Women are the cause of Christmas being stressful....

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Women are to blame for making Christmas a stressful and expensive holiday.

It's women* who are doing all the planning, booking of trips to father Christmas, managing and booking expensive UK Lapland trips/visits to activity farm, booking light trails, making sure the elf delivers a North Pole Breakfast, sorting Christmas Eve boxes trips to the panto/nutcracker, sorting parties, making sure kids Nativity costumes done, doing the stupid elf in the shelf, writing letters etc

All rushing, trying to make everything perfect and everything a "memory"... And then complain it's all too much, toj stressful, too expensive

Nobody is holding a gun to their head.

We all know the kids would be perfectly happy with a few presents on the morning and able to eat chocolate for breakfast.

Nobody will stop loving you because you couldn't be fucking bothered to make bread sauce from scratch using homemade organic breadcrumbs.
If you didn't bother making a starter, who cares?

Nobody would care if the stupid Elf never arrived.

Live by this mantra "Those who matter, don't mind. those who mind, don't matter"

It's stressful because YOU make it stressful.
Just embrace your Inner Man** and stop making the effort.

*Not all women, my husband dies yada yada yada
** Not all men...blah blah blah

I agree to a certain extent, we do martyr ourselves somewhat by seeking perfection. But if Xmas were left to the resident Ebeneser in this household there would be money spent on utter shit (last min panic purchases), not enough treats and people would have a bad Christmas, so I have to do it. But I don’t seek perfection, and it’s still stressful.

The dog ate the frigging Elf last year, it was a supreme move. It is way too much now, Xmas eve boxes can get to fuck, as can the elf, we’re eating at the pub. Nice presents, lovely booze and outsourcing is where I’m at.

Do you know what. I am a mad feminist, bla bla structural bias etc.

On this one, in the last few years, I’ve come to the dawning realisation that you are right.

But it has led to other realisations!

It was worth it when my kids were small as they have expressed how magical it was.

Its fine to dial bits down.

Since it’s apparently me that cares about Christmas decs, I can just buy the ones I want and do it the way I want FOR ME and not worry too much about other people. My DH doesn’t give a shit about the baubles so there’s no point in me screaming BUT DO YOU EVEN LIKE THE BAUBLES - I just bought the baubles I like.

My mum (out the other side) is correct that it is acceptable to buy overpriced M&S red cabbage and something something chestnut stuffing.

I am going to sit down next week and write a list of all things I like, can do without it being an unappreciated faff (like buy that nice garland and shove it on the mantel rather than try and make my own) and what I can do now, then get it all up early so i appreciate it and get it all down the day after Boxing Day and not think about it again for ages.

PS young kids do need a trip to see Santa!

...no, they really don't.

You aren’t wrong.

Poor elf and dog!

On the last year of the elf here, he just quite lazily brings Xmas themed snacks.

They really don’t. Mine never did. Still had “magical” Xmas’s.
Never did Elf on the ridiculous shelf either.
Xmas in our house is quite relaxed.

The dog was fine, she enjoyed elf destruction, my daughter was the upset one.

Yes I agree to be honest. Loads of stuff I see other women do is completely unnecessary imo. And if they didn't do it, no one would care and the men wouldn't take over because they mostly don't give a shit anyway.

I agree, but we'll both need to don our flameproof suits! We have a very pared down Christmas, partly by force of circumstance. My parents-in-law died before our children were born so early on we were spared the pressure to spend every Christmas travelling around the UK to see family. My parents sometimes came down to stay with us but mostly we stayed at home and saw them at other times. They lived 400 miles away on an island with an erratic ferry service in the depths of winter so it wasn't rocket science that visits in either direction were best kept to other times of the year, especially for us, as we needed to get back to work/school on time.

Christmas at home with just the four of us has always been extremely simple. We have a tree, but next to nothing in the way of other decorations. It goes up a few days before Christmas and comes down on Twelfth Night. Now that my parents are both gone, I have no presents to buy at all. We give our young(ish) adult children some money. They buy us token presents. We eat a lovely meal together. There is lots of seasonal food in the house to see us through the days following Chrirstmas. I stopped sending cards to most people ages ago as it seemed pretty pointless (and increasingly expensive).

It's really just a break from the normal routine at the darkest time of year when it's very welcome. I love it. I didn't love it as much years ago when I did succumb to the pressure to buy the children lots of stuff, do stockings, send lots of cards, etc etc. None of that is missed now.

We were always told those weren't the real Father Christmas, so we never visited one and that was fine.

They really don’t, if we took ours our four year old would likely make it her mission to make sure as many people as possible know that santa isn’t real.

It’s capitalism, selling images to women who have money.

I know this because none of the things on your list except the nativity costume for school even existed in my head when ds was little, 20 years ago. The stress was affording the Christmas we had plus work plus difficult family relationships. Which still all exist and are stressful. We are sold the idea that buying stuff will make the family relationship better, work less shit or life less boring.

Hosting Christmas has a 'cleaning your step' vibe. I'm very happy to do fuck all but it's other women (mil, DM) who start making comments about why we didn't provide home made whatever or why we didn't have chargers under our plates and why the plates are all from different sets. No one cares!

Not even sure what to do this year. DC don't like turkey so we might even just do pasta.

Nope. We never did that. Our kids seem to have grown up reasonably well-adjusted. We did take them to a pantomime. There was a decent one at a local theatre for a few years which was genuinely funny and didn't feature celebrities trying to act and sing. Thank god they were young long before the days of Elf on the shelf and Christmas Eve boxes. We didn't even have Advent calendars with chocolate, just an old-fashioned traditional one with pictures, like the ones I had as a child.

But it’s like, even the Santa stuff there are choices within it. We’re going to a Santa event with friends, it’s inexpensive, organised by a sports club we go to and so it will be short, straightforward and there will be tons of grown ups we know at it so it will be a relaxed laugh with a token gift.

Ive definitely fallen down the rabbit hole of sitting in a queue of thousands IN AUGUST to get an over priced ticket to some wonderland that one child in the end hated and was on a stormy night with a mad drive to and from.

I have to hold my hands up and say this was all me, DH was like ‘wtf?!’.

Luckily we do almost only do gifts for kids these days.

I agree up to a point.

If other people are going to express dissatisfaction then it is up to them to help.

However mission creep is easy: elf on shelf, polar breakfasts, christmas eve boxes, home cooked this that and the other, multiple dishes for Christmas dinnner, outside carols, light trails, ice skating, matchy matchy decorations etc etc.

The art is to pick a few things you value and do them, dump the rest.

Depends on your kids ages, your own expectations etc.

i don’t live in the uk, and where I live now didn’t make a big deal out of Xmas as they have another celebration a few weeks before. This used to upset me when the kids were young as I felt that it took the focus off Xmas. But now that they are teenagers, it actually frees me up. MIL can do all of the preparation crap for the other festival ( she once tried to suggest I host it but I pushed back on that very firmly, and SILs haven’t taken it on either).

now I do Xmas exactly how I want: tree, small presents under it, nice food that I like on the day, crackers, low key decoration . I do an advent calendar only for myself as kids not interested. I actually enjoy doing the ritual of it as it’s pared back to literally only the bits I like doing.

I agree though I have totally relaxed now mine are older. I don’t do a starter anymore. I found it spoiled my appetite for the dinner.

Elf on the shelf wasn’t a thing when mine were small. Thank the lord. We did do multiple santa trips though and dds always say how much they enjoyed Christmas.

My niece did elf on the shelf for her dd, until the hamster ate its leg. Hence, the wheelchair!

‘It’s capitalism, selling images to women who have money.‘

I think this is a really good point.

It happens to everything now. I just looked up (please forgive me in advance) autumn tables as I have friends coming round. On Instagram. Then I realised my madness, who of my friends would want to come and sit in between 1,000,000 pumpkins, candles, flowers, chargers, Extra Inexplicable Things, then feel pressure to do the same.

You’ll be glad to know I caught myself on, thought ‘75% of that is AI anyway’, will use existing candles, napkins etc and have a nice sociable relaxed time!.

I think we get pushed/ guilted into when the kids are little. Then for most of us them being teens and our perimenopause coincides and you can chill out and stop doing it.

Completely agree. I hate Christmas so I buy presents for people in my family and no one else’s, put some fairy lights up and chill the fuck out. No one is traumatised and my children are teenagers and don’t care either.

There's a point to be made about the division of labour around Christmas and the negative influence of social media, but I must say the tone of this feels quite nasty. Women prop up a lot of special occasions for their families in ways that their families, and especially children, really do value and remember. It is very unkind to suggest that nobody cares about what they're doing. I completely agree that some women could do less or outsource more, but actually, rather than getting rid of nice experiences or traditions, I suspect those women would feel much less stressed with just a bit of help and a thank you.

I love Christmas and have no problem with putting the effort into it, but I also pace myself and do what's important to me.

I happened to be off with surgery in August, so did most of my shopping then.

I like a good roast, but will also choose to pare back some parts of it. For the prime years of my son's childhood where he believes in FC, I'm going to buy in the M&S Christmas dinner and have done with it rather than spend all day cooking.

I think there's a balance to be struck between characteristic male indifference and female overdoing it. (Looking at MIL and her friends who buy gifts for every single grandchild each of them has - 8 between them! Plus every other new baby they know, like my sister's children. Plus cousins, cousin's children, etc etc etc)

I think some things are stressful anyway. Buying all the gifts, affording it all, making sure your family don't kill each other over the monopoly board, long visits from CF guests etc. I think those things are fairly standard for most people. I agree with you, most of all the rest of it is just not needed and the strive for it to be perfect is just too much. Social media has played a massive part. All this elf on the shelf, Christmas eve boxes, 1st of December breakfasts nonsense has come from there. People get bombarded with other people's alleged perfection and feel they're failing if they can't keep up. It's really sad