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?

Poster mentioned "decorations, light trails, elves and traditions" - I think children love all of this, and if you don't do anything in the run up to Christmas it can easily become all about the presents on the day.

Yep, it’s away to gain agency when you otherwise have none. I find the premise of the ops thread depressing for a predominantly women’s site.

it’s true that the sexes are innately different at any time of the year. You could swap out Christmas for birthdays, weddings, school celebrations, traditions, get-togethers. Basically anything social that requires emotional intelligence and women are always going to score higher. Doesn’t mean there aren’t men that can do it, but if we’re generalising then we certainly put the magic into all sorts of things.

It would probably be a lot simpler for many families, and that probably wouldn't be a bad thing.

It would be a lot more slimmed down. No "just need to get a few more bits" for the sake of it.

It would be the Christmas we all secretly wish we could have. No excessive travelling round to see people, no worrying about getting the random neighbour a presents.

Teacher a presents would be a box of quality street, no more.

It would be better in some ways! All the Christmas eve boxes, Elf on the shelf stuff wouldn’t exist because men just wouldn’t do it. We make rods for our own back sometimes. My kids would like it as DH would blow the budget on presents and they’d have hundreds and fancy advent calendars he bought on the 2nd December in the sale!

Edited to add - I don’t do Christmas Eve boxes or the elf anyway!

Mums? Or women? I am.not a mum but I'm pretty good at organising Christmas. Does everything have to come down to being a mum? <<sigh>>

Wouldn’t be a bad thing for the adults but I’d wager it’s all the small details that we provide that makes an occasion special as opposed to functional. One example is my partner ain’t moving the elves and would think it preposterous to get small gifts for the volunteers running their extra curriculars that enrich our kids lives so much. Yes he would feed the kids on Christmas Day and yes they’d get some gifts but those gifts wouldn’t be well thought out because he remembered a 60 second conversation in the car two weeks ago.

that kind of thing 😎

There are lots of families who don’t have mums for whatever reason and dads and other people do a great job.

@honeylulu your kids would howl if you did not go foraging and didn't use wedding plates and wine glasses?

People should just do stuff they like. Any day of the year. Choosing to make your own life harder and then whining about it is a bit ridiculous.

I’ve never understood why it seems to be a given on MN that women do most of the Christmas stuff.

Shit men are always going to exist but on MN it seems like most men are shit.

If most men in the world genuinely were incapable of buying suitable gifts, shopping, cooking, cleaning up after themselves, entertaining family and friends, etc, they’d never have been employed in the first place. It would be a world wide crisis!

It angers me to see on MN just how many women view their husband, sons, father, etc as being better than them purely because they are men. They sacrifice their whole lives and treat these men like absolute kings. Child rearing, cooking, cleaning, shopping, buying them thoughtful gifts, planning holidays and all family events. They literally do everything and facilitate nice, comfortable lives for these men. Meanwhile the king just goes to work, comes home and does whatever he feels like doing with no thought for the woman. The woman puts herself as the housemaid, the skivvy, the “less than” and the man is happy with that. She gets no time off, has hardly any time to look after herself or do anything fun. She has a shit life but thinks that’s all she deserves. It never occurs to her to leave because “they’re all like that”.

When they eventually complain after 20 years of drudgery, the advice is “try making your darling husband a list of chores that he can do to help you out around the house” and “stop moaning that he bought you a hoover for Christmas, you should be grateful of his kind generosity. My husband hasn’t bought me a present in 30 years and I’d never expect him to”.

There are good men out there. If you realise you’ve married a shit one by mistake, you can get a divorce so you can either swap him for one of the good ones or enjoy your life being single which is an equally valid option.

All the men (including husband) i know really only care about what presents they are buying for their kids and will generally go out of their way to make the sure kids have a good gifts.

What they don't care about is the gift for great auntie Ethel, or their uncle Barry who they see once a year.

Women need to all get together and agree that we dont need to buy presents for other adults (who arent our children).

Lol my Dad always made Xmas dinner. All this "aren't mummies the best" 🥹🥹🥹🥹 is so cringe.

I have this on my list to watch

100% this, the kids dont give a shit christmas cards being sent & light trails (which have just been invited for us to post pics on social media)

My kids ask every year when we're going to the light trail. They also love driving around local houses to see the lights.
The only one who posts pictures of it on social media is DH.

You sound about 12. That isn't what the thread is about.
My dh also always makes Christmas dinner. He doesn't plan for it or shop in different supermarkets to get all the stuff for it though.

I forgot - also sorted the advent calendars, and booked panto, theatre and cinema tickets for the family.

Completely agree. Shit men have really lucked out with the “tsk tsk men! They’re all like that, you can’t expect much from them!” attitude.

I’ve even see posters on MN accuse other posters of either lying or being in denial when they say their partner does half, such is the delusion that they’re all lazy shits who can’t be expected to even know where the washing machine is, let alone how to turn it on.

In fairness, I have eased off the big Christmas and now only do what I want to do.

I'm referring to my Mum that totally stressed herself out over this period whilst my Dad sat back and took the gift credits, my female friends that do all the Christmassy stuff with the kids and single handedly decorate the house. MIL that insisted on cooking a big meal for all the family.

Then there's the numerous MN threads of stress pre Christmas, disappointment and underappreciation threads on Xmas day.

Santa is a woman 🤶

I do all the present buying & wrapping but we don't buy a lot for other's & it's actually my partner that does the decorating & making the house look lovely as I quite frankly can't be bothered. I enjoy the house looking nice & twinkly but if I lived alone I'm not sure I'd bother. We don't host as again I can't be bothered & we just have a roast dinner with a few extras (pigs n blankets etc) as it's Christmas. I'm of the view that there is too much stress surrounding Christmas & it's actually a very difficult time for lot's of people.

Do 12 yr olds use 'lol'? Mine certainly doesn't 🤣

Anyway, sorry that you're not in a relationship where your partner shares the load, mental and physical. My dad did, my husband does.

My Dad was always big into Christmas. Left to him there would have been lots of top quality food and drink, music and really good quality carefully chosen presents. It was him who gave the Christmas tree fairy her magic.

It was mum who had to rein him in. She also did all the boring things like writing Christmas cards.

I agree. If I didn't do it, I think Christmas would just pass us by like any other day, but I'm not complaining because I actually love doing all the organising. Despite working full-time, I buy all the Christmas presents for our daughters and wrap them, order the turkey, buy all the Christmas food, organise one or two Christmassy outings, make 3 Christmas cakes (2 are gifts for my mum and sister),write and post the Christmas cards, decorate the table on Christmas morning and cook the dinner, put up the Christmas tree and even the lights outside the house. That's probably everything apart from the washing up and hoovering on Christmas Eve which DH does, but I hate sitting around - will do that when I'm old.

People forget that the magic of Christmas is, for the most part, powered by the unpaid labour of women!