If you could eliminate one thing about Christmas what would it be?

[Nonplusultra]

I think if I could change one thing I’d eliminate the presents - just have a lovely season of coming together for meals and companionship, without the stress and expense of buying gifts for a certain day.

I quite like giving gifts - I’d just rather do it as and when, instead of trying to find something thoughtful by a certain date within a strict price range.

What one aspect of Christmas would you change?

The commercialism and the way it's shifted from a celebration at the end of December to months of endless build-up and attempts to get you to part with your money. I don't want to see fucking mince pies and Christmas cakes in the shops from Sept onwards, I don't want to see Christmas trees and decorations in shops from the start of November, and I don't want to hear cheesy old Christmas songs from the 70s in every bloody shop for weeks. By the time 25th Dec arrives I'm sick to the back teeth of Christmas. God knows what it's like for people who don't even celebrate it!

The commercialism and the excessive food and presents.

In other countries the religious festivals don't have a secular equivalent that everyone does.

I tend to go to church on Christmas day...controversial around here I know.

Then all of you will jump in and say it used to be a winter festival. But that isn't what you're celebrating and I bet you let your kids participate in the nativity too.

Miserable Christmas songs and adverts it can be challenging enough without a load of guilt and misery being heaped on.

Presents for adults. Put your wish lists away and grow up.

Presents.

ALCOHOL. For some reason Christmas seems to turn even the most sensible folks I know into raving loonies who can't handle their booze simply because it's Christmas. 🙄I understand it's a stressful time for a lot of people, isolating for some but alcohol isn't the answer and if it's yours you may need help.

This resonates so much with me. I’ve just deleted my essay about how stressful I find hosting a houseful for three days, but I sound like a grinch, so I’ll just condense it down to ‘visitors who think they are staying in a five star hotel’. I nearly snapped at the person who asked for a liquor coffee after Christmas lunch.
I also hate the present buying.

I love having Christmas between 21 and 27 December - presents, parties and all - so I'd cut out any mention of it outside those times. I'm finally ok with Christmas cards not really existing any more.

I have sort of accepted that Christmas now and until the end of time will involve going to a sequence of nursing homes and having to generate appropriate levels of festive goodwill for people living lives they actively hate. So I would like to eliminate all that but it can't happen.

I’ve already done it! For years, writing, addressing and sending cards was my most dreaded and loathed chore of Christmas. Then I just stopped. We got fewer cards ourselves year on year, but that suited me too as I hate having them flopping about all over the place. Now it seems hardly anyone bothers with cards, and we just send a few to older relatives.

Other bugbears are much as everyone else’s - seeing Christmas tat in the shops alongside back-to-school stuff in September, depressing amounts of cheap plastic shite that’ll go straight to landfill, showy and excessive spending (esp when described as a ‘haul’).

Christmas for me is food and family, decorating the house, spending time together. We’ve completely cut down on presents now most of the kids are adults and I also don’t miss the endless round of school contributions and events at this time of year, which gets overwhelming if you have children at several different schools.

So although it’s still a lot of work, it’s a lot less stressful and I feel like I enjoy the whole thing much more.

@Ballsbaill for us Christmas is the time when everyone in the family has a couple of days off. If they want to spend some of that time with us then they are more than welcome.

We are an entirely secular family. If others want to have a religious celebration then I am happy for them. I don't impose my secular celebration on them.

It isnt compulsory to join in with the commercialism or to eat far too many mince pies. Have the things you want but don't begrudge others the things they want.

Same op @Nonplusultra I like the food, posh decorations, Christmas jumpers, time off work, but having to get a candle pr a box of chocs or a bottle of wine for every acquaintance in yr life is stressful. Are they diabetic alcoholic, offended by the blandness of your candle? Did you embarrass them with your generosity when they got you nothing. If an acquaintance gave you a scented candle last year but you got them nothing, what do you do this year? What will they do? 😅
I just want the food and a couple of days off work.

Yeh I gave up on cards a few years ago to. If people are in touch with you they'rebin touch with you. The tit for tat of Christmas card sending is stressful even when it's a smooth tit for tat. If it tit no tat, or tat no tit, it all becomes so mentally unpleasant.

pointless "tat" stocking fillers, secret santa tat, feeling pressured to buy stuff for people that want for nothing etc.

Happy with presents, but then I'm well organised and have been buying since July.

For me it's the sodding decorations. Dust gathering, bug trapping in the way glitter bollocks.

That it exists.

I think the only presents given should be from Father Christmas (refuse to say Santa) to children up until they are teens, then from the parents until they are 18, to help with bigger purchases until they are earning.

After that, anything you need you can buy yourself throughout the year.

What's the point of swapping store cards to the same value every year? we do this with external family😂

I'd trim it back to what it was like when I was a child

£1 chocolate advent calendar, not a £25+ toy one

Small stocking with cheap little bits inside, not a giant one filled with £10-£15 presents

One main present and then a couple of small things, not a massive pile that takes hours to get through

And we didn't have Christmas eve boxes or matching pyjamas for the whole family

Actually, the Father Christmas pressies should end at 10, but kids are happy to play along for a few years

So many things that people don’t like doing. So just stop doing them 🤷‍♀️

The John Lewis ad.

Eating turkeys- I love those funny wee birds!

Presents for people over the age of 25 (as I can imagine still wanting to get my own kids presents after they are 18)

I agree, presents. So much pressure to get it right.

I actually enjoy Christmas so probably not the thread for me but as pp said no one is making people do any of these things. Surely the whole point is that you take the customs that you want to and incorporate them into your celebrations on your own way.

There are always posters on MN who don't do Father Christmas (even though it was one of my favourite things when my DC were little as I can still remember the excitement from my own childhood).

I know that what my teenage DC value the most is the little family traditions that have often grown organically over the years. Of course they still like presents but it's the other stuff that they tall about excitedly, however small and inexpensive.

I'd eliminate even the suggestion that my children spend Christmas anywhere but with me! 🤣🤣