What would Christmas be without Mums?

[PontiacBandit]

I reckon 85% of Christmas is down to women making it special. Traditions, decorations, meals, gifts. The planning, having to think of everyone, the organising of when gifts go to people, shopping for gifts and food and alcohol, sending cards, cooking a massive roast meal on the day, wrapping gifts.

I have a good DH but he's pretty rubbish at these things. He does more housework than I do but the planning and organising is not his thing at all.

If women did nothing at this time of year it would be shit show wouldn't it?

And that’s absolutely fine - but other people are allowed to find it bizarre. Just as you can find doing the bare minimum bizarre. The world would be very boring if we were all the same!

So if they 'like' to do it, they need to stop complaining about how they 'have' to do it because otherwise no-one else will do the completely unnecessary thing that no-one else except them cares about.

What is all this man bashing about why do people feel the need to be so negative towards men? In my house myself and my husband both have our strengths and weaknesses but honestly we work together. He will do all the food shopping and cooking on the day if he not working and I will do a lot of the shopping for gifts however he will also go out and see things and think of people as well. We tend to wrap together and plan visits and the days out together. We both work full time, my husband in hospitality so not home a lot over the festive period but the time we do have together we make sure it's special. I just think people need to recognise what their spouses are offering and be grateful or just talk to them about their concerns not be resentful I guarantee they are not doing out of spite! All of this spite, resent and many hateing will rub off on your children, we need to be better examples.

it is not a bizarre thing to do at all. They're our kids and they're students with limited funds. Why would you not send them an advent calendar and a few things to make them feel christmassy. It's not about being competitive in the slightest it's a very normal thing to do.

My very independent and very manly rugby playing 19 year old asked me to send a daily video of the opening of the wooden advent calendar..

While in my family I do all the work and so did my mum but my brother lost his wife a few years ago and he makes Christmas magical for his 3 girls.
When his wife was alive admittedly she did all the work but he is doing amazing and does a brilliant job by himself.

I think our Christmas would look relatively similar if my partner did it, it would just all be done a lot more last minute!

I like to have most of the festive jobs and organising done by the end of November so I can just relax in December and enjoy all the social bits.

Decorations- I like them done last weekend in November, he’d do it a week before Christmas.

Presents- we do these together anyway and he’s probably more thoughtful than me. Again though, he’d just leave it until a few days before Christmas to sort them, if left to his own devices.

Food- he cooks. He has all the ideas for what to have, what new recipes to try, he does the shopping. Nothing would change here in terms of Christmas dinner. I do sort the Christmas Eve buffet though, he might not be so good at that. He’d probably just do pizzas, whereas I do loads of lovely festive bits.

Social events- he’d be fine arranging and attending.

So to be honest, our Christmas wouldn’t change much if I didn’t do any prep. The only thing missing would be the Christmas Eve buffet and nice festive tableware, he wouldn’t think of that. And there’d be no Christmas candles!

That really wasn’t my experience of being a student.

Yes totally, and there's a perception that women just love it and the poor men have to put up with it. It's not for us, it's for the children!

My husband and I are very equal in most things and he definitely does his share around the house and more, but I have to nag him to help get down the decorations from the loft, nag him to help me with the heavier bits and pieces and with the outdoor lights, and then he goes off and leaves me to it. Then there's much sighing if I buy more batteries or tealights and tutting when I buy decorations or make him fill the next box on the advent calendar. It's mostly good natured and we're not fighting about it but it's the overall attitude he has of, "It's all a waste of time/money but she loves it so I tolerate it."

I buy the gifts, he wraps them if he's told to, I buy Christmas cards and sit with my daughter as she writes them out to all her friends, I plan the menu, I do the Christmas crafts, and I do enjoy it all but I sometimes think how bleak it would be if I died!

I did say to him the other day, what do you think Christmas would look like without me? A haphazard tree thrown up at the last minute on Christmas Eve and a handful of last minute gifts?

I'm not defensive - I'm single! I make my own Christmas!

But I see a lot of men who are miserable at Christmas, friends tell me how their OHs won't lift a finger because they don't see the need to.

But no need to pity me - I have exactly the Christmas I want. I'm giving other points of view, that's all.

I had a fairly hands off parent. Didn't buy me anything except £100 for birthday or Xmas. Didn't know who my friends were. Didn't ring me to check up on me. Never visited me at uni except to drop me off at the start of each year and came for my graduation. Didn't fund uni at all (back in the days when student loans covered it)
And even he had an advent calendar waiting for me if I came home for Xmas! (He wouldn't have spent money posting it though!)

Yeah I’m not going to feel guilty for not buying my adult child an advent calendar ffs

I don't think anybody is asking or expecting you to do anything really,

Christmas without mum's influence would be very grim, I would almost argue to say that it wouldn't be much different from another day.

I'm not saying that fathers don't or can't contribute a lot to the holidays, But in most cases it seems that the mother is the one who is making the list of gifts, doing the shopping, doing the wrapping, doing the decorating, preparing the home, planning the holiday meal, doing the shopping, doing the cooking, preparing all the little traditions that take time like elf on the shelf or Advent calendars...

Yes traditionally women stayed at home and men went out to their job to earn the money to pay for all the stuff but in today's world this is no longer true but still most moms are doing most of the work and planning. All true.

The tone of some of the comments here seem to suggest that not doing it is unreasonable

Agree - there are lots of comments on here looking down on people who choose not to all the extra "fluff" that comes with Christmas.

True for some families but not all. No way would I be shouldering the load - DH has equal responsibility We are both parents.

I don't think so at all. I think the sneering is coming from those commenting that we shouldn't buy advent calendars for our student kids

Apologies if that was from my post. I didn't mean people should do it. I was trying to make the point that it's a fairly popular thing to do (buy students advent calendars).
I'm sure you did a hell of a lot of things my parents didn't do.

I believe that this is mostly true for many families...

But, if you had told me this growing up, I would have 100% disagreed. In my family, my father was "Mr. Christmas" each year, and although my mother helped with everything and did lots of work, it was him who loved and pushed the season, decorating, wrapping, all the cooking, etc. My Grandparents were a bit more balanced, but still the men did a lot.

So in my mind growing up, Christmas = Mans job.

I was quite shocked when I realized that this wasn't very normal...

My Christmas is without a Mum as mine passed away 2 years ago and sadly my sister didn’t want children & it turned out I can’t have children.
So my sister cooks a lovely Christmas dinner, we invite my Dad & have a nice time anyway.

My 82 year old husband really enjoys his advent calendar!

My husband cares more about Christmas than I do. He decorates the house, buys his own gifts for his family, organises the meat for dinner and he even got some of the Santa stuff this year (after I asked him to). He also cooks most of the dinner and takes our daughter to mass. I got the advent calendars, I’ll do more of the tidying up before and after Christmas, most of the childcare during the holidays, sort out clothes for me and our daughter, buy gifts from me, and help out a bit with cooking dinner but he definitely does more than me when it comes to the Christmassy stuff.