Every year, my DH wakes up and thinks the shops/cafe are open on Christmas morning

[onlychildhamster]

This happened again this year. I tried to tell him, no darling, budgens and Caffe Nero wouldn't be open today. Its part of his daily routine- he likes to buy fresh bread and coffee in the morning. He was very insistent and petulant. I decided to humor him and said, go on then; if they are open, get me some cheese balls and a mint hot chocolate to go. :) He just called me, very crestfallen, saying that he has never been so wrong in his life. The only places that are open are a small french cafe and a couple of sports bars.

We don't celebrate Christmas so I guess thats maybe why details like Christmas opening hours escape his radar. But I would have thought living 31 years in the UK would have prepared him for this (though to be fair for most of his life, he was abroad during the christmas period).

Do any of you have husbands who are completely oblivious that Christmas is a major holiday which most people want to celebrate with family and therefore don't want to work!

Merry Christmas everyone and esp to all the essential workers who are working today! :)

@hiya89 I live in London! I have never lived in Hong Kong. When I was growing up in Singapore, we celebrated it as my family are Catholic but it's not a big thing for most people. Now that I am Jewish, it's not a holiday I get excited about and I never really enjoyed it as a kid either.

@CovidPassQuestion I had this conversation with my MIL who is orthodox Jewish and therefore hyper religious by any standard. She did grow up Lutheran and said that European Christians do consider themselves religious/believers even if they don't turn up at service every week or follow the tenets closely. This was in response to me telling her about a stat I read about London being the most religious region in the UK, probably due to a large immigrant/BAME population who are more religious. I was a religious Catholic before I became Jewish; all 3 generations of my family are Catholic and we went to church weekly, in addition to Sunday school. And we were considered very lax on the religious front compared to many of my peers from Protestant churches (majority of Singaporean Christians go to Protestant churches and when I was younger, the evangelical Christian churches were extremely popular with the youth). It was considered hip to go to church and to prayer meetings in many friendship groups in secondarily school, and it was an easy way to make friends. Imagine my shock when I went to university in London...and realized that the congregation on Sunday was very very small (consisting of the elderly). Probably was one of the reasons why I drifted to Judaism gradually after meeting DH.

@hiya89 sorry misread your comment! Feel silly now! As someone who celebrates Chinese New year, it's harder if you don't have extended family and kids to give red packets to! I try to celebrate every year in the UK by going to a Chinese restaurant and doing Lo hei but it's not as fun as when I am in Singapore giving out red packets to my cousin's kids and my cousins. And there is the big celebration with over 50 members of my mum's family.

@MyDcAreMarvel my DH's mum doesn't shop on a Sunday or use electricity for that matter but 2 out of her 4 kids are not religious (and use electricity on a Sunday). The other 2 live in Israel so they have little choice on the matter as everything is shut on Saturday including public transport. Only 1 is truly religious in the orthodox sense. It's probably not typical of an orthodox family but not super unusual for kids to break away from their parents way of doing thingsm

I’m sorry, I can’t get over the cheese balls and mint hot chocolate combo. Would you eat/drink these together?

Please tell your husband, from a Caffè Nero manager, we are closed just one day of the year. Christmas Day. Don’t begrudge us our one day! 😂

The double bank holiday this year is really messing with our bins routine

Bank Holidays are the same this year as every year?

@FrankGrillosFloof not together lol! I really love the Jacobs cheese footballs from Sainsbury but I finished them on Xmas morning. And Sainsbury's is closed today :(

I don't usually like drinks from Caffe Nero but I love their mint hot chocolate.

@AmazingBouncingFerret my DH LOVES Caffe Nero. He goes there every day of the year. He doesn't like the branch at canary wharf though so he goes to an Italian coffee shop outside the wharf...but other than that...

Not Xmas but I have almost the same convo with my DH most Sunday afternoons!! He'll say he needs to pop to the supermarket for x ,y or z, at around 5pm. I'll say but they're closed because they close earlier on Sundays (admittedly there's one about 35 min drive away that is open 12-6 on sundays, but it's not one he's familiar with) and he'll be surprised. 🤣

This is like my OH, who insists there is a BBC1 plus 1. I tell him every time there isn't and he searches for it to then find I'm right and he slams the BBC for not having a plus 1. Rinse and repeat almost weekly 😂

Caffè Nero is hands down the best coffee chain coffee shop

@GoodPrincessWenceslas

The double bank holiday this year is really messing with our bins routine

Bank Holidays are the same this year as every year?

When Christmas falls on Saturday I think that’s four days the bin men don’t come, compared to the usual two.

@ThatsNiiice

This is like my OH, who insists there is a BBC1 plus 1. I tell him every time there isn't and he searches for it to then find I'm right and he slams the BBC for not having a plus 1. Rinse and repeat almost weekly 😂

It's called iPlayer, surely?

@GoodPrincessWenceslas

The double bank holiday this year is really messing with our bins routine

Bank Holidays are the same this year as every year?

Ah yes, I mean more the way the two bank holidays fall. For some reason they get treated differently for bin collections by my council depending on when they are. They have some sort of calculation based on when you would normally have a collection and the holiday dates, so this year our weekly collection is 2 days later whereas for most people in our borough it will be 1 day later.

I realise I sound quite passionate about my bin collections now

Mine is the opposite. Doesn't believe any shop is open on any bank holiday even minor ones. Is always pleasantly surprised that so much is open on Good Friday or May Day.

I'm shocked to learn the bin men don't come on public holidays (bank holidays?) there. In Australia, bin collection is considered an essential health, hygiene and safety service, and mandated and required as such by Health law, so bins are collected whether it's Christmas Day, Easter, New Years Day, whatever. It's like ambulance and hospitals still operate on those days, so too does bin collection. It's the one service that never stops no matter the day.

@oftenbaffled

Honestly,

He sounds like not the sharpest tool in the box

Sounds thick as shit.

He lives in a supposedly christian/Catholic country. OK we don't go to church really anymore, but we still celebrate Christmas. He's been here 31 years, that's 31 times he's managed to be an idiot. What's that phrase, doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results?

@FreedomFaith He spent every christmas abroad until he was 26.That was when he stopped going to his grandparents as he started working in London. We lived in a very frum (religious in the orthodox jewish sense) area (his mum's house) while we were saving to buy our flat so many shops were open on Christmas as they were kosher supermarkets and eateries. We only bought our flat and moved out in 2019. 2020 was lockdown christmas so nothing was open anyway. I guess he only had 1 christmas in an area which didn't have a lot of Jewish shops!

But still...

@FreedomFaith and to be frank we might not have noticed so much if it wasn't shabbat as i would probably have planned to walk to the areas with the jewish shops as it is still walkable...

@ItIsntWhatYouThinkItIs our bins aren't collected everyday in the UK. I live in a flat so it doesn't bother me as much as we have those huge bins and a designated bin area so no one needs to remember to wheel it out. Plus it has much more capacity even with more people. Was different when i was living in a terrace cos we had to remember to wheel it out! You should hear my MIL complain about her garden waste; apparently barnet council never collects it! And charges to collect it!

I am under the same council and they really cannot do bin collection.

[quote onlychildhamster]@FreedomFaith He spent every christmas abroad until he was 26.That was when he stopped going to his grandparents as he started working in London. We lived in a very frum (religious in the orthodox jewish sense) area (his mum's house) while we were saving to buy our flat so many shops were open on Christmas as they were kosher supermarkets and eateries. We only bought our flat and moved out in 2019. 2020 was lockdown christmas so nothing was open anyway. I guess he only had 1 christmas in an area which didn't have a lot of Jewish shops!

But still...[/quote]
That's different to expecting cafe Nero to be open. It's a British company. They are going to follow British traditions, which is to close on Christmas day. If he still hasn't figured that out after 31 years, he's really struggling with living in britain.

He can't move away from Jewish shops, but expect everyone to follow suit with his beliefs. They won't and shouldn't have to. They are allowed the day off, it's their belief after all. Even if they aren't complete practising christians/catholics. It's tradition in this country.

@FreedomFaith he doesn't believe in orthodox Judaism lol. I mean, with Jewish shops it makes sense as they tend to be licensed by the kashrut authority and the kashrut authority are incredibly strict about whether they follow jewish law. And Jews would only pay the kosher premium if they are licensed. In my home country, a lot of places are closed during Chinese New year for the entire 15 days (despite only the first 2 days being bank holidays) as the workers are from China (can't get Singaporeans to do service jobs lol) and want to fly back to China for reunion dinner so that only makes sense if you stay for at least a week.
But I guess if you look at Christmas as a bank holiday, why Christmas and not Easter etc

@FreedomFaith and we still live in a Jewish area lol, the Jewish shops just tend to be concentrated in Hendon and Golders green.

@FreedomFaith it doesn’t sound like OP’s husband is expecting anyone to follow anything. OP’s post sounded more like a lighthearted comment along the lines of “Totally forgot everything would be closed!”. It doesn’t sound like he was raging against Caffè Nero and the Christmas holiday. And as this thread has demonstrated, many people in this nation have done similarly. Not out of lack of respect for the national holiday, a simple matter of forgetting that Christmas isn’t ‘just’ a holiday/celebration, it also means no shops, transport etc. It’s the only holiday in England that leads to a near total shutdown.