PLEASE TELL ME HONESTLY...

[NanaNina]

Now that the Christmas ads have started appearing on TV I am finding myself wondering the same thing as I do every year. Are there real families who sit in a perfectly cosy, tidy large room with a lovely Christmas tree in the corner, with a couple smiling happily at each other (maybe Christmas eve) and the snow falling softly outside......And the one on Christmas morning with 2 sweet kids in fluffy dressing gowns who are enraptured by their presents and a smiling mum and dad. Later the turkey is carried to the table by a woman with beautiful hair, lovely make up and dress, (no sign of being hot and harrassed by cooking the Christmas dinner) to the grateful cries of the rest of the family. DO they exist?? If you are one of them Please Tell Me. Thanks

If there are people like that out there I don't want to know about it. I think christmas is a success if it takes place in a passably clean house with no major arguments, dinner served before anyone dies of hunger, everyone likes at least one gift.

I am exactly like that.

But drunk.

Yes. That's exactly what it's like in this house. My hair gleams on Christmas morning, the kids are always impeccably behaved, the Christmas dinner more or less cooks itself, everyone thanks me profusely and there is never any mess. The toys all work and no-one ever scraps over the TV/X-Box. And it always snows.

I've found that if you drink enough gin that's how it seems, anyway.

Hassled . Can i come to your house for xmas lunch? , mines like a madhouse

fraid i have the very uncharitable message running through my head during such ads..
"fuck the fuck off knobends" to the entire family gathering..especially the grinning granny with the paper party hat on their head..

im not nice me...

Nah, and if there are any like that I imagine it to be a bit contrived and fake.

Xmas morning our house looks like it's been ransacked - kids throw paper everywhere, open sweets at 7am so they're bouncing off the walls by 8am. Coping with chaos made easier with a champagne brekkie for DH and I ;) and we'll eat when dinner's ready. No need to be a schedule or a perfectly cooked turkey. Sometimes we dress for dinner, it's been known for us still to be in our PJ's. Who cares, just enjoy the day together.

We spend Xmas day just the four of us and we have no family in this area so we don't need to cook for anyone else or worry about the place being acceptable to greet visitors.

Don't believe in the whole "perfect Christmas" day thing ... it's too manufactured. Yes, we treat it as a special day with decorations, sweets allowed at breakfast time and pressies but we're still just us :) What's the point in pretending to be what we're not ?

Mine's like that now because the DC are 15 & 16, and don't get up at the crack of dawn any more. We are perfect family for about an hour, with a tidy room, lovely tree and glass of champagne. Then my friends come round with their small children, and it descends into chaos. Which is far more exciting and Christmassy.

My family look like that to outsiders, but that is down to military timing, three sisters (mum and her sisters) who take shifts over the cooking and lots of gin while the rest of us occupy children, tidy up, eat sweets and drink champagne.

Loved your post gigglepin and yes the grinning granny with the paper hat on her head, and sometimes a cheery looking grand-dad playing with his grandson. Aldi has done one for 2 years, where the happy dad is carving the 3 bird thing they advertise and seemingly plating up one dinner, and a little girl about 8 looks ecstatic at the plate of dinner and rushes off shouting excitedly "dinners ready" like it's the first dinner she's ever seen.

Ahh NanaNina I think the Adli dad is TV chef Phil Vickery.

Imagine how smiley and un-harrassed Christmas would be if we all had our own in-house chef [chef]

[for [chef] read tsk.

Oh Yes SIL has a perfect Christmas like that.

Her dcs, (well grand dcs now after her own perfect children had babies by 16 and 18) have perfect behaviour all day long, while never getting a smudge of chocolate on their designer clothes. Dh cooks lunch which is always perfect because he cooked it in his Jamie Oliver pans. Toys are all tidied away to make sure cousins are bored stiff when they visit. Expensive gifts are strategically placed in order to show off entice conversation. If a decoration is knocked slightly, it is quickly fixed back to its perfect position.

Honestly, Im surprised we are not asked to come dressed in colour coordinated clothes to the Christmas tree. :o

Oh yes our Christmas is just like that. We dress in our best and leave the clutter of pour house behind and go to my parents. The tree is beautiful, the sitting room is tidy and elegantly decorated. Trays of nibbles and drinks are waiting for us. And the wonderful smell of Christmas dinner wafts out of the kitchen. Some years the sitting room stays tidy and elegant for at least 10 minutes after we arrive, but most years not that long :o The dinner is always lovely although by then the kids have stuffed themselves with chocolate and nibbles so they don't eat much!

I'm with classic. Our Christmas probably looks serene and magical, but get near enough to anyone one of us and there's probably a huff and a puff and a few choice words.

Our best Christmas was the one where after lunch my sister (normally slightly antagonistic, and very attention seeking) fell asleep on the sofa for four hours. Bliss. [remembers wistfully. Debates spiking her drink this year].

LOL at Hassled's 'that's how it seems if you drink enough gin'

Yes. That's almost us .

The key?

Have a nice relaxed morning and then always go to my mum's for lunch so she has the stress of doing the christmas dinner. Everything else is easy .

Unfortunately, I haven't quite got the large house, or the snow either.

When I see these ads on tv featuring the perfect Christmas I like to imagine whats really going on.

The hunky man is a popular model in the industry as he looks like the perfect dad when really all he wanted to do with his good looks is to model for Dolce and Gabbana and hang out in Hoxton.
The girl playing the mum is really only 20 years old and she is wondering how it is that her children in this advert are 10 years old and she has been cast as a mum, what happened to her dream of playing the lead in a west end musical?
The two kids dont know what the heck is going on as its only June and all these strange people are pretending its christmas.

That Morrisons advert makes me laugh, the kids are excited by "The Christmas Quiche"

After the obligatory bottle of champagne on Christmas morning my house resembles that of Martha Stewart.

In all seriousness, we do an alternative Christmas Day - we go to church, come back for a mince pie and cuppa with my parents before doing a charity lunch. Parents then come back to our house for the ceremonial present giving while eating chinese buffet food from Waitrose. Therefore I feel no pressure to conform to the chocolate-box Christmas Day. No turkey juggling in this house

Aarrgh I cock it up every time !

bottle glass of champagne !

Lol, VoldermortsNipple, I read that as "Dh always cooks lunch which is perfect because he cooked it in his Jamie Oliver pants"

Several of us (adults & kids) have spent Christmas at Centre Parcs and the first year we went 2 of us were left to cook a christmas dinner for 14 in tiny ovens and no room for anything - it was a nightmare. The next time (few years later) we agreed no christmas dinner and the joy of swimming in an outdoor pool (kept at 80 degrees farenheit) under the stars beats wrestling with a bloody turkey. Went again last year and the "no christmas dinner" were outvoted, so christmas dinner it was, and I spent christmas day cooking the turkey in our lodge (just me and DP) prepping potatoes, carrots, sprouts, parsnips and then carrying it all over to the larger lodges in big carrier bags. In the middle of this, I vowed I would never do it again. One family was down with D & V so ate nothing - boxing day was nice though!

It's just the bloody ads that get me. I suppose if I think about it, all ads are similar, smiling women sniffing their laundry and taking an inward gasp at the "freshness" - do real people do that - NO! Life is so lovely in the ads and that's the trick isn't it - "if I buy that I'll look like her/him/them etc.

Am loving the posts though.....

My mother produces a great picture perfect Christmas, but her family motto is "it's not a proper Christmas until one of the women is in floods of tears in the kitchen". I never saw what was not to like about Christmas - roast dinner, presents, telly, family - but I draw the line at frocks and makeup.

Well, I've never had a Christmas like that but this year will be completely different. Oh yes. Completely different.