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Does anyone else not have a huge family to celebrate Christmas with .

135 replies

hattie43 · 17/08/2023 10:02

I'm starting to see more and more
' chatter ' about Christmas events and planning the day in the media and online and it all assumes everyone has a huge family and lots of people coming around .
Does anyone else feel a pang of regret about having small / no family left or a twinge of envy of those with lots of big busy family Christmases .
This year it seems I'll only have one elderly relative left on the day and it seems tragic and not sure what we can do to have a nice day . I have a lot of events with friends during the month but they all have extended family and I'll be left with one elderly parent .
Maybe I'm being ungrateful and there will those who will be totally alone on the day and I wondered what they do . Perhaps they treat it like any other day .
I am not enjoying seeing the decline in family as I have no children and the oldies are dying off .

OP posts:
ForfarBridie · 10/11/2023 05:59

VeridicalVagabond · 17/08/2023 11:57

If anyone would like to come and spend Christmas with a big family to put you off the idea forever, let me know and I'll invite you!

This year it's to be:
Grandma, grandpa, great aunt and uncle.
My mam and her five siblings. Dad and his three siblings.
16 cousins from mum's side and 8 from dad's (not including me and my siblings)
Me and my six siblings.
My one daughter, 12 neices/nephews.
Husband
Mil, Fil
Husband's brother and sister and their partners and four children between them.
13 dogs.
Possibly a donkey.

Wish me luck! There's a lot to be said for small, quiet Christmases, planning for ours often has to start in July!

That’s my idea of a fabulous Christmas Day.

I love it. But we also have Eid’s like this so big numbers are something we do a lot of. It also helps that the house is built for it.

Justleaveitblankthen · 10/11/2023 06:49

I think it's much more common than you think.
Here in my small northern town the conversation about Xmas goes:
"Did you have a good Xmas?"
"Yes thanks. Quiet"
"Same here"
It's code for just me/the two of us & the dog"

I think it's perfection 🥰

AuntieMarys · 10/11/2023 07:07

I had about 8 Xmases alone when I was in my 20s...I was a retail manager so got one day off. I lived 250 miles away from family and though I was invited to friends, I was perfectly happy on my own.
I still ( in my 60s) have very untraditional Xmases.. I've never hosted, never visit other family and I love it. My brother has a massive family of inlaws and hates having 20 people for Xmas dinner

TodayInahurry · 10/11/2023 07:24

No, I dislike Xmas and have few relations. OH and dog and I will just have a lobster for lunch and watch things we have recorded, avoiding all the Xmas stuff. As said above, most people on here moan about relations at Xmas, not a lot of joy, just stress!

betterangels · 21/11/2023 10:25

VeridicalVagabond · 26/08/2023 10:04

More actually, I missed the aunts and uncles partners. It's been in excess of 100 some years with friends being brought along, boyfriends and girlfriends, stragglers and strays.

Like I said, huge family, huge family Christmas. It's the only time both sides all get together.

I can't imagine that. Wow. Good luck? :)

Seriously though, have a great Christmas!

Hbh17 · 21/11/2023 11:34

No, I don't, and I'm delighted! Just one other person, or completely solo, is absolutely fine for me.
Just wait for all the threads on here about people's awful families 🤣

Ihadenough22 · 21/11/2023 13:32

The Christmas adds show a large family and a table full of food. I know some people want and love a big crowd in their house on Christmas day. For other people this would be torture.
I know couple and they invited one set of parents and siblings over one Christmas for dinner and this became a new family thing. Even when the wife in the couple was heavily pregnant with small children they still had the crowd.
The crowd then started including partners and children of siblings after a few years.
This crowd would arrive with perhaps a box of sweets between the lot of them, sit down and do nothing to help out or clean up. One year one of guests arrived after already having a few drinks and then proceed to drink even more. They made a right idiot of themselves.
After this the husband of the couple told his wife they were not doing the big Christmas dinner again because he had enough.

One of my friends talked her mother out of hosing Xmas dinner for a married sister, he husband and children. She knew she be left doing most of the cooking and cleaning up. The kids would be hyper after santy visit and eating selection box's. Then after they left her mother would be complaining about the kids, the noise and the amount of money the daughter spent on Christmas presents for the kids. My friend has spent years dealing with her mother who is now getting on age wise. She is already sorting out and doing things for her. She told me I want to relax and enjoy Christmas day and one of my siblings can invite us and deal with the dinner.

Fannyfiggs · 23/11/2023 12:44

Just Dcat, DP and me on Christmas day and it's fucking marvelous 😁

I do have invites from family but Christmas day is for overeating and chilling and I prefer to lie on my own couch with jogging bottoms on, farting and belching til my heart's content 😂

Goodornot · 24/11/2023 11:28

Yes I just had one elderly parent for years to spend it with.

Now this is likely to be her last. So not sure beyond this.

louderthan · 24/11/2023 11:35

My family is me and my mum. That's it. No aunts, uncles or cousins, no grandparents left, nothing.
My dad died when I was a child and Christmas had been very hard ever since. Have to hide the Christmas topic on here.

Whattodo112222 · 24/11/2023 11:47

This reply has been withdrawn

This message has been withdrawn at the poster's request

Goodornot · 24/11/2023 11:49

This reply has been deleted

This message has been withdrawn at the poster's request

Your daughter?!

This is the childfree board. I.e. no children so how do you spend it

Whattodo112222 · 24/11/2023 11:59

Oh sorry, I didn't clock it was a child free board.

girlfriend44 · 24/11/2023 14:45

No family here. Not into Christmas really anyway.
Prefer New Year and Spring and Summer and Birthdays.

PauliesWalnuts · 24/11/2023 15:20

Actually, @louderthan - hiding the Christmas boards is a really good idea - thank you! I also have no relatives, and it’s shit, so I sympathise.

TheCatfordCat · 24/11/2023 15:29

This year FiL died & his wife moved away very swiftly after the funeral. We used to go to their house every year. Now ExH and I have separated but still live under the same roof, keeping things civil for our DD's sake, so it will just be the 3 of us. I suppose we will do a really simple thing, presents, dinner, a walk & then a board game.

Next year, after the divorce is finalised, I plan to spend Christmas abroad. I've lost interest in Christmas entirely and I only did it to keep other people happy.

PeachBlossom1234 · 26/11/2023 08:34

Its tough, I tend to work as much as I can

XelaM · 26/11/2023 08:43

Lottapianos · 17/08/2023 10:54

'Try some different things and creste a traditional for yourself'

I think this is really good advice. Try to make Christmas something you can enjoy as much as possible, on your own terms. DP and I have been together for a long time and I've started a tradition of making beef chilli on Christmas Eve, with guac and rice and salsa and a good bottle of red. We both really love chilli and it's got naff all to do with Christmas, which is something else I love about it!

We don't do presents either. We're both Winter babies, so make a big deal out of each others birthdays instead

Define Christmas for yourself, as much as you can. Take the bits you want, ditch the bits you don't!

Hah, we love chilli too and my daughter always asks for it as a Christmas meal 🥘 so my mum usually makes it for everyone instead of a traditional Christmas meal.

Sillysoppysentimental · 26/11/2023 08:53

I used to love Christmas much more as a child with my 5 sisters and parents... then when my daughters were kids..
I do enjoy Christmas day with my daughter and Grandson . It's nice and relaxed.. we play tye new board games.. enjoy our dinner etc.. then l have buffet boxing day with other daughter and Grandsons all teenagers..but l love the build up to Christmas... going to Christmas markets and fairs.. seeing all the lights etc.. the shops full of Christmasy delights.. going out for meals.. all with either family or friends.

Thisbastardcomputer · 26/11/2023 08:58

I've got my son and his sons coming this year, this is unusual, often it's just the two of us, we are both quite happy with that.

GoingToBeLessRubbishAtLife · 26/11/2023 09:35

What’s the point of having a childfree board if lots of posts are from people talking about what their children are doing at Christmas?

🤔🤷‍♀️

MrsDanversGlidesAgain · 26/11/2023 09:47

GoingToBeLessRubbishAtLife · 26/11/2023 09:35

What’s the point of having a childfree board if lots of posts are from people talking about what their children are doing at Christmas?

🤔🤷‍♀️

Cue chorus of 'but it comes up in Active!! why can't I post?? I'll post if I want!'

Allergictoironing · 26/11/2023 10:07

We used to generally have smallish but very traditional Christmases when I was younger. sometimes just the 4-5 of us (DBro is 10 years younger than me, so big gap). They would follow a schedule that never changed and had been developed over the years to suit us perfectly. XMas eve the prepping of the dinner for the next day, mandatory Reading Of Dicken's Christmas Carol By Father, followed by TV. Midnight Mass for mother after we'd gone to bed, then when she came in they would do the stockings and the presents put under the tree as a surprise for the morning.

Mornings would be stockings, then visiting some of Dad's relatives while Mother cooked dinner, late (post Queen's Speech) dinner THEN pressies. Some years my DGM & the single uncle who lived with her would come, one year we had an American uncle & his son staying, a few times friends of mine with family issues would stay. House was always well decorated with a large tree in the hallway, real holly etc. We would have run-up events every year but these tended to be watching Holiday Inn and going into London to see the lights & shop/have lunch at F&M, and maybe a church pre-Christmas Fete. When Mother died, we carried on all the same traditions partly in her memory, partly because we really enjoyed doing Christmas that way. Only real difference was that I would do the stockings & putting the presents under the tree, and the cooking. We even had a traditional list of the kind of things to go into the stockings!

Roll on a few years, and I live with the cats. DBro goers to his MiL in the West Country for their family Christmas, & DSis either goes to Scotland to see 2 of her sons, goes to another (married with kids) son, or stays in with the 4th son, so there's just me on my own with the cats. TV, Mumsnet, gaming on the PC, eating party food when the mood strikes me. Then Boxing Day DSis comes round with nephew no. 4 and we watch films & eat more party food. Cats get treat food like Tuna Loin & cat soup instead of their regular food, not that they know why the day is different.

Minimal decorations here mainly due to Cats - maybe a couple of battery operated table trees, some window clings and lights, and a wreath on the door. There's a ginormous cat tree where I used to put the Christmas tree before Cats, and I know they would wreck any big tree I put up!

One of the big plus points is no expectations or demands from anyone else, I can do what IO want when I want. If I want to eat at 10am or 6pm there's nobody else to fit around, if I want chocolate for breakfast there's no comments or tut-tutting, no arguments about what to watch on TV or demands to be social when I want to kill monsters.

Another big plus is the cost, or lack of cost. Decorations I mostly have everything I need, though I may get a couple of things I fancy for about £10. Quite a few years ago when I had shed loads of money coming in & DSis had 3 boys still living with her, I catered the meal from M&S to cook over there and I think it cost around £100 for just that main meal, and that must have been 12-13 years ago. Now I spend a total of around £50 extra on indulgent party food from various supermarkets for the entire period.

chattyness · 26/11/2023 11:05

We love a quiet Christmas, I did about 5 on my own in my twenties before I met my husband and I loved it, I used to tell anyone who invited me for Christmas that I was going somewhere else so they wouldn't start a pity party & they'd leave me alone. I ate and drank what I wanted, watched the TV I wanted, went to bed when I felt like it, it was so peaceful & enjoyable.
Now it's me, my husband and the dog . I put a Christmas tree up and we have a nice dinner on the day, go for quiet walk, eat lots of snacky treats and the only presents under the tree are for the dog. All very relaxed & happy, no pressure, not expensive, nobody to please but us,we love it.

GoingToBeLessRubbishAtLife · 26/11/2023 11:26

@chattyness Both versions of your Christmas days sound lovely.