Over stimulation or Christmas ruined by overcommercialised, high expectation December?

[Didyoujust]

There are so many posts this year about awful Christmas Days. Arguments. Meltdowns. Short tempers. Dislike of gifts. Dislike and intolerance of others. Making exceptions for teens (they don't have to join in).

Are we misdiagnosing the problem?

December has become the main event. Weeks of activities, experiences, pressure and expectation, mostly driven by adults. We do more and more, expect more and more, and then act surprised when tolerance is gone.

By Christmas Day, many children are not overstimulated. They are tired, just tired and worn out. And many adults are too. Short tempered. Less patient. Less able to meet their children’s needs because their own capacity has already been used up.

Christmas Day now feels like the end of Christmas, not the heart of it. We have spent all the energy getting there.

So when we ask why the joy is missing, it might be worth asking whether we exhausted it ourselves.

Should we re-evaluate and scale back December?

I am so so glad it is over

Biggest pile of nonsense

I love gifting kind people

I love gifting my kids

That's it

The rest is madness
And I have felt on edge for one whole month worrying that I have not done enough

I started shopping in July ffs

Anyway
Lovely to have some down time and bring on 2026

I agree OP. For years the build-up to Christmas used to be my favourite part, but that was pre-DC and due to low-key traditions like attending (or performing in) carol services, lighting the advent candle each day, reading Christmas-themed books, wreath-making with friends and so on.

Since we’ve had DD and our parents have aged we’ve been much more exposed to the frenetic and commercialised side of Christmas. DD’s school goes (IMO) hugely over the top about the whole thing as well; we were receiving around 15 Christmas-based emails from them daily at one point this month, relating to panto trips, the PTA’s Winter Wonderland week (Buy this! Wear this! Send this in!) and various other events. We now have to split Christmas Day itself between two sets of elderly parents who both live locally, with the second set expecting a full Christmas dinner somehow to be provided despite us not having been at home for the entire morning as we’ve been visiting the first set. Both set of parents have always gone very OTT with Christmas presents and DD is an only child, so the volume of ‘stuff’ entering our small house at this time of year feels obscene and makes me feel stressed out and guilty, subsequently spending most of January decluttering and charity-shopping unwanted items.

For the last couple of years the things we’ve always enjoyed about Christmas have been drowned out by all the noise and stress (this year in particular we are all now exhausted and ill) but next year DP and I have already decided that we’re going to ‘reclaim Christmas’, try as far as we can to stay very low key and hopefully find some enjoyment and meaning in the season again.

On reflection, the two things that have made me happiest this Christmas have been attending a small community carol service, choosing and decorating our tree with DP and DD and and buying and wrapping a gift for an elderly person in a local sheltered housing complex.

And the financial pressures of doing and providing.

Or the disappointment of receiving ‘temu tatt’ as we call it, just to have lots and lots of parcels. Lots that we don't want, lots that breaks or is unsafe.

We went for quality over quantity this year, less ‘stuff’, better thought out, less wrapping, less waste.

Yes, said ít many a time. Christmas is brainwashing. You've done it for years, so you think you must do it.

You dont have too. I look forward to the time people start thinking for themselves instead of being sheep.

I think this is quite insightful and true. When I was a child my Christmases were magic and we didn't do a fraction of the events that are available now. I had a lovely Christmas this year but I was tired - I think next year I will scale back my events and spend more time enjoying time together at home and less time trying to cram in a lot of different events.

It's a lot for children and adults to handle and especially with children I think we can set them up to fail by hyping them up so much for so many weeks. It's almost like Christmas Day can't live up to the hype of the preceding weeks.

Well said @TempsPerdu my sons are adults but there is still a huge pressure to make it all "perfect". Maybe we should all start a movement to "reclaim" Christmas next year.

It's Mumsnet.

people come to moan

People are just consuming far too much and the financial stress puts everyone on edge too because for all that money then you create this expectation that it will be foolproof and perfect.

I like a quiet Christmas with a couple presents. My partner went overboard this year with his family and then he was hurt/disappointed that they really didn’t seem to care that much. But it’s on him really, he put all that burden on himself - but now we know better for next year.

YES PLEASE!

Reclaim Christmas.

I actually did most of my shopping and wrapping in November so that I could cope when all the demands from school started ramping up in December. There are more than two weeks with daily requests for money, something to attend, something to bring in or something to remember. Was having panic attacks the year before trying to get it all sorted in December.

I think it’s up to all of us to decide how much to start and when, no one has to do the elf or December 1st boxes or half a dozen Santa visits.

I think it’s always been a tough time in some respects - the very long autumn term at school, shops and supermarkets putting everything out really early - those alone lead to a tendency for Christmas to be the end rather than the beginning.

but ultimately we decide where we put our own focus, mine this year is definitely on ‘the break’ rather than ‘the day’.

I agree. I had that awful flu earlier this month, so I had the inside of the house decorated before I got sick but not the outside. I went into the shops earlier this week to look for some new outside decorations and everything was gone. I realised now a days Christmas is 'over' on Christmas day. It means we're doing all the Christmas stuff at the same time as school being very busy, work being very busy, lots of once-a-year social occasions, and then nothing from the 26th onwards. So we're all burnt out and exhausted by Christmas itself. When I was younger all the socialising happened between Christmas and New Year.
Being sick this year made me do less and it all turned out fine.
I used to find Christmas stressful and then last year I saw a great post from a psychologist on Tik Tok about avoiding 'dopaminergic' energy by focussing on having, not wanting. And every time I caught myself in wanting energy, to consciously switch back to thinking about all that I have. It has helped me so much.

I agree with others. We don’t even celebrate Christmas and I still have to talk myself out of ice skating, festive markets etc - it’s one thing if you want to do it, another if you feel compelled because it’s everywhere. And I feel schools (or our school, anyway) need to turn the dial down a notch. The pace of emails, activities, gifts, dress up days etc through December is quite overwhelming.

I've thought this for a long while now. I'm sick to death of Christmas by the time it arrives. The overconsumption and commercialisation is a bit sickening. Plus, we're supposed to go inwards in winter, hibernation almost, slowing down and embracing sleep and rest. Not force ourselves out to multiple parties and forced jollity and socialising on the coldest darkest days of the year. It's bonkers. Christmas, as everything else, has been taken over by the big companies because they see the money spinning opportunities. Halloween, valentine's etc are going the same way. The pressure and obligations are ridiculous. I opt out as much as I can get away with.

I love the build up to Christmas but my ‘build up’ is actually just an internal excitement because I don’t do anything different 😅
I enjoy seeing people’s lights go up in December (not before) and I enjoy that nice little feeling in the week leading up to Christmas.

The lengths people with small children go to actually spoils the magic of Christmas in my opinion. When I was a kid it was so special because the decorations and the ‘fuss’ in the shops and things only started a couple of weeks before Christmas, so it felt magical because when you started to see the Christmas things, you knew it really was nearly Christmas.

Now people do the elf thing, go to Lapland UK, go on the polar express thing and all sorts of other stuff for weeks and weeks before hand. Christmas is no longer the main event, it’s just a tag on to the rest. Even the stupid ‘Santa cam’ on Christmas Eve where it follows him around the globe ruins it. How kids watch any of this stuff and believe it, I don’t know. The whole excitement of Christmas for me as a child was the unknown. You just knew Father Christmas was coming but you didn’t really understand how or when, you just knew that when you woke up, he’d have been. The magic was in the secretiveness of it. You must get to sleep quickly so he can come!

I’m so glad I grew up in the 80s and early 90s. Christmas felt magical and we weren’t worn out by Christmas time. The magic lasted until New Year aswell, whereas it just sort of falls flat now afterwards.

Mumsnet is not real you know. It attracts the biggest whingers who think they are superior because they hate socialising etc hate anything like weddings, xmas birthdays etc
If someone came on here and said they had a lovely day they would be accused of bragging or being smug.

This year was the worst I ever noticed it . Used to love waiting to see the Xmas things coming into shops . So unappreciated already. Next year I will try to encourage a Kris Kindle type of exchange instead of the usual unnecessary PJs , candles, toiletries. Or none at all just the meal.

I found I cut back on shopping or just browsing in shops this year because I didn't want Christmas rammed down my throat whilst I'm perfectly happy enjoying being in the moment during autumn. I get buying a few bits early to spread the load but the displays are far too early.

Depends how you look at it

Weeks of activities, experiences is not the build-up to Christmas in my book, it's the whole fun of December!

Long gone are the days of my grand-parents childhood when they were going to midnight mass, (literally midnight) had diner and presents after. The magic of being up half the night and a special night doesn't exist anymore.

You don't have to be religious to find something magical in a church covered in candles and the singing when you are a small child. Our schools still hold carol concerts in churches, most (or many?) families are not religious at all and still come

December would be very grim and dark without the parties, the lights, the fun.

Expectations on the actual day? It's up to you. I've never accepted that DH or I ruin the day and miss out on the children by spending any time in the kitchen -if it brings people joy, go for it. If it's unreasonable expectations about a fancy roast, plan better.

I would vote for any party who bans shop from selling anything Christmas related until after Halloween however 😂

Aside from the "Christmas shops" that exist all year round, but they are rare

I did have a lovely day, no drama, dinner was easy and delicious, the kids were appreciative of their gifts, DH bought some really lovely gifts for me and helped the kids choose similarly nice gifts for me. There was no tension or bad temper and everyone had a good day.

I don’t think I’m superior in any way, I do really trim the pre-Christmas festivities though so no one is too tired, over hyped or has unrealistic expectations. We see family and friends around the holidays, not on Christmas Day itself so no external pressure for things to be just so. It doesn’t need to be a stress.

This year we did hardly anything in the run up and decided to have a quiet Christmas just the 4 of us. Normally I am so anal about how everything looks and what we do on the day and this year I was just exhausted from work and we took everything super easy and had the best day. I gave up on social media earlier this year and it’s been the best thing. Really trying to keep it up for 2026.

YANBU, although I blame social media rather than commercialism. So many performative new “traditions” like elf on the shelf, matching pyjamas, Christmas Eve boxes, Christmas bedding, having a “colour scheme” for the decorations etc. People spending a fortune on all this, nagging their kids and partners to pose for photos so it looks perfect on Instagram and putting so much pressure on themselves because they think they will somehow miss out if they don’t do it, then the whole thing becomes so stressful and overhyped that it’s no wonder it ends in disaster. It’s not just about having a good Christmas any more, it’s about showing the rest of the world how good your Christmas is at the same time.

I think it says a lot about where we are as a society. Things are pretty grim in the world at the moment and people (myself included) need be something to look forward to, sprinkle in a bit of nostalgia and ‘magic’ - is there any wonder really? Christmas puts a bit of a dimmer switch on the doom and gloom and the mundane humdrum of every day life.