Is anyone else's Christmas not "ruined"?

[DumplingsAndStew]

Constantly reading about how Christmas will be awful due to restrictions on travel and numbers.

A few years ago, we started having Christmas alone at home, just me and the two kids. We take it easy, have a Christmas dinner and stay in pyjamas and just chill out. Its much more manageable for of us (additional needs).
In terms of activities leading up to Christmas, the main thing we do is go out looking at people's light displays, drink hot chocolate, watch movies etc.

But according to most people, our Christmas is awful and unimaginable to them. 🤷🏼‍♀️

We don't yet know what we will be allowed to do at Christmas so how can people say it is ruined or not?

Exactly!

We'll be having a small one too but honestly, don't worry what other people think!

People who say Christmas is going to be terrible because there will be less people are talking about their own because THEY prefer it big, they're not saying yours is crap!

I get you OP but I just don't agree.

We usually go to the pub with a few friends, not many, and we have DH's birthday in December too, we usually have friends over. We really like catching up with friends and none of that this year.

We usually see some aunties/cousins for a quick visit/dinner, some are elderly, and we won't be able to see them.

Of course we will be OK, it will be fine in the end, but things that make us happy around Christmas will not be there. I don't give a crap about presents, or a christmas tree, I just want to go out with my friends.

Not us - but we don't celebrate Christmas.

We have however, done Passover with no one and only a few weeks' notice, and Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur with only two family members, and two days' notice it could only be that many. Yes, it's a bit sad. No it is not unbearable.

I get it, it's important to many people, but it needs to be put in context that it is just the one year, and the less people see of each other over Christmas, the sooner and more they will see everyone next year.

I expect 10s of millions will nonetheless go to one another's houses for extended periods and set getting over this back 3 months 'because it's Christmas'.

I would like to go to the pub, but probably wouldn't, even if they do open again, unless the infection rate suddenly plummeted!

Our Christmas will be much as it usually is. Just dh, dcs and plus one aunt. Dh usually takes dcs to see their cousins and family on his side during the day while aunt and I make dinner. That's the only thing we won't be able to do. My dad also won't be able to come and see us as he is high risk and a flight away, and I'm really sad there won't be any meet ups with friends or Christmas drinks in the run up to Christmas. So that's a bit of a bummer.

Ruined is very dramatic though.

We have no family in the country so our actual Christmas day will be just the same as always, which we love: cosy at home just the three of us plus dog. Lazy morning in PJs with gifts and videocalling family. Out for a wet & windy walk, home to cook Xmas dinner and watch movies.

What we'll miss are the festivities in the lead up to Xmas - usually it's whirlwind of soirees with friends, lots of fun with friends. Pantos etc. December up until the 25th will be very different and too quiet!!

People saying "it will be lovely to be just me/just me and DH/just us and the DC with food we like, movies and no pressure" - you can do that most weekends if you want, can't you?

Christmas is a festival time, it's meant to be different. If you don't want to do that, fine, but it's not the only time of the year you can have a day just doing what you want.

It would be far better to stay in lockdown over Christmas and have a celebration next year when figures are better and we can go out more.

After all if we open up for Christmas then what are we celebrating? The impending lockdown in January?

I listened to the media questions on the briefing the other night and as soon as Matt Hancock said they didn’t yet know what would be happening at Christmas I had already mentally written the headline “lockdown looming over Christmas,” and there it was the next morning.

And now this morning they’re reporting that the government are going to open up for Christmas, according to Neil Ferguson who, if memory serves me correctly, resigned because he broke lockdown rules, so not exactly a shining example who should be granted an opinion here.

But if there is any kind of relaxing of restrictions over Christmas the same media who are calling for it now will be criticising in January when the figures go up and we’re back in lockdown. But if they stay in lockdown then the media will be crying “Christmas is ruined.”

I actually think that it’s our own duty to have a less crowded Christmas, even if rules are relaxed.

And the pubs should stay shut.

@Newuser991

What is Christmas but exchanging gifts and eating a meal?

I really don't understand people who can't do that only with immediate family for one year in a lifetime

Rehearsing carols. Mulled wine party next door. School winter concert. Band winter concert. Band playing for the Snowman. Carol service. Another carol service. Carols at the nursing home. Carols in the town hall square. Nativity service. Christmas Eve carol service. Dinner with the Choral Scholars. Midnight Eucharist. Christmas morning service. Seeing people who live a significant distance away. Boxing Day walk at local Boxing Day Walk Place.

Half a dozen gifts and a glorified roast dinner is lovely, but it's two hours.

I cant imagine anything more awful than dragging kids all over the country to see relatives. This year its just me, my cat and my oodie. Can't wait.

People saying "it will be lovely to be just me/just me and DH/just us and the DC with food we like, movies and no pressure" - you can do that most weekends if you want, can't you? well you can get together with the family every weekend can’t you? After all let’s face it for most people Christmas is a time of indulgence, eating, drinking, spending money you don’t have on stuff you don’t need.

For most people Christmas is just about these things. I’d imagine the people who are all saying Christmas will be ruined because they couldn’t see their families won’t be too upset if the churches stay closed will they?

So Christmas is in fact just a day like any other day....

Everyone’s experience will be different.

For me, I just can’t be bothered with Xmas this year. I just want it out of the way. It’s a reminder of the long loneliness of this year. It’s felt endless and anxious and sad. I’ve not been in the company of a relative since February. Normally my house is the one that hosts Xmas. My parents and brother normally fly in, and stay with us.

None of that this year. It’ll just be a nuclear family Christmas. Which is fine. The kids will have a nice time. But there’ll be a a gaping hole there. One that’s been there all year. I just want to get through it, into the new year, and wait for an vaccine. Then we can be together again.

I'm also not looking forward to the surge in numbers in January.

Indeed.

I think Christmas SHOULD be different/ smaller and more limited this year but it doesn't mean I WANT it to be.

OP, I used to have similar childhood Christmasses. My parents my brother, sisters and me! Pyjamas til lunch opening and playing with presents, then get dressed for Christmas meal and then family game after and whatever! One year it snowed heavily and we spent a good bit of the afternoon walking and building snowmen. Such a great time to relax and just be a family!

My only grandparent would rotate around so some years she’d be at ours for the day and then she’d spend next year around my Uncle’s. We’d visit wider family Boxing Day and onwards.

My friends all had a different Christmas to me where they’d be dragged around different relatives houses all day and if I’m honest, I much preferred ours.

No will be same as last year, I go to my elderly mums (she is on her own) other half to his elderly mother who is on her own (his father in care home) Nothing has changed but understand it must have for some but it is only one year and maybe a chance to just have a quiet one?

Oh go away with your accusations of smugness. No one knows what those of us who are determined to enjoy our small family Christmas have endured in the past or are enduring now. I certainly don't feel like sharing that on here.

I don't take anything for granted, even this Christmas is just a wish until it happens.

@Bluesheep8

We don't yet know what we will be allowed to do at Christmas so how can people say it is ruined or not?

Exactly!

That's the issue right there What we will be allowed to do Shocking how civil liberties have been removed overnight

I’m really looking forward to Christmas at home with just DH and the kids for the first time. Last year was our first year with a second child and we agreed that last Christmas Day was too much for them and something had to change.

We will miss our parents and other events but I’ve trying to be look on the bright side of life this year.

I cant imagine anything more awful than dragging kids all over the country to see relatives.

My kids love being dragged all over the country to see relatives!

well you can get together with the family every weekend can’t you?

Not if they live hundreds of miles away, no.

So Christmas is in fact just a day like any other day....

No, Christmas obviously isn't like every other day. Whether you are religious or not, it's a festival day (or in fact a whole holiday period for many people) with traditions and enjoyable things that people like to do with the people they love. It's the only festival we make a really big deal about in the UK.

I’d imagine the people who are all saying Christmas will be ruined because they couldn’t see their families won’t be too upset if the churches stay closed will they?

So?

Definitely not ruined here.
We usually host Christmas Day or Boxing Day for our small family but no-one is over bothered to miss a year.
DH and DD and I will be quite content on our own.
I don’t understand the drama and hysteria over a slightly disappointing Christmas.

One year we had no Christmas celebrations as my grandmother died and I didn’t see any family on Christmas day due to circumstances. We all survived, it was a bit sad to have Christmas day alone but it really wasn’t the end of the world. It’s only retailers and the media that want us to feel bad.

I was dragged to relative’s houses over Christmas as a child too and I have to say I hated it, so vowed not to do it to my kids. They love opening their presents at home and getting to play with them!

We also refuse to charge around the shops frighting over turkeys and sprouts. So I make a wicked curry with lots of accompaniments and we relax and just enjoy ourselves.

Your Christmas sounds really nice, op.

Ah the usual MN failure to appreciate that lots of us have young adult children who would like to come home for Christmas. They may be 22 but they would still like to see us.

Oh go away with your accusations of smugness. No one knows what those of us who are determined to enjoy our small family Christmas have endured in the past or are enduring now. I certainly don't feel like sharing that on here.

The only people being accused of "smugness" are those intent on pissing on the chips of people who are really suffering, and who use other people's misery as an opportunity to brag about how amazing their own lives are.

MN tends to skew pretty privileged and often very middle class. There have been tons of threads here from people expressing shock or disbelief at the idea that people have lost jobs and incomes due to COVID; disbelief that food banks are a necessity and not just used by feckless layabouts who spend all their money on booze and fags; during the first lockdown in particular MN was full of posters unable to comprehend that not everyone has a lovely big garden and plenty of time and money to laze around watching Netflix and reading books. And now the rash of threads and posts complaining that other people are complaining about Christmas.

Plenty of people are pulling the faux-confused "but whyyyyyyy are people upset? " routine as an opportunity to humble-brag about how actually they're vair vair looking forward to a lovely cosy Christmas, just them, their lovely family, and their £300 Ocado order. This isn't a slam on the OP of this thread who's been very sympathetic and understanding, but there are posters all over MN who really are not.

If you aren't one of those people then clearly the "smug" comments are not aimed at you.

The same people tend to be amazed everyone hasn’t got six months salary saved up in the bank and can’t understand how your average person doesn’t have a million pound pension pot.

This comes about due to existing in a very small affluent bubble that is particular to Mumsnet I’ve found.