Can't help feeling Christmas is already ruined by late break up

[ChristmasTidyings]

Anyone else feel the same? DC break up tomorrow lunch time. They generally need a couple of days to recover at the end of time so that's Christmas with exhausted, grouchy and over-excited children. Meaning everyone will be in a bad mood including DH who will be annoyed with their behaviour. Plus we have no time to do nice Christmas stuff like baking or making gifts for the GP's or pottering around town for the day. DD even had 1.5 hours of homework set yesterday to hand in today. The DC are exhausted and only 13 of DD's class were in yesterday, the rest are "ill".

It's even worse for the teachers. Imagine having to sort Christmas when you're exhausted and have only 36 hours in hand. With the threat of reports needed ready by Jan 3 and other such bullshit. I'm retired but I remember it well.

It ain’t great but they will have loads of time to play with their toys and stuff. They can buy things in the sale. You can still bake in the holidays.

My kids are young and they are seriously flagging/over excited but hopefully we can all make the most of it.

Your attitude is already setting the tone. Yes it will be more exhausting than usual but try be abit more positive and hopefully that will brush off on your kids. Christmas is what you make it and it's your pessimism that's likely to make the season crap

Baking and pottering and most of the wintery (mainly xmas) stuff will still be happening next week.

And they get to do it all with new toys to play with as well.

Meanwhile, mine are back on 2 Jan. There is no winning this year with Xmas school holiday dates.

Are you in the UK, that seems very late. Mine are adults now but I don't remember them breaking up this late before. The lead up to Christmas is the most exciting time for kids.

Your attitude will “ruin Christmas” far more than what day the kids break up!

Pull yourself together and stop borrowing trouble.

Ours finished last Friday and I would have far preferred a later break up. This week has felt bizarre. Next year they finish on the 22nd I think which I think is the ideal date.

Why are they so exhausted though? Surely it's not that long since half term and the days leading up to Christmas have lots of fun events in school.

Yes, it's a horribly short time to get sorted.

Rightly or wrongly, I would be tempted to keep my “ill” DC at home for a few days before they break up, since it's so short a time.

That's so late, I'd be annoyed. I work in a school and we finished on the 16th but even then the last few weeks were a shit show regarding behaviour of overtired and over exhausted children.

We broke up last week and have been ill since then so it didn't really work out any better for us. I still haven't done any prep or wrapping and the kids are tired, grouchy, bored and still too unwell to go and do anything festive. I think I might be well enough to start on the mulled wine today though so that's a positive. Good luck op!

To be fair there are so many bugs going round that most of them off ‘sick’ are actually sick

Posters on other threads are complaining that children broke up too soon if they broke up last week

@BigSandyBalls2015 break up dates vary across the UK. We are in England and broke up yesterday, but many were last Friday, while in Scotland and Wales it is common to keep going until 23/24th.

@ChristmasTidyings I feel for you - your kids sound younger than mine. As I work until today I wasn't bothered about them being in school until yesterday, works well for us, but agree tomorrow would feel tough. They are exhausted.

Nothing is ruined. They still get the same length of holiday. They get longer at the end of the holiday to enjoy all of their lovely presents, and visit friends to see what they've got, etc.

The last week or so at school is always a lot of fun anyway. Not a hardship.

It’s not ruined at all. It’s just a later break up which is nice they get more down time after.

Bake between Christmas and new year. Believing it’s ruined by a date that was set months ago, so you could plan for it seems a bit over the top. A nice relaxing Friday evening and Christmas Eve will be lovely

Kids and teachers are always exhausted at the end of a term. This term is always the hardest because it's dark and cold as well. They've all been couped up sharing germs and it's been a 7 week term here which is exhausting. I work in secondary but we'bve had a lot of pressure with mock exams, lots of staff absence, pressure to get assessments done. Massive pressure to redress the impact of covid, the threat of ofsted and so on. My dad's primary had ofsted in the last week of term, the teachers still have to do all the normal teaching and all the 'extra fun stuff' like concetts, plays, making cards etc is all extra. So the kids are bombarded at the end of this term. Of course they are exhausted.

They are kids. How 'exhausted' can they be from school? If they are so exhausted it'll ruin Christmas perhaps they need medical help

It was meant to say dd's primary school not Dad's!

That's crazy late! We used to get three weeks at Christmas (private) so lots of time to enjoy the build up. I wonder why they're breaking up so late this year.

My DD's school breaks up 3pm tomorrow. It's been a long half term and she's tired despite all the fun things they do in primary. I would have preferred for her to break up on Tues or Weds to give her a few days of chilling out before the big day, but hey ho!

Bit of an overreaction, you can still do lots of lovely activities after Christmas

The school term dates are published 12 if not 18 months in advance. The only issue here is poor planning on your part. You could have done crafts & activities during any of the December weekends.

I'm a working parent. I've got two in secondary schools. One finished last Friday and goes back on the 3rd and the other finishes today and goes back on the 9th 🤦🏼‍♀️
I didn't plan it well at all.

It's Christmas, not the Olympus. Children don't need to rest for days beforehand and your husband should learn to control his moods.

*Olympics