to be utterly bemused by British obsession with seasonal sleighbells, snow and sleds when we all know it is nowt but grey damp and dank at Christmas on this isle?

[moondog]

like

this!

moondog the Cassandra.

i'm glad it doesn't snow on xmas day. everybody would be housebound. better to be housebound on the 11th of january or whenever.

I love love love being sold the big lie of Christmas.. peace on earth, families all getting on enjoying eachothers companies, fat old man comes down chimney pays for everything.. hooray!! bring it on!!

I don't mind, in fact it's one aspect of christmasiness I quite like - after all snow generally is a feature of winter, or can be, and it's a winter festival. I'd rather a nice snowy xmas card than a christian one because I like to see xmas as what it always was, a plain old winter festival.

What I don't like is the image of family happiness and domestic perfection that gets pushed - that always makes me feel sad for anyone who won't have that, which is a lot of people.

As we're moving house I've been indulging in some of those Poncy Home & Garden/Perfect Home type mags and the Christmas joy they force down your throat is enough to make anyone bah humbug. It all must obviously have been shot in September or whatever but it's full of perfect families and expensive houses with mum saying "It's so cosy and full of laughter at this time of year". I always think, I bet it's not, you lying cow. I bet you loathe your MIL and your teen's unsuitable boyfriend and you'll probably burn the xmas dinner because you're so busy poncing about with your glitter-encrusted driftwood danglers.

Your post almost made me sob Orm - one of my most treasured childhood memories is of gathering holly and ivy for Christmas with my mum, and the landscape was always like that "Cold wet slightly misty woods and the smell of rotting leaves. The stillness and silence of winter fields"

Sorry bramshott .

But I have similar memories. We always used to decorate with ivy and holly too. Christmas seemed to start earlier when I were a lass.... and the preparations were part of it all. I did it in my own house for a few years but the CH did for it much quicker and sadly I found it more hassle than it's worth these days. I still put a few strands of ivy across the table (the small fine-leaved stuff that winds beautifully). We still have a few bits of holly and a real wreath for the door.

I like that kind of day too orm - especially if you can be in some woods. That wetness, greyness and chill like a Thomas Hardy poem. There is something exquisitely British about it right down to the fact that it's slightly anticlimactic

No don't worry Orm - in a good way I think. There's something very nostalgic about this time of year.

Ahh, we may not get white christmasses, but we can at least live in hope....

When I lived in Brazil, it tickled me every year that there were FC and snow scenes everywhere, when it's the height of their summer!

This reminds me of when dd was about 3... a few days after Christmas she asked "When is it going to be Christmas?". When we quizzed her as to why she thought she hadn't had Christmas yet (given that she had had lots of presents) she said it was because it hadn't snowed yet! Luckily it did snow quite a lot a day or two later!

My DS birthday is 11 days before Xmas, so last year when he was 3, he had his birthday, all went well.

he had christmas, again all went fine.

Couple of days after christmas, he pulled me to his room, sat down on the floor and said, do we open more presents now....

Ahh!

Thankfully this year, think he'll get it..

Ooh look, Neil Tweedie has quoted us in the Telegraph although I'm not sure exactly WTF his point is?!? I am quoted with your beautiful phrase I put in speechmarks though Orm - sorry !

I may sue!

And in the Torygraph too.

Journalist in lazy and innaccurate quoting shocker! Must be a first !

my ds has had 9 snow-free chrsitmases. yet every year he says something like'' i can't wait for it to be christmas and snowy''.
I say ''you do know it never actually snows at christmas, don't you dear''. he looks blank...and so on and so on...

it has snowed here on 23rd dec and on boxing day but never on the day

The Telegraph article was a mild piss-take of MN wasn't it - I found it amusing, especially the last bit about what Celia Johnson might have posted in 1940. Wonder if that would be another "debate" - what would mums have posted in the 1940s/50s etc

I have known a few snowy xmases since I've had DCs but strangely can't remember a single white xmas from my own childhood.

Actually i should put that point on the global warming threads

Ou sont les neiges d'antan ?

Have read the Tweedie article - had small snigger at the image of Mrs Tweedie being she of Chicken Run fame - but was horrified by crappy condescending tone and bollocks reporting. Am off to find thread on it now...

Neil Tweedie, for example, is an enormous twat

The best Christmas is home in South Africa where we will have a cold meat and salads and ice cream and water melon and go to the beach in the SUN SUN SUN!!

Just need to get over my fear of flying before the 8th December then I'm good to go... I think.

A treasured memory:

Black January night with snow falling somewhere in the UK. Picture the little face of an Australian friend seeing her first ever snow in her late 20s - she was so thrilled!

ROFL at the article! (I was quoted too - preen) That he thinks because we're posting on MN, we can't be at work or otherwise occupied - the numpty. Neil dear, we're posting while at work - and also while looking after children! Tis called multitasking, or having a break He couldn't be more wrong about the mumsnet demographic - I think working parents are very well represented, and not just from middle-class professions.

It is a funny piece though.

Yes I rofled at the 'mums of tiny babies' thing. Yeah right...