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

Don't do it then. I don't do half of that stuff because I can't be arsed. They don't need it. The elf has never visited our house.
We have lovely christmasses. Instagram has a lot to answer for.

This.

Instagram has a lot to answer for.

this.

comparison is the thief of joy and all that.

See I think this is lovely and would always do this if I was in a senior position at work.

Surely, you do it if you enjoy it and not if you don’t?? Nothing to do with genders. We like Christmas lights - we do Christmas lights, Kids like seeing Santa - we book Santa, it’s lovely to see their eyes light up on a carousel so if we can fit it we go to the Christmas market (and because I forever live in the vein hope one time I won’t be overwhelmed by the chaos of it and actually buy something too), travelling 8h and booking cat sitter with premium to see family is my and my husband’s idea of hell so we don’t do it, but we do like a roast for Christmas so we do that and buy a pile of party food for 26th December…we choose to spend our energy and resources on things we find enjoyable and fun. My older one hated crafts - we’ve barely done any, my younger one loves them so we probably will have house decorated in hand made stuff (and I only decorated on theme when I was teenager with clearly way too much time on my hands and not spending my own money). Would it be ok without all the commercial stuff? Sure, but it would be a bit less fun and a lot more work to keep the kids entertained (and noone is getting chocolate for breakfast in this house no matter what date it is).

It's as stressful as people choose to make it.

Christmas has been so much better since we've stopped alternating with family and just do it at home.

OH does all the shopping, prepping and cooking for dinner. I pretty much organise all of DDs presents with his input and we wrap them together on Xmas eve while watching a film together.

Never had the elves and we do a Xmas eve box for DD with PJs and a few other bits (some reused every year).

Tree goes up at some point in December and DD decorates it while Christmas music is playing.

That's pretty much the extent of it all with some Xmas baking or crafts with DD thrown in at some point.

Thank you. I am so glad this didn’t exist when my DC was young! Hard work and hyper kids.

I love cooking so I do make everything from scratch, including 72 mince pies one year, but I had to keep on testing them! DH loves Christmas so he decorates the house and shopping is a joint effort. I feel so sorry for mums nowadays with all the pressure on them to produce an instagrammable Christmas. For children who come from impoverished families must have the worst few days returning to school where their classmates are talking about what they were bought. But you are right OP, women bring a lot if this into themselves. Each year the angst about Christmas begins earlier on MN and we all start panicking about avoiding relatives invitations, avoiding Secret Santa or whether we should stop buying presents for the next door neighbours cat! Well maybe not the last one.

Totally agree.

Every year though ?? I’m in my 50s & still have a nice memory of a lovely trip to see SC in a bug dept store. ‘Fake’ Santas put in an appearance at school parties in P1. That was the norm then. My DC ( born early 2000s) had a few visits, nice memories. From what I've seen in recent years it’s an annual event involving more & more complicated & expensive requirements. Must be real reindeer, sledge rides to a cabin in the woods etc. Loads more people going to Lapland etc. It’s a lot & fuelled by SM.

That poster said 'we all want that' 😆 no we do not. Quite the opposite.

I do think there's a lot of pressure these days, probably secondary to the amount that is posted on SM, the adverts and so on...and expectations of others. But it's how you deal with it, and how much you buy into.

My parents are long gone now, but they always had a house full of people at Christmas (big family, but they would invite friends too), house beautifully decorated, large real tree, endless amounts of food (we're from the ME so we like to feed the world!) etc. I caveat that though with the facts that: they had a huge house, Mum didn't work outside of the house, they could easily afford to host and feed many people (over many days), and everyone mucked in and helped. They could host 20+ people (due to size of house) - thinking back on it as an adult now, that was nuts! We had stockings as kids, went to Church for Mass and then nice meal at home, and watch the Queen's speech at 3pm. Stocking presents opened first thing, and tree presents opened after Xmas meal. We'd see St Nicholas on December 6th and maybe visit Santa (but that was when we were tiny). Stocking presents were from Santa, Tree presents were from real people. We wrote thank you letters on Boxing Day.

Would I like to be able to do that? Of course, but I can't. I'm a single mum on a nurse's wage, my house is TINY. I won't see people be alone at Christmas, but I can't host the huge numbers of people that my parents did. I can cook well (thanks Mum!), but I don't have the time/inclination to bust my ass cooking ALL THE THINGS from scratch when I'm doing 13hr shifts on the ward, and parenting two kids etc.

For my kids: I've never done Elf on a Shelf, Xmas Eve Boxes, Breakfast With Santa (that's a new one), "Lapland" visits etc. I took them to see Santa when they were tiny. Our tree is a little fibre optic one and we rehang some old family decs on it. I don't do the full whack with decorations as we don't have the space (and the cats would annihilate them!). Tree goes up just before Xmas and down just after. I kept stocking presents (simple stuff) from Santa and tree presents from me/family.

We don't do a roast turkey dinner (our preference and also lack of space!). We do a roast chicken, and I buy in the trimmings for it. No starters, no canapés. We buy in some mince pies, cheeses and crackers. We don't drink much, so tend to go for non alcoholic versions of things. Adults in our family do a family secret santa for presents: max budget is £30 - £50 (we jointly decide the budget) we do a wishlist each and an online Secret Santa thing will email the names to each of us. It's all v simple but lovely really....and a lot less pressure financially and timewise :D

For present wrapping, I just re-use Amazon gift bags. We keep them and I just stick a new sticky label on the gift tag. They work a treat and save so much time!

I can't find that "this" post from me?

Chances are if your kids are young enough to believe in Father Christmas then their school will have some kind of Christmas event where he will attend.

No need for expensive trips to visit one.

But who decided to host all those people for 3 days?

Under no other circumstances would you encourage your child to sit on a stranger’s lap, plus queuing with children, especially during busy Christmas times, is just awful - I think children do just fine not seeing Father Christmas. We go away every year for some winter sun. It is lovely not to have to think about all the logistics, when is your Waitrose pick up slot, can you do M&S pick up at the same time? Did I order the right weight turkey…
we do some bits during December, decorate, bake some cookies etc. but for me it is about time together during cosy winter nights, and as far away from hordes of people - would never spend money on a Winterwonderland, I take my children to performances during the year… why does it all have to be squished into December?
my children still have a jolly good Christmas

I’ve never got all the stress.

We stick up a Christmas tree and some decorations, order some presents off Amazon a couple of weeks before, dh buys the ingredients for a roast and we have the in-laws round. 3 children, 24 years. Never a moment of stress. It’s just a few decorations, presents and a roast dinner (and a cooked breakfast!)

When the kids are young we’ll go and see Santa at a church event in the run up.

However, I do know people who run themselves ragged. I’ve got one friend who’s already so stressed, already Christmas shopping, planning, saying there’s not enough time to fit it all in. I don’t know what she does! I’ve asked but she keeps saying, “oh you know all the stuff you have to do!” Um, nooooo! I don’t!

I know we’re all different, but it’s one bloody day.

My MIL died just before last Christmas and so this is the first Christmas we won't be hosting for about 10 years (admittedly over Covid we only had my brother staying since he lived alone so could come to us). We hosted DH's family because if we didn't they would all go to MIL's house and would expect her to do all the work and so I hosted because it was getting too much and too expensive for her to do. But we don't live close to each other so hosting Christmas for them involved having 12 people in our house for a week and apart from MIL they are terrible guests who complain about everything. I'd love to know how to do that without it being a lot of work for me and DH (I don't have a useless husband). I don't do loads of days out or Elf on the Shelf or Christmas Eve boxes or any of the more modern crap. We still had 101 choir concerts / pantos / christmas parties associated with various clubs for our 3DC and that's a big issue, half the social events of the year are crammed into one month that also is very busy with work and has more stuff to do at home as well with trees and decorations and presents to get.

So what might be a fun busy month for young people or those with no responsibilities becomes horrendous for those of us who are busy all year round with lots of responsibilities. To add to that women have the gendered issue of a) being the one who is socially expected to be responsible for it all and are judged more harshly if they don't do this stuff and b) many women are married to men who don't do their fair share of parenting or planning or running the house. So lets not pretend it's individual middle aged women's fault they are run ragged making Christmas magical for children and men and old people. They are the ones who would be blamed if a child has no presents in their stocking or there was no roast dinner or booze or decorations. They don't have as much choice as you are suggesting.

If you have elderly parents you love and siblings you love who would otherwise be alone, then you do feel obliged to host.

That obliged will form a lot of the stress. Particularly if you also feel you have to “perform” and meet random expectations.

Based on the responses you have had to this thread OP, you are wrong because very few people here actually get stressed at all due to the small, stress free magical Christmases they all have.

Every year we have thread upon thread of people criticising those who do Christmas differently - god forbid if they want to do. Christmas Eve box or Elf on the Shelf. What does it actually matter to you, if your next door neighbour is stressed about it? Just carry on doing you. There’s always a reason to bring women down isn’t there, and actually from this thread, it seems that the women who do ‘too much’ are in the minority.

So?
We're talking about generally. If a man was in charge of a wedding, GENERALLY, it would be a basic service down the registry office and probably a pint to celebrate after.

It wouldn't be engagement parties, multiple hen dos, fancy flowers, horse drawn carriages, chair decorations, centerpieces, expensive meals, big parties, posed photos, country manors rented it, worrying about seating arrangements worrying about whether to invite the cousins you never see, etc

A few people who choose to embrace it all isn't proof I'm wrong... :/

And it's fact that lots of people DO find it stressful,in terms of costs, organising, family dynamics etc.

No they really really don't!

No. WOMEN feel obliged to host.

It’s a self selecting thread isn’t it? Plus , considering there are millions of users on MN , the sample is ridiculously small.

Some of the people have also said they do x,y,z but they don’t find it stressful because they enjoy it. I did the elf, I did and still do pantos(it’s a bit of a tradition now that we go for my birthday), Santa at the farm , buying presents and what not. There’s no stress because I wanted to and I enjoy it. We don’t host or go anywhere on the day though, I don’t do xmas cards , xmas dinner is just a roast(and DH cooks it most of the time) , there’s no themed decorations or whatever and so on.

Only thing that I do and I don’t want to is wrapping presents. I’m slowly moving to gift bags instead.