Why do you look forward to Christmas?

[MoonshineandMagic]

I hear (or see on here) many people talking about starting to get excited for Xmas at this time of year and I don’t really understand it.

I find Xmas quite stressful - juggling all the family, pressure to overspend, too much food and drink and then just the winter to look forward to when it’s all over. I don’t get why other people enjoy it so much - I like the break from work but other than that it’s always a bit of an anti-climax.

I’m sure some smartarse will be along to say ‘surprise - people like different things’ but I’m well aware of that. I just can’t work out why they don’t find it as stressful and depressing as I do.

How do you know it was 25th December. Even Christianity acknowledges we can't know the true date.

Bizarre

I am very much removed from it all now. If I had my way I'd do nothing but watch Netflix and eat crisps all day. I'm not religious. I only get one official day off. DD's paternal grandad loved Christmas and we had to do things his way and do his traditions, but he passed away last Spring so we are not really even having to pretend we're having fun this year.

The queue for St Paul's Cathedral goes twice around paternoster Square on Christmas eve. Evensong is mostly empty on a standard day.

similar reasons to Halloween, its all the lights, decorations, the whole Christmassy theme.

I think humans have had winter celebrations since the dawn of time. You need something to look forward to in the dark winter months.

I think people (probably women) who find it stressful because they end up ‘doing it all’ should reappraise the whole thing and insist that their lazy partners and family step up a bit more!

I look forward to the extended break from work more than anything else. But I love sprouts and twinkly lights and having family around. I enjoy buying them gifts and seeing them open them. I enjoy church. Can’t stand a lot of the naff consumerism though.

Christmas is what you make of it. Nothing is right or wrong. But since you ask, it’s the nostalgia. It doesn’t matter to me if Christmas is Pinterest/instagram perfect, what matters is that it is how I remember it. I remember feeling safe, and warm, and surrounded by loved ones and I try to create that for my family now. If my memories of Christmas weren’t happy, perhaps I wouldn’t like it now.

I love the winter season in general - frosty walks, Sunday roasts, fires, sparkly lights, cosy movie afternoons, curling up with a book (in the bath!), slippers, jumpers, winter boots! But Christmas is another layer of excitement. I prep the food early and freeze most of it, I use the same meal planner year after year (with minor tweaks), plus I don’t wrap anything in paper (fabric bags and wrap) - saves me time and effort. We are not really big on presents though. I do however, listen to lots of Christmas songs, watch Home Alone (with a cheese pizza), make Christmas cake/gingerbread, invite friends round for mulled cider and mince pies, make felt/crochet decorations, get out all the kids Christmas books from the loft, wear all my sequins and get Christmas nails, and so on! It feels to me like a special time to not only connect with friends and family, but also to connect with the past - and the future.

For me, I love the decorations the most. I enjoy having the excuse to be really creative and play around. I collect Christmas baubles so each one tells a story or reminds me of someone or something and I love remembering as I place each one. My decorations are never arranged the same from one year to the next and I love tinkering with them and seeing what works.

Oh I love it. Everything about it, I don't find any of it stressful tbh.

Starting in November with Nigel slater and stir up Sunday. We will make the cake earlier this year I expect as DP is at work that Sunday. I have everything wrapped by 1st December when we have our North Pole breakfast 🥞

The lights, foraging for things to make wreaths, the carol services, watching the kids sing in the choir. Music and tradition. The food, drink, the tree and decorations. Family coming in drinks and drabs until we are a full house for Christmas dinner. Boxing Day playing games, eating a buffet.

I'm a professional event manager and take great satisfaction in achieving difficult things so that translates into enjoying Christmas!

I love planning ahead, ticking things off, finding excellent gifts, hitting the budget. A real feeling of a job well done when everything is wrapped and under the tree, another one when dinner is served etc

It all gives me a sense of enormous well being and then I'm happy, for the rest of the winter, safe in the knowledge there will always be a little bit of my heart devoted to it...

I don't see my DGC very often only about 4 times a year. My DD and SiL bring them to me the second week of December and we have fake Xmas. My tree will be up and they like walking around where I live to look at all the Xmas lights. There is a house near to us that is literally plastered in lights. It's like a Sants's grotto. The DGC hang up their stockings because they are still young enough to believe Santa comes to Nanny's house early because she is so good. I cook a big Xmas dinner with all turkey and we have crackers. I think this will be last year my oldest DGS accepts this. The following day we go to paint a Xmas decoration. It gets fired and I collect it 2 weeks later. Then we go to visit Santa. This year we are going on a steam train ride with carol singing. After Xmas I won't see my DGC again until February half term when I travel down to them. On the real Xmas day I am relieved to go to my son's house and he is cooking Xmas dinner for me, StepDad, his brother and his girlfriend and our Foster son. I will pay for food but he will prep and cook it and they won't let me do a thing. I feel very lucky to share Xmas with my family. On Xmas day my DD, SiL and DGS's travel to his Mum because she is on her own and as she's ill my DD does the cooking. DD says some years they decorate her tree because she's been too ill to do it herself.

Exactly what I was going to say ISpyNoPlumPie : it's what you make of it. Keep the bits that work, and ditch the bits you hate.

I love our family traditions - some are bigger things like the panto on Xmas eve, others are small like DCs' pre-breakfast meal of chocolate from their stockings. Some are things we've brought from our own childhoods, others we've seen elsewhere, tried, loved, and kept.
I love the twinkly lights and am always very sad to take them down.
I love the food. I don't find the cooking stressful, which certainly helps, and I like the tradition of a meal we enjoy but is a rarity usually (we average 1 roast dinner every other month, and those are a very scaled back version of Xmas day). I always over cater as a huge variety feels very decadent, and we enjoy having the remainder as leftovers in the days afterwards. Any leftovers we won't get through in time are frozen to add to stir fries/soups etc in the following weeks, and it always gives me pleasure fishing a container or two out both by jogging the happy memories and that it has made life a little easier that night.
I plan and buy DC's gifts over the 6 months leading up to Xmas, and it is always joy-inducing watching them open their gifts with such excitement after so much effort has gone into it.Their excitement levels in the weeks building up to it are infectious too.
Several days of turkey titbits makes DCat extra purr-y and content.
There is a huge comfort in the predictability and cosiness of Xmas at a time of year when you just want to hibernate.

Other than booking our trip (abroad to see family for the first time since before the pandemic), and discussing a few activities, I haven't thought much about it yet.
But I LOVE Christmas. Partially because of the memories of Christmas growing up. Yes it can get a bit stressful getting everything on the table, and also trying to make the day special for the kids, but it's still something I look forward to with joy. I love sourcing just the right present (we only buy for immediate family, and for people actually coming on the day), wrapping, doing Christmas cards - the whole shebang!
Sure it's not the same as when I was a kid - I didn't have to do the work then! But it makes me appreciate how much my mother did to make it such a wonderful day, how generous my parents were in inviting people that didn't have family nearby. I'd like to pass that on.

You have summed up my feelings about Christmas :) I want my DC to have the same feeling about the Christmas period as I do about my childhood ones so Christmas is a pretty big deal in our house, and we start looking forward to it straight after Halloween. We do’t go over the top but we do always go to a Christmas themed theatre show, and Christmas at Kew; and I am also lucky in that my work shuts down a few days before Christmas until half way through the first week of the new year, so it’s a good amount of time off work.

What I love about Christmas is the time off work!

Present and food shopping not so much.

I do like Easter, spring is in the air and I can feel that summer is just around the corner!

I don't go large on the presents (other than for DS) as I am a terrible gift-chooser and shopping is my least favourite activity, and there is little wider family to be planned around/appeased, so these potentially stress-inducing issues don't apply. I also don't spend a huge amount or try to do too much.

The ritual and tradition of it all is a joy, the music, the lights, ghost stories, the films that we always watch, the food prep, the greenery gathering, the smells and tastes, decorating the house and tree. However I start late by lots of people's standards - only start buy gifts a couple of weeks before, I think we only decorated on the 23rd last year, didn't ice the cake until Boxing Day and I think a gingerbread house only just got constructed in time for 12th night. I am pretty chilled about it all; what gets done gets done, and if anything doesn't, who really minds? There will be loveliness in the other things that did get done.

Despite the lateness of actually getting my arse into gear, from pretty much now on I like the occasional thoughts that Christmas will be here at some time, somewhere ahead. Just in little ways, like I just saw a bag of sultanas in the cupboard and the thought of making pudding and cake brings a little happiness.

Can't be bothered with it. Once every 5 years would be enough!. Dont understand people getting excited about Xmas dinner, it's just a fancier roast. OH loves it and does the tree, present overload so I suppose I should be grateful. Much prefer Easter, better weather coming in, lambs in the fields. Chocolate eggs. Also it doesn't have the same pressure or high expectations.

Christmas used to be the most amazing time of the year for me but then my beautiful mum died four years ago at Christmas and despite really trying to keep traditions going I just feel like I could sleep the whole season away. We always did all our shopping and decorating together and spent every Christmas day either at hers or mine, cooking together and having fun. Now when I see all of the shops getting ready I just want to go home and cry. My son is now a young adult and so that also makes it feel different. I hope that one day the thrill of Christmas will return x

I love the family time. The sparkle and twinkle of the lights. The decorations. The atmosphere. The food. The baking. The games we play and the time we spend together. I love and have already started planning and buying Christmas presents. I enjoy putting thought into who would like what. Planning how I'm going to wrap it, what style gift tags etc. I love thinking of little things that will make things more special, more memorable.

I love the Christmas markets. Mainly for the upbeat, fun vibe. Everyone is a little giddy and all wrapped up cosy. It's a nice energy to be around.

I personally feel no pressure in any way about it. I love doing it all. It's a very happy time for my family and I. I actually love Christmas Eve more than the day itself... as that's a reminder we don't have long left together before we all get busy again...

Aww, AustrianMilk 😞❤️

I think it's about your overall approach to life. Being someone that calls other people smartarses in their opening post may suggest you're not predisposed to Goodwill to All Men.

Also she said I find Xmas quite stressful - juggling all the family, pressure to overspend, too much food and drink and then just the winter to look forward to when it’s all over.

No one forces anyone to overspend or eat too much. It isn't compulsory.

How very curious that the title of the thread is “what do you look forward to at Christmas?” and so many posters who don’t look forward to it have decided to answer. Imagine “absolutely loathing” Christmas and then deciding to click on this particular thread; seems unnecessarily provocative.

And a special shout out to the posters who don’t think others are celebrating Christmas “the right way”. You like to eat food? I scoff at you!

Because to me Christmas represents two weeks off work with nothing to do apart from read books, light candles, go to shows and Carol services. And walk my dogs along the river.

I buy all my food ready made from M and S.

I go nowhere I don't want to, see no one I don't want to.

Basically Christmas is the longest time I have off all year.

Spending time with family, a break from work, nice food, gifting those I love gifts, twinkly lights & nice smelling candles, nostalgic tv. I do find some of it stressful so that's why I start early.