot for Rudolph.

‘British’ encompasses many different traditions - not just yours and your nannas.