A simpler Christmas

[Fatrascal27]

Was thinking about Christmas as I was looking at some family photos from the 70s. Reminded me that Xmas used to be less of the monster it has now become. It is now so driven by consumerism that it starts the day after Guy Fawkes. The shops belt out carols and try to persuade us to spend lots and then on Xmas Eve pull all their decorations down and chuck it all in the sale. Crazy.

Consumerism has totally shifted the timescale. I know we live in a secular society and not everyone observes the old tradition of tree up Xmas Eve and down 12th night etc. but the pace at which it’s moved from a family oriented, quasi religious event to 2 months orgy of consumerism is astonishing. Throw in Black Friday and Cyber Monday too! Capitalism eh.

Yes I’m definitely a bit bah humbug but it does make me a bit nostalgic for simpler Christmases. Sick of seeing Christmas themed butter, toilet bleach ffs! M and S inventing even more weird, complicated desserts, people curating their decorations as if it’s an interiors magazine photo shoot.

I realise this is probably not the first thread like this but is there anyone like me striving to just have a simpler, slower Christmas? Small tree, meaningful presents, no tat, not spending a fortune? I can’t afford to spend a lot anyway but I do like the idea of making it just a bit less complicated. Anyone else?

You you don’t have to join in with it, you can have the Christmas you choose. I actually like Black Friday as I got a lot of presents cheaper.
I used to hate it when everything went on sale online at 5pm on Christmas Eve, as I imagined all these parents ignoring their kids while they spent money.

I’ve just seen a similar thread to this but about a 90s Xmas. Tbh the 90s was not that much different to now if I recall. I’d have to go back to the 80s I think to see a difference.

As a kid it seemed to me that everything stopped for 2 weeks over Christmas, we had a proper break, and I seem to remember sales starting on New Year’s Day. It felt like a proper holiday, rather than one or two days.
Im going to our local church carol concert this year to try and get a bit of old Christmas back.

I think consumer cycles have massively sped up. Christmas is a buying event, as is Halloween, easter and so on. So retailers go from one to the other, as do advertisers, as do many consumers. Chuck in social media - so now you can see random people doing present piles or trips abroad or elaborate crafts - and easy availability of credit to many, and there you go.

thats true @13RidgmontRoad.

What makes you think that everyone is having a consumer- and social media-driven Christmas?
My experience is that families have their own traditions and are not massively influenced by current trends.

My adult DC love our traditions, which are based on DH’s and my own childhood experiences, and even further back. Therein lies the magic.

PS I am partial to an Xmas themed kitchen roll

well it’s going to be more concentrated in the shops because that is where they sell things but if you have one M&S dessert at home (not everyone likes Christmas pudding) it’s hardly overwhelming

How many houses do you go in?

most houses are not colour co-ordinated influencer style

I have been in M&S was even looking at their Christmas biscuits and don’t know what desserts they have - and temporarily looking at a fridge of sweet options doesn’t change this household’s Christmas at all

and posts saying “oh for simpler times - what does that mean? Christmas used to be simple because life was hard and tangerines were an expensive treat. As soon as more people could buy more things people did, the Sony Walkman Christmas was huge, as were cabbage patch dolls, this is nearly 50 years age so how much further back do you want to go?

you go in shops looking to buy, like everyone else, just because there is more choice and some people go overboard online doesn’t mean everyone is buying all the things

do you know anyone who goes OTT with decorations? We do, and she’s lovely, but younger than us (mum of one of our kid’s friends she had her children young us a bit later) she is one of the happiest, kindest, non-judgemental people you could meet, but boy does she like decorating things, she would decorate our car if it was parked outside her house long enough!

we tell her her Christmas decorations are insane - but you know what isn’t it better to have someone who likes over decorating but displays all year round the simple characteristics of Christmas rather than someone with a ‘tasteful’ tree who is a judgemental snob?

Christmas has always been about excess. Always.

A lot of the tradition people talk about comes from Christianity but they don’t go to church. Just pick the bits they like to be judgemental (which you could say is quite religious)

Go in more houses and fewer shops OP you might be surprised how much true Christmas spirit is out there even if it is covered in fucking pink bows!

I bought some robin/holly serviettes because we are having toddlers here over Christmas and sticky food and as we don’t dress the table they will have to do all the decorating themselves!

I didn’t say that everyone was having a social media driven Xmas? I was just lamenting that Xmas is massively consumerist overall. Obviously everyone does their own version but the focus on getting everyone to spend more and more ..,well that’s obviously there. And I don’t like it but I’m not trying to start an argument. I was just wondering if anyone else felt they wanted a simpler Xmas.

Or being able to finally afford something under the tree so their kids didn’t feel like Santa had ignored them? Because that was what they were depending on and their kids were happy for anything new not disappointed because they didn’t get hundreds of pounds of presents

If the sale was online at 5pm on Christmas Eve, the purchases weren’t going to be under the tree on Christmas morning

I’m not suggesting people shouldn’t t take advantage of Black Friday. My issue with it is that it’s now a ‘thing’ at Xmas. A retailer led way to make us spend more and there’s evidence to suggest a lot of price manipulation in the run up to Xmas that make people think they are getting good deals when they are not always.

I think our hankering for what was admittedly a simpler time is a symptom of our consumerist overwhelm. I'm choosing a simpler Christmas this year because I'm becoming more and more aware of how much stuff is being produced and how our planet and society isn't coping. But I will be the first to hold my hands up and say I have done the big Christmases and I don't begrudge anyone else their choices.

I also think it's my life stage - adult DC who don't need so much to move around, I am more aware of not filling my house with things as I see my hoarder parents struggle in the older age and that I will need to sort all that out one day.

I agree it can be overwhelming. I grew up in the 90s and loved Christmas. But it felt like it was for the 2 weeks it was supposed to be for. Yes we put the tree up at the beginning of December, but I saw Santa after school finished for the holidays. I know it's moved on since then, but we don't put the tree up until December, and we have a small, relaxing Christmas. When I was little we had to see everyone and it could be exhausting. We stay at home now in our bubble 😆

Not really as I feel like I have had the same sort of Christmas since I was a child. We don’t get tat, we spend time together as a family. I love Christmas and enjoy the break.

I also don’t know any other close friends or family that have the sort of Christmas you are describing. Are you sure this is not fuelled by what you’ve seen on social media?

We're managing to mostly ignore it. It makes me feel sick to think of all the purchases of tat that will end up in landfill in short order and people spending money they can't really afford.

DD receives a very small amount of presents in comparison to her peers. We're looking forward to some Christmas cooking this weekend and then putting our tree up on the 21st, going to a carol service and then a very low key Christmas Day. Gladly DD isn't aware of how big many families make Christmas so she's not missing anything and has a lovely excitement about it as it is.

Martin Lewis did a piece on this and nearly everything was cheaper on Black Friday. Personally I like it as I put everything in a basket and buy it as soon as the prices drop. I can get meaningful presents that I know people like at a fraction of the cost. All our Christmas shopping is done by November, bought was I was going to get anyway but cheaper and I don’t have step foot in a shop!

I can spend the rest of December doing absolutely nothing Christmas ‘chore’ related and it’s so relaxing.

I'm not from the UK and I do find the commercial element of Christmas really OTT here. Mainly stuff like the John Lewis advert - why does everyone care so much about a TV advert for a department store?? So bizarre!!

Best thing we ever did is organise a secret Santa for the adults in the family. It saves hundreds of pounds, it's still a lot of fun, and stops the weeks of shopping required to sort everyone and individual gift. Highly recommend! You end up with much more time for the nicer parts of Christmas

they might have January birthdays

No. I don’t think the full on consumerist onslaught driven by retailers from Nov 6th is just what I’ve seen on social media, no.

I just don’t get sucked into that type thing.

Our Christmas is based on our family traditions- walking in the woods, pantomimes , watching Christmas films, going to carol services and christingle ones. Eating mince pies and doing crafts.

We don’t do elf on a shelf or anything like that or Christmas Eve boxes (though a tradition of ours is new pajamas, hot chocolate, a new chimeras book we all read around the fire on Christmas Eve after church and a family party ) some of the new things people have bought in I find tacky!

My children love the Christmas we do, we have a house full of food and champagne but stuff is not our thing. In terms of decorations we have a tree and some beautiful lights outside and a Christmas village inside and that’s it. And the stockings by the fireplace.

Im not one for designer handbags or any materialistic new trend so maybe that’s why but I tend to keep the noise out and stick in our own lane as it were!

But it’s always been like this certainly in your living memory
ok there were fewer products to buy and in the past a lot of excess spending was on consumables but it’s always been spend as much as you can at Christmas it’s just now there are more and cheaper items on sale so more households can go to excess rather than just the privileged few.

Rich people would get lace imported from Belgium - but that was classed as tasteful was it? Whilst rich folk were spending more than year’s income on lace children were actually malnourished down the road.

It’s just not true that there were simpler times. They were just equally divided times differently.

Now people will try and convince others online not just in person that their simple Christmas of goose, champagne, real fires, long country dog walks, collecting holly, making slow gin, or whatever is just a simple Christmas when you can interpret that “we have a country house with open fires and so much leisure time that I just cannot understand how people buy wreaths for their doors when with a day or two of collecting you can forage for foliage and use oranges that you dry yourself, I mean everyone has a dehydrator right? And we don’t need to buy anything our crystal champagne flutes are a family heirloom”.

It doesn’t matter what side of the coin you are on it’s human nature to want to feel “better” whether that’s with inventive Elf on the Shelf scenes, Christmas Eve boxes, matching pyjamas, church attendance or organic self-shot goose! It’s exactly the same showing off “our Christmas is more Christmas than yours” just in different ways. We can just all do it online as well as in person now!

I have to say that the French Intermarche advert with the vegetarian wolf is very cute this year though (it's all over the Interweb if you want to look it up).

Also very much appreciating the Tesco Christmas adverts this year, celebrating the Christmas rituals we can all genuinely identify with, like the row in the supermarket car park 😆

I used to think I hated Christmas. But now I've gone NC with my family I can have the quiet, simple Christmas that suits me and the DC- just a tree up, only presents for the DC (and not that many compared to a lot of people), lots of nice food on the day and a new jigsaw for the afternoon (I also have an exciting outdoor 3D puzzle for teenage DS and I to complete- a second hand greenhouse that's currently lying in bits in the garden 😆), and much fresh air as possible I'm quite enjoying it currently.

DS2 will be at secondary next year, so we'll finally be free of all the primary school Christmas nonsense, too 🥳