to think that Christmas Day is losing its sparkle?

[crypes]

A few threads recently about Christmas Shopping all ready and the 'got to get it all done', 'beat the rush' and 'spread the expense' stuff. Well i love Easter time and even the summer hols but im just thinking about christmas and cant get excited about a day of rubbish telly,cooking,expense and keeping everyone happy. Its like 'what for'? Whats it all about nowadays really.

YANBU

For me, christmas has completely lost its sparkle. I'm going to admit now that I'm really not looking forward to it.

I have to start thinking of it now so that I can start looking for flights home if we choose to go home, or start preparing the family for the fact that we won't be back home. It just feels that whichever option we choose, we'll be putting someone's nose out of joint and as much as we want to go back to the UK to see everyone, we'll just feel a bit meh. If we stay here, we'll feel lonely and will miss family.

Maybe we'll just fuck off to the Maldives again

70s - My own nan is probbly one of those older people who would reply nowadays that she hates Christmas. But it didn't used to be that way. Before her beloved husband, my wonderful grandad, died in 1985, it was the most magical time for her and she created some wonderful memories.

All I'm saying is circumstances change, people change. There are always reasons.

probably

Hi, we're going to move this to the Christmas topic, thanks.

sassh, yes, yes, I know, spend the day treating yourself or helping others. I've heard it a million times.

I felt like crap. Pretending otherwise, jollying myself along, treating myself, all that, just wasn't on the cards. I know that's uncomfortable for some to understand, that not everyone can just pretend that all is well to themselves, but so it is. I was never going to feel ok, so spending money on pretending I was seemed a bit pointless.

I have spent Christmasses before volunteering. This year, really, my moosey face would just have brought people down.

That's depression for you. Sorry that it doesn't fit in with your cheery world view.

I know alot of people are alone (or don't see their families) and I don't raise the subject of Christrmas when I'm working.

But it's the use of the phrase "I hate Christmas".
As I said, fine if someone does.
It's like "I hate summer. My legs swell up to the size of a tree trunk"
"I hate winter, my chilblains/arthritus/ I don't like dark nights"

I don't try to change their point of view.
But they might reminice about their Christmases of Days Gone By (when it was better/ less commercialised -stabby/ it didn't start in Septmember).

I have to say that since the death of a very good friend of mine 10 years ago just before Christmas, it hasn't been the same for me. I will always feel that a part of me is missing. BUT this year will be DD's first Christmas, and although she's going to be too small to really care, she will love the sparkles and playing with wrapping paper, so I'm hoping that making it special for her will restore my christmassyness. That's where Christmas sparkle comes from as you get older.

I do think there's too much pressure to have Christmas a certain way. I've done my fair share of working in retail in the run up and have seen the stress and genuine anguish of parents at not being able to find the thing that their dc wants, but knowing that they will play with it for a day and chuck it in the toybox. I'm doing to do my best to avoid that, and hopefully teach my little girlie to appreciate the things she has.

Have been thinking about this for most of today. Yellowraincoat - it shouldn't be about what didn't happen for you in the past but about all of the good things you are going to make happen and achieve in the future.

I do love it, but it doesn't fall together without a lot of planning and hard work in the run up and over the years we have had our trials - the first Christmas without PIL for example, when I took an executive decision and booked us into a restaurant for Christmas lunch so we didn't sit and stare at the empty chair.

I think it also makes a difference that we go to church regularly and have the spiritual dimension to it too.

In spite of making Christmas really special what we don't do is go overboard on presents and I think that helps too.

We also have in the mix our DS's birthday on Christmas Day. We therefore do the Christmas presents after church at about 11.30/12 and we do the birthday presents at about 6pm with tea and birthday cake - no Christmas cake here. Very early on we managed to persuade friends and family to write birthday on the birthday cards so that they were identifiable from the rest. The ones that come late we take to my mother's on New Years day where we have a special Christmas/Birthday weekend because my mother and her husband never come to us (they can't stand what they regard as the chaos of a family house and, in my mother's opinion, my less than perfect housekeeping).

We used to have his party the first weekend he went back to school and so the celebrations seemed to go on forever. But, we always have tried to keep 25th December as special as a birthday as it is for Christmas. It just makes the planning a bit harder. It's all changing now of course as he will be 18 this year and we haven't yet decided what we will be doing.

married, if life was that simple that the past could just be forgotten there'd be a lot less mental illness etc in the world.

No problem with other enjoying xmas. I just don't want it rubbed in my face 6 months of the year.

Hiding this thread now.

Forgetting the past is hard if very traumatic and repeated misery.

I do agree that July is too early.

Christmas should be personal to each family, with their own traditions and schedule for the day. No one should be pressured into "keeping up with the Jones's" when it comes to having lavish presents and the perfect home cooked dinner. The core of Christmas should be about spending time with loved ones, whether they be friends or family.

I have found that since I started doing the organisation stuff earlier in the year, I have more time and energy and mental energy to enjoy the season. So I can have time to not be worried about it all (mostly done, or there is a plan), and I also have time to find some carol services and sit with a coffee and DD with hot choc in town enjoying the bustle rather than stressed getting all the presents. Making time to enjoy the season and remembering the real reason for it, and making time for social gatherings with friends and family.

And the fact that we have DD makes it magical too in lots of ways.

Actually having read more of the thread, I should point out that I generally talk on a few forums (here and a dedicated Christmas one) and have my little spreadsheet and notebook of plans to work on. But I don't tend to talk to others in real life about Christmas (apart from maybe considering where we will spend it) until late autumn, and really not until others are ready to talk.

I also make sure that I have a plan for a different activity, most relating to Christmas, for DD every day in December. And I make sure that I have different things for me to do to make time for me, and to make the season special for me.

Yellowraincoat, a traditional Christmas may be your idea of hell. But perhaps there is something that you can do that would be special for you - whether religious, helping others or completely personal, that may help. There is an awful lot of forced jollity and sparkle forced down our throats - and I am not really a huge fan of that. But I love a lot of the religious music (even though i am not particularly religious), and long walks in the winter weather (whether dry and crisp, or wet and dripping - just wrap up well). A nice warming drink afterwards (hot choc, nice tea, or hot port or mulled wine); some seasonal spicy cakes (I love the German stollen - real stollen) - that sort of thing. We're not great fans of turkey - someyears we'll have it but a special dinner is what you would really like not the general traditions. It's about breaking free from the traditions that society has dictated and setting your own traditions that suit you.

BiddyPop, there's a Christmas forum? Tell me about the Christmas forum...

It will lose sparkle if you think about it so early. It is one day of the year! Leave it until December.

what BIDDYPOP said honestly last year was soo damn lovely because everything was planned and sorted and stuffed and wrapped and whatever. This does not mean I was a martyr far from it but I took time to make decisions about what i would spend my time on rather than trying domestic goddessness the week before 24-7.

I get ridiculously excited about it all I love it though, carols, church, christmas concerts, mulled wine, giving presents, new pyjamas, candles, new decs, new jumpers. If Christmas is important to you you will naturally spend all year thinking about it.

I had a bad time one year as a teenager at Christmas really traumatic stuff maybe i'm trying to forget it all by devoting my christmas focus on my new family now i.e my Husband and DD.