At what age did you most enjoy Christmas?

[ShelfOnTheElff]

Just that really!

I think when I was under 10, I was mostly all about Santa and presents. I did enjoy it but was very focused on that one day.

I think my favourite age for Christmas was my early secondary school years. Presents were still really important and I still got very excited but I appreciated the season as a whole a lot more than when I was younger, even if I didn't believe in Santa.

With my own kids who are now preteens, I think every year from the time the youngest was about 3 has been great. Christmas with toddlers is really challenging!

Probably up to about age 12, all the run up to Christmas at school and church. Christmas parties at my dad's work. Crafts at the weekend. Making the Christmas cake. The BBC Sunday afternoon children's series. Looking forward to presents. Mums Christmas dinner was the best. Parents doing all the work to make it magical 😁

Since we've had to do it ourselves as parents it's not been as fun but this year has felt a bit more organised, more restrained with spending and more festive.

Love this 🫶

Yeah I forgot about when you're 18 and partying lol I did enjoy it back then too. Was always hungover though lol I also worked in a supermarket and enjoyed the songs I lost my dad when I was 24 with a 2 year old in tow. That's when it became so difficult though. Had he of died of old age It wouldn't of been as bad (as everyone has to die sometime). But the way he died it was awful. I don't think I'll ever get over it.

Aged 37-47 when my dcs were small and not cynical teens!

So much simple happiness.

I think now is my favorite age. I have two small DC and their excitement makes Christmas.

I worked in a hotel / bar from 18-24 ish and they were epic. Insane levels of drinking / partying / drugs with very little sleep and surrounded by young excited adults with the world in front of them. Money was good for that age and I can still remember the anticipation of getting ready for a shift knowing there would be all my friends there, sneaking drinks then a lock in until the early hours..

Then the drinking got out of control and Christmas was a mission to endure with boring family who didn't drink enough....!

Then I got sober and had kids - agree that the first few passed in a bit of a blur but we moved into our forever home when DD was 3 and have hosted every year since and it's been amazing.

They are 12 and 10 now and still loving it.

We all cuddled under a blanket and watched Arthur Christmas with candles on last night and it was magical.

Pianos aren't that expensive anyway. You can't get rid of them - they go for peanuts second-hand!

I enjoyed Christmas at pretty much all ages and still do at 53! I think I probably enjoyed it a bit less as a mid to late teen.

I loved it up until I was about 17, it was the big family get together I loved, after the magic of father Christmas passed. But from that point on, my older relatives had passed away and my siblings had their own family christmas, so it was just me and parents and it felt too quiet.

When my DP/ now DH started living together we'd alternate which set of parents we'd go back to. That was still too quiet at mine, and not my idea of a traditional Christmas at his.

Since having kids, we've stayed at ours and I've loved it, and in recent years we have started hosting wider family and it's perfect again

When my children were between 2 and 9 (peak Father Christmas belief time).

We lived near an auction house and I used to go to the viewings as a bored early teen (c.1990). Old upright pianos were ubiquitous and practically free. IIRC you could probably have got one for the minimum bid of a fiver, plus commission. I guess the tuning and lessons would have been pricy, but those weren't a compulsory part of piano ownership!
To answer the OP, the best Christmases were when I was a pampered toddler, before more favoured younger DBs came onto the scene and I became the target for my parents' stress. I got some pretty cool presents but was never deemed adequately grateful and would usually be accused of "ruining Christmas" because of an unfortunate tone of voice or facial expression or whatever. So the best Christmas was when I was nearly 3 and got a knitted dress and a toy ironing board (!) but no drama or being sent to Coventry for ridiculous reasons.

In the 1960’s when I was a child.
You didn’t really have treats or toys the rest of the year other than your birthday. So on Christmas Day to have 4 or 5 presents to open, plus loads of goodies to eat was heaven.

My grandfather was a piano tuner - he set up his business after WW2 and we have a wartime notebook of his, in which he must have whiled away the lonely hours away from his wife and child by planning the business. It's full of little adverts he'd devised and most of them are along the lines of bringing new life to a long-untuned piano and the joy that would bring. He made a full time and very good living out of this until he retired in the 1980s and by no means lived in an affluent area.

always when with lots of family

Under the age of 11, before my Nana died, those 80s christmases were straight up magical.

For me, Christmas was an enjoyable time from when I was about 5 years old up until my mid fifties. Lately I just find it all a bit too much bother and a bit stressful. I'm looking forward to January!

I'd say up to the age of 7 or 8, because it literally felt magical - totally outside everyday life. I still get blasts of that feeling if I'm out in the freezing cold in some village that smells of smoke and I see the right kind of fairy lights on a tree.

Being a mother makes Christmas enjoyable too, but it also takes a lot of effort and I am too selfish to enjoy that as much as those early years where the magic was all for me.

Back when you still believed in Santa. I remember not being able to sleep with excitement on Christmas eve night, and trying to spot Santa in the sky. The magic dies when you find out.

I think early to mid teens. I'd spent hours in the kitchen with mum baking and making sweets. I was also involved with cooking Christmas dinner. When I was 19 I spent Christmas with my long term boyfriend's sister and she didn't know how to do a Christmas dinner so I took over. The best bit was when his mother congratulated me on it. She loathed me.

I started to really enjoy it from my early thirties. In my own home and on my and my partner's own terms. Cooking our own dinner, getting the decs up when we wanted, drinking and eating what and when we wanted, playing music or watching what we wanted on TV.

Childhood, from ages 5 to being a young adult were the best times as I was always excited and looked forward to Christmas.

Nowadays, my own daughter being at an age when she is still excited for Christmas and being able to do things on my own terms with my daughters.

Definitely under 10. I remember so clearly the presents I received and how much I loved my Zapf styling head one year or my little red sewing machine. Everything was so much simpler.
My first Christmas as a mammy is up there too. We went all out…on a 10 month old!

Late teens onwards

Christmas as a kid wasn't a big thing. Combination of elderly grandparents and other stuff happening.

Coming home from uni, more agency on what people wanted for Christmas.

As a child. Primary school age.

Loved it when I was a kid, my grandparents used to throw a massive party on Boxing Day which stressed my parents out (in hindsight) but as kids we loved being with cousins and family, bringing new presents around etc. started to enjoy it again with my own kids as I fell off the Xmas wagon a bit in early 20’s.

I haven’t enjoyed Christmas since the responsibilities fell to me. I think this is the last year I’m going to bother.