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

Not sure this is right I've been to some very elaborate gay weddings.

Omg. That's mental. Yes, people bring it on themselves. Best not to look at social media and compare....
Dial it down to a level you can cope with....so that you can actually enjoy some of it.
I'm as guilty as anyone for putting pressure on myself....!

And who is buying the products being pushed to us....?

As ever it's your money or your time- I don't think you will find many people who host lots of people at christmas and agree with you it isn't hard work.

I voted yabu because this isn’t my experience at all.

I’m a woman and I don’t do all of these things and I also don’t complain about Christmas being stressful.

Our Christmas is probably a bit of a 90s Christmas.I don’t do Elf on the Shelf or Christmas Eve boxes.

We put our beautiful tree up on 1st December which we’ve had for years, dh gets it down from the loft and the dc decorate it.

We used to take the dc to see Santa at the garden centre but they are too old now. We sometimes go to the Christmas market or we have a walk round our area to look at the Christmas lights.

Dh and I buy the kids presents together. They have a main present which is something really special and then some smaller cheaper things to open.

Dh and I wrap it all together listening to Christmas music and we tend to bash it all out on a Saturday in December.

Xmas Eve we get a takeaway and Christmas dinner is just a roast cooked at home.

It’s not stressful, it’s a bit of extra work buying and wrapping presents.To be honest it’s only ever on here I read about people complaining and stressing, most people I know irl love Christmas. It’s a really special time.

Not really the point of the thread, but making stuffing is really easy. I use Delia Smith's pork, sage and onion stuffing recipe. Mix together sausagemeat, dried sage, finely chopped onion, breadcrumbs (slice of bread blitzed in my food processor), a little salt and pepper, and some hot water to loosen it. I think she says you could add a beaten egg if you want it firmer. I don't bother. It won't be much different from buying ready-made, to be honest, but cooking is something I really enjoy so I'm happy to make virtually everything from scratch.

Bread sauce - Delia again. I only made it for the first time a few years ago out of curiosity, as I didn't grow up with it. It turns out that my daughter and I absolutely love it so now it's a fixture. Not difficult at all. Never had ready-made so don't know how it compares.

I agree a lot is unnecessary and there can be a tendency towards martyrdom (or rather a narrative that gets pushed that that’s just what good mums do).

It’s not always so black and white though. I have an older relative who lives abroad and would be on her own at Christmas if she didn’t come and stay. I love her, owe her a lot and DD adores having her here, plus I’d never let her be on her own if I could help it. But it’s also stressful - another person in the house who likes to stay up late when we’re very much an early to bed family as DD gets up at the crack of dawn regardless. Her hearing isn’t great so she needs the tv/ radio etc on really loud when we have it on, and she can be irritating in the same way anyone can, no matter how much you love them!

In laws are also lovely people but have their difficult ways. We usually host them (maybe not this year but they’ve not yet confirmed their plans). I no longer have my parents, I care about my in laws and want them to have a nice Christmas, I want DD to grow up with memories of her grandparents around at Christmas. But hosting 3 elderly people with different dietary demands and being rather set in their ways can be hard work. I’m not going to stop doing it though and I don’t think that makes me a martyr, just part of being a family.

I don’t find the days out and visits particularly stressful. Some things do require booking early but I don’t find that difficult it’s just clicking a few buttons online. Yes it’s generally me organising but i only do the things I know we will all (including me) enjoy and I have dialled it down; there was a post-Covid time when DD was very young that I gave in to the pressure to book and do something every weekend and worried about the things we couldn’t fit in but I learned my lesson fairly quickly.

I find getting the tree up, getting everywhere decorated and looking pretty stressful too but worth it because I enjoy how nice it looks afterwards! I do like to decorate early December, I’m not someone who gets sick of it by Boxing Day and like to leave enough time to enjoy them.

I’ve previously quite enjoyed doing a lot of the cooking from scratch, for whatever reason I’ve already been thinking this year I might get more ready made, cut down some of the time I spend on Christmas Eve prepping and do more movie watching/ baileys drinking.

I blame the evil "Commercialisation of Christmas" more than the women.

I grew up with the Oxo family adverts, everything looking perfect etc... We've moved on from the ads with Mother wearing a pinny in the kitchen but now it's all colour co-ordinated decs and influencers promoting perfection on TikTok. All to make money with the added bonus of making you feel less than if your tree isn't a Balsam Hill.

That coupled with the age-old "Mmm... this turkey's a bit dry" comments from the relatives that you only cook for once a year and the tears from little Timmy when you haven't managed to get the must have toy of the year (that he only added to his list at teatime on Christmas Eve) and you end up running around in circles to get everything right because you have this burning desire to have the "best Christmas ever" because it might just be the last one before the youngest stops believing or Great Aunt Maude pops her clogs (She'll live another 20 years, don't worry, but she'll have you believing that it "might be her last").

Pressure comes from all sides in reality, and if you lean into it too much all that happens is that you end up really strung out and drained while everyone else has a good time.

Oh, and did you know that whatsherface down the road does Christmas Eve boxes? That's a nice idea isn't it... you can get personalised ones on Etsy ;)

I think we are fairly balanced. We usually have Christmas by ourselves. We don't have kids. I arrange most of the presents, he does all the food, we decorate together.

I saw a sign up at the local pub ‘ breakfast with Santa’
🙄

If you have kids and wider family, Christmas is always some work. In lots of jobs you are busier in the run up to Christmas, and then have to buy kids presents, put up a tree and buy and make Christmas dinner. I do think this is the essentials.

Thanks for reminding me though as I have put all the Christmas events in the calendar now. Most are very low key free events run by the local church or council. So lights switch on, carol concert, Christmas tree festival.

But have also booked light trail which is so amazing I would go alone, Muppet Xmas movie, and had already booked the nutcracker.

But I love all these things and feel like a little kid again. The key is to avoid all the overpriced Christmas markets, historic houses dressed for Xmas, etc. Been on them in the past and they are always a slight disappointment.

I don't understand having a colour theme for your christmas tree decorations, and then deciding you want a different theme so replacing them all in a different colour. What a waste of money.

I have never booked for Father Christmas they saw one at pre school and school. Never did elf on the shelf, Christmas eve boxes or expensive trips out just drive around looking at Christmas lights. No north pole breakfast. What is sorting of parties.
NO one has to do any of this so shouldn't complain about it if the do it.
I also don't get matching Christmas pj's every year. People must have more money than sence.

Also, some women might love doing al that stuff. My mil used to go all out on Christmas dinner, she enjoys cooking, I don’t.

But I enjoy buying my dc presents, I enjoy going to a Christmas market.

Its also not fair to blame women for useless men. Women don’t have to go OTT on a magical perfect Christmas but I’d expect some effort from my husband. I’d expect him to make sure we had a tree, presents, a Christmas dinner and put a mince pie out for Santa.

I mean you could question why we bother with Christmas at all but it’s what we do isn’t it. I wouldn’t want my dc to miss out.

Thanks. I really cba, but thanks.

What really annoys me is when women say Xmas is so stressful because they have to think about, buy and wrap all of the presents, they have to think about, buy and cook the Xmas dinner, they have to plan what time to get up, where everyone is going to sit, what everyone likes to drink etc etc

And I assume they’re a single parent - the whole time there’s a DH who just sits there or at the most cooks or cleans up.

I love having a Christmas tree, although I get a smaller real one than I used to, so it makes it easier. But have never given in to themed baubles or decorations. It's the same old ones every year.
You need to choose what's important to you.

I agree to an extent. I did a lot of the stuff on the list , but that’s because I also enjoyed them/wanted to do them. Stuff I didn’t, it didn’t happen. If DH cared enough about it, he could make it happen. He never did. No one died.

We do have a “small” Christmas though for various reasons including choice, just the 3 of us. It does bug me when people say that’s a bit sad, or they aww, or ask a dozen questions as to why no family over. The same people who spend a whole month bitching, moaning, complaining and stressing about having to see their families.

@VioletsTale Christmas is about your most loved ones being there. You have that.

Same here, we spend the day just the four of us.

I’ve even been called selfish. I decided quite a few years ago that I just couldn’t be arsed driving round dragging the dc out and they couldn’t play with their presents, then dh and I couldn’t have a drink.

Which is fine! There's an awful lot I CBA to do either.

I completely agree op. We sometimes do it without thinking - I have a senior role, only woman in the management team. One of the blokes is leaving next week and I found myself thinking should I arrange a card/collection, years ago I would have done but I soon had a word with myself.

I’ve never been keen on any of it and been called a Scrooge or the grinch . I prefer the days between Christmas and new year!

Absolutely this.

I could leave it all to DH but it would be very much a cobbled together affair that is 80% good enough on December 20th.

The tree would be shoved up, baubles stuck on wherever and Christmas decorations shoved haphazardly around the room wherever they land.

There would probably be a Santa visit - on Christmas eve probably - at some shopping centre that costs £22 for the privilege.

Christmas food shop would be done 1 hour before closing on Xmas eve, half the stuff would be missing and DH would go eh, close enough. We have some of it.

Presents would be wrapped at midnight on Christmas eve - probably half in birthday paper because he would not think to buy Christmas paper and he would declare presents wrapped.

I would hate the whole thing, just to make a point.

I personally love Christmas. I have young DC and enjoy the magic of it all.

I get early bird Christmas light trail, early bird Santa visit - I usually pick somewhere that is a day out and if possible with plenty of undercover shelter. Sometimes I combine the two, so light trail and Santa visit. That is all for Xmas fancy days out.

I like to decorate the tree with my little ones and take our time doing it the first weekend of december. I have a family tree and that we all decorate together and then I do the one in the hallway more my taste.

I like making Xmas baking with my DC. I enjoy looking at and sampling the Xmas food in the run up to Xmas. I enjoy buying gifts and mooching around looking for gifts BY MYSELF without the running moaning commentary from DH.

I buy what I want and what I like. If I see nice decks I like, I buy them DH does not care either way. Same with food.

When the DC are older we will probably not do all the booking visiting Santa stuff but we will probably still enjoy the cosy getting ready for Xmas.

I agree. I have always spent Christmas day with just me DH and kids and when they move out I will not expect them to come for Christmas like some parents do and get upset if they don't want to come.