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?

Sorry I quoted the wrong post. There was one that asked for experience of a mad run up the chilled Christmas. Doesn’t make sense that I replied to yours 😂

I really noticed this year that our children were really emotionally
on edge and hyped up come the last day of school. The after school restraint collapse really was something all that last week. I know they crammed tons into the last week with nativity, special treats, parties, Santa dashes, end of term awards, Christmas services at church etc. The first few days of the holiday it was "what are we doing today" every 5 minutes like they needed to be doing something. This is not like my children who are happy enough going with the flow as long as they get some time physically to burn off energy each day. We took it easy and just chilled with no expectations, by Christmas eve I could see they had finally wound down enough to be sat quietly with a book or some lego. I'm glad we didn't fill our days beforehand with things to do and just allowed them to be bored and wind down at their own pace. As a result Christmas day was lovely and so many nice memories to treasure.

Absolutely!!

No problem, I did think yours sounded the opposite of mine but different strokes for different folks. It sounds like you had a lovely time.

Two episodes of eastenders on xmas day, don't watch it but from the synopsis it's all about another big punch up in the queen vic. Who wants to watch that on Xmas day? Is this inspiring or what? I'd rather watch ET for the 15th time.

I think if you have a dysfunctional family dynamic you just cannot hide from it on Xmas day. I had some utterly shit childhood Xmas's and am so grateful for my little family. I hope that people who have had an abusive Xmas plan their exit routes, and I really hope any children in these families grow up and choose to make a new family for themselves and have many peaceful happy Christmases. It took me years to not dread Christmas

Obesity comes from eating far too much of the wrong foods.

I'd call parents who don't jam pack their kids' days and who don't spend weekends schlepping them to this venue or that 'sensible', not lazy. Clearly, there's a huge cultural expectation to avoid being seen as a slacker parent, and I'd suggest this is part of the problem.

You're not seeing the kids who are fit and trim and who spend their free time at home doing whatever is available to them there. They're not out and about at all the pantos and Santa events, etc, so it may be hard to believe they exist.

Obesity comes from eating far too much of the wrong foods.

Not necessarily. It can come from eating slightly too much of healthy foods over a sustained period of time. It doesn't take much to overeat to the tune of a 1lb weight gain a month, especially if you have health problems that limit exercise, but over a year that's the best part of a stone, and if you continue on that course, you will end in the obese category.

I'm not saying, of course, that no one is obese through eating greatly to excess or eating very unhealthy foods, but the stereotype of the fat person eating McDonalds three times a day every day should be challenged because that's often far from the truth.

I am currently a healthy weight, but I gain if I eat more than about 1400 calories a day. That's not a lot of food in the scheme of things.

Oh God - that sounds awful. We didn’t do that stuff (although the school did Christmas jumper day for their chosen charity).

Yep - apart from anything else it would be embarrassing to list all the stuff they want in one letter that goes home.

Presumably you're not a growing child...