Why do we have horrible Christmases?

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Where did it come from, the tradition of visiting or being visited by people you don't see or get along with the rest of the year?

What do you think is so awful about Christmas alone? I've spent some Christmas days alone through choice when single because its more peaceful than visiting friends having never met their families before and not knowing if you'll like each other. It's took some convincing to get some of them to understand it's genuinely what I wanted. I find it's fine, it's not sad or lonely. It's one day of doing whatever I want.

When it comes to family I've got my own now and this year I'm starting a new tradition of Christmas day to ourselves. We can visit or be visited by family and friends before or after Christmas day, but the day itself is ours. No difficult people, no family drama, nobody feeling left out because we're spending it with someone else that year. Just us. I can already feel the relief.

Usually I'm stressed out all December trying to juggle it all and keep everyone else happy. No more. If you're close to your family and can't wait to spend Christmas day with them, that's great, but for everyone who isn't - why do we do it?

I've got halfway through my life without thinking about it and this year realised I couldn't think of a good reason to spend the day in someone else's home, watching their choice of TV, being sniped at or ignored, eating when they decide, feeling unhappy and counting down the time until I can leave. I don't know why I've put up with it on previous years.

I really don't get this obsession so many people on here seem to have with having small Christmases at home with just their husband and kids. I prefer to see family and wish I had a bigger family so there were more people there. My DDs favourite Christmas was the one when there were loads of people. If it was just me, DH and the DC, it would be like every other day!

I'm torn on the obligation to "difficult" otherwise alone family members.

My dad would be alone, consequently I'll never spend a Christmas Day away from him so long as he's alive. But this is because he's a wonderful human who absolutely deserves to be surrounded by his (only child) daughter and grandchildren. If he was an arsehole or abusive, I wouldn't want him around my children, especially not at Christmas.

I don't understand why so many people reward difficult people or don't tell them when they're being difficult - doesn't that just perpetuate the problem? I would rather hurt feelings than everyone getting slowly more angry and resentful.

Comedy cook my DP are over seas now and we dont see them around Xmas. . I would absolutely love a more busy Xmas with wonderful relatives who pop in and we all come and go bearing dishes we made and lots of fun.
Sadly we just have DH parents and sometimes his sister and aunt's and I've sat with 11 people in pretty much silence or mil talking about money and fil.
I dream of a smaller Xmas with just us.
They aren't talkers except on about 2 topics,there is no music and no TV unti mil wants it and she just leaves everyone and that's it.

We used to spend Christmas at home when the children were small as OH was a GP and he was always on duty on either the day itself or the two days around it. WE used to issue a general invitation to any family who wanted to join us, but we stayed firmly put.

Now that I am widowed I go to one of the DDs at their invitation - I am hoping they do not feel about this as the OP does!!!

Roar ,when we have tried to have Xmas alone we came under tons of pressure from fil, sil granny's and even others.
It upset the entire family chain and looked like DH would be cut off.

I'd love to say adiós to them.

This. As the quote goes ' Don't set yourself on fire to keep other people warm'.

We are doing the same op, in that we are doing Christmas exactly how we want it. Just me and DH, our cat, my mum and my sister.

Both me and dh are sick of always being the ones driving for Christmas and not getting to sleep in our own bed, and we are sick of spending the day with family members who we aren't fussed for or who clearly don't like us! Sick of having to eat food when we aren't hungry and watch telly we don't want and dress up in clothes which are uncomfortable.

Everyone should feel free to do what they want at Christmas. If you want to eat a curry for Christmas Dinner like me and my dad did a few years ago then that's fine too 🙂

Have a lovely Christmas.xx

In a way I am grateful that my parents always kept Christmas day to just us. We never had people traipsing in and out, got to play with our toys and watch films. Boxing day onwards was for family and always visiting their house so they could host!

@ChristmasJoysuckers oh that's awful, I'm sorry you had so much pressure. What was the situation? All those people wanted to get together - or they expected your family to host awkward people and piled on the guilt when you didn't want to?

Fingers crossed I'm buying a lovely family home in the new year with space to have close family plus a few single friends who would otherwise be alone (or with family they don't want to see) next year. They're brilliant with my small child and my parents' friends were all like aunts/uncles to me growing up, so (because I'm an only child so my DC have no cousins) I'm building their "family".

It is hard. I'd love to do our own thing, but MIL has dementia. It would be heartless to leave her looking at 4 walls, she finds it comforting being around family, but cant stay here long as the physical efforts of getting her up and down stairs to the loo are just beyond us all now.

Giving the carers a couple of days off is important too, they have been an absolute blessing, we could not have wished for better, kinder carers for her.

Life gets complicated and it is not about martyrdom or my way all the time. Sometimes it is actually right and fitting and downright humane to put someone else first.

(Yes we do so all through the year too... dementia care is not just for Christmas )

Each to their own
Personally I love spending Christmas Day with extended family
I don’t get the wanting to spend it at home with just the nuclear family,surely that makes it just like any other day round the table

Not all families look and act like the Christmas advert families. Some people have aggressive drunks, utter narcs, emotionally repressed parents who suck every morsel of joy out of every effort you have made( why did you bother doing that ,cue tinkly ,superior laugh, oh I wouldn't have done that, it doesn't really work, whatever have you got that on the table for etc etc) The lead up to it all eats away despite your best efforts to grey rock the hell out of it. Then the day itself with batting away and smiling through the crap that comes is just wearing. Not anymore. My mother is going to my brothers for the first time in history. Everyone else has someone to spend the day with and I shall spend the day with my wonderful husband. We will not be eating turkey.

I spent Christmas alone from the age of 12 (one parent died, the other just had to work and got more money to keep is afloat working over Christmas day etc). Don’t feel sad for me - I didn’t actually care.

There was just me and my dad, no other her family and even as a child, I never cared for Christmas anyway, I never really saw the point even when I was small.

I’ve done it for my children (I am a good actress, they think I love Christmas!) but I can take it or leave it to be honest. But it’s just me, dh and the children and to be fair, it’s just presents for the children and food. I couldn’t stand a large Christmas it would drive me up the wall.

We are all different.

Each to their own. Some people love a big family gathering, some people will kindly invite relatives they would prefer not to see to save them being alone. Some people like a quiet day with their partner.

Personally, we realised several years ago that Christmas is not compulsory and largely ignore the whole thing. No elderly relatives to worry about, adult DC equally indifferent. We have lovely family meals and celebrations at other times of the year with no need to get in a tizz over 25 December.

This year we will be hiking in mountains, next year it is the coast.

If it was just me, DH and the DC, it would be like every other day!

Not if you all put a bit of effort it

You do you, OP.

For me, we are lucky I can spend a day with just family eating what we want and watching what we want pretty much whenever, so I can't see the point in spending Christmas doing that.

It's worth it for me putting up with the relations that I might not have been friends with otherwise to get together with the family I do love. The people is what makes Christmas different from just another Sunday lunch.

@MissMarpleRocks , Easter has always been a bigger thing in Cyprus (I used to live there) and Greece - the trad big Christmas is much more a Northern European thing, to brighten up the very Bleak Midwinter - it merged into the Christian festival from the pagan feasting and Yule log, etc.

I’d never leave an elderly (or otherwise) family member alone at Christmas. The are ways to make it work, compromise is key (for all parties). My elderly Aunt was a bit miserable and could be difficult but we worked out what was the best way to include her at Christmas (namely we dropped her back home before we ate dinner at 3pm ish - with a plate of Christmas dinner). She liked to be in her own house before it got dark. She’d been too embarrassed to say so but once we knew this we did it for several years. It changed the whole day for her and us.

I think each to their own. I love a big multi-generational family gathering on Christmas Day. There's no tension or aggro and there's a lot of fun to be had. I particularly enjoy all the fun with my 2 DCs and their cousins - now 20 upwards. I am very close with my nieces and nephews do it's good to catch up on their news. Everyone plays lots of silly games and it's a laugh. My sister and I take turns hosting 15. When I do it all I have to do is get the main course on the table, my sisters bring puddings - and everyone helps clearing and washing up.

96 year old father, early dementia, lives 62 miles away in a lovely flat within a sheltered housing complex. Restaurant on site, he won't go since my mother died 2 years ago. Last 2 Christmases he came to me, son brought him and stayed over then took him back next day. This year son and family coming to me but my spare bed is taken by a Ukrainian lady. Sister going away for a week. Dad says he doesn't want to go anywhere. If he'd have Xmas lunch in the restaurant with others who have either no family or ones that live a long way away I'd feel happier, but I'm eaten up with guilt. Do I have to harden my heart for once?

Yes indeed.

I've been having this debate a lot lately as DP is very much in the "stay at home and people can come to us, or we'll have it alone" mentality and I prefer to meet up with people. It's just how each of our parents did it, basically. For me it's more of an event when you're with people you don't live with every day, and possibly in a different place. I see a lot of my house and immediate family, so it's just same old same old. It's more fun having more people in a variety of ways, including everyone getting mucked in with cooking and cleaning so it's not all on one person, and being able to play big group games (very few games work with two people).

I can see why if you didn't enjoy the company of your family it wouldn't be appealing, but the tradition obviously comes from people that do.

I’ve lied this year and told people that I’m working Christmas Day.

I’ll do a nice dinner for them during one of the days after Christmas.

All my mum wants to do is watch shopping channels and torment my son about his weight and my dad gets tired and grumpy.

Not putting anyone through it this year. Going to have a nice cosy Christmas on our own.

This is interesting. I do have a single parent. And I'm not including them on Christmas day this year. They're difficult and make life unpleasant a lot of the time.

I'll put up with it on any of the other 364 days of the year, for the sake of "family". But why should I have Christmas day ruined? It's my Christmas too. Why is everything about what they wants? What makes them more important than me? They do have others to spend Christmas day with. Why out of all the invitations they receive, should they spend it with me, the one person who'd rather they didn't, just because that's what they want? If they'd been a better parent I might want to spend this time with them, but they wasn't and I don't. Not on Christmas day. Any other day and I'll make the effort. We're actually seeing them boxing day this year.

With other family members it's more the case that they don't put any effort at all into being in touch the rest of the year. So I have got to thinking this year why should I have my Christmas day ruined for the sake of staying in touch with people who don't want to be in touch the rest of the time? I am seeing them over the festive period, just not Christmas day. Why is Christmas supposed to be "all about family" but it's fine for those same family members to ignore you the rest of the year? Why do I suddenly owe it, to these people who don't really care about me, to be and do what they want just because it's Christmas?

@Maxifly, I’m sorry you’re worried about this. It may not be the case with your father, but when my Dm had dementia, even well before she was bad enough to need a care home, she honestly wasn’t remotely bothered about Christmas - not even interested in presents any more.

So maybe your father really won’t be bothered. And it’s a fact that familiarity and routine are important for dementia sufferers - change can make them fretful and/or agitated, even when it’s somewhere they’ve been very familiar with before.

One year, when DM still wasn’t too bad at all, Dsis and niece came from the US and stayed with her until I was due to fetch them all (60 mile drive) on Christmas Eve. But a few hours before, DSis phoned to say Dm was sorry, but she’d really rather stay quietly at home on her own.

Well, OK, if that was really what she wanted. But I took down her presents and plenty of nice food.

Later that evening, when everybody else was out, she phoned me, absolutely furious. What was she doing all on her own on Christmas Eve? I was a terrible daughter, she was cutting me out of her will, etc. etc.

Of course I offered to go back and pick her up if she’d changed her mind - no, she didn’t want that, either. Nothing I said could convince her - I was in tears for ages.
I phoned early on Christmas Day anyway - she’d completely forgotten about it! Talk about phew. Dementia is an absolute bugger, though.