Would you surrender Christmas to your DH?

[Vaster]

This year, as always, DH has moaned that the children have too many gifts and has spent most of the day eating the food that I planned and bought and cooked and cleaned up as if it was all provided for by a magic fairy.

When I asked him to help me clean up he said I am always looking for a fight and I don’t get what Christmas is about (love, peace, family).

He doesn’t seem to realise that I am Christmas. Without everything I‘ve done over the past weeks, today would have been just another day.

I am sorely tempted to surrender Christmas to DH and see where that gets us next year. But I value my DC‘s happiness too much.

So, just for fun- what would Christmas look like if your DH took over? If it would be the same, or just as great, then lucky you- hold on to him tight. Because after sitting in silence for the past 2 hours, I‘m regretting my life choices tonight.

I pretty much did hand it over to DH this year. He is much more Christmas than I am anyway but had more time available this year, so took the reins. He's the main cook in the house so always cooks Christmas dinner and does the food shopping/planning for it anyway, so that's fine. This year he also did 90% of the decorating (extensive), bought and wrapped 50% of the gifts and is a naturally tidy person, so does his fair share of keeping the place neat in the face of Christmas chaos.

Nope. I do it all and DP moans about how pointless it all is. Really gets everyone into the festive spirit.

When DP moved in he told me of a tradition his family had that nobody did anything on their birthday wrt household jobs/cooking/washing-up etc and he asked if we could carry it on. I agreed and it wasn't until late November time that the penny dropped very loudly for him......my birthday is December 25th so apart from ordering the Christmas shop and sorting my adult DD and her DH's presents, I do nothing on Christmas day and haven't done for 7 years and he does it all. 😄

Not a chance I would leave anything christmas related to DH as the only tree that would be up would be the one shaped like the tree for a car freshener. I plan and do the whole thing and all the decorating. Meal plans and off he pops to get what items I have on my list. That being said he absolutely hates Christmas whilst I love it. It works for us as I get to do what I want without any dramas regarding gifts, spends etc

For those in this thread who do everything because their DP/DH doesn’t bother/like Christmas etc - what happens regards their family?

For us, because my DP does nothing his family get nothing, not even a card. They live overseas and have never visited for Christmas which is probably a good thing as he wouldn’t have done anything for it and I would have let him take the lead.

So if you still pick in laws gifts etc up - why?

We’d have no tree, no presents, no stockings, no Christmas dinner, no parent at Nativity as I had to remind him 18 times this year. He may also not actually turn up! I have to prompt him to come home as he disappears regularly to see friends and I have to ring him to remind him that I’m serving food.

The plus side to being with such a lazy bastard is that my children really believe in Santa as my husband is so surprised by their presents every year.

I think it would look similar but perhaps a bit of panicked running around by him at the last minute when he remembers he hasn't got all the things he needs.
We might not have as many/any decorations but the DCs would nag him to do those.
We'd still go to church though maybe him and DS to one service and me and DD to another.
If I didn't give him hints though I'm not sure I'd get any presents! My family wouldn't either but that's my problem (he has almost no family).

He’d have food and alcohol and might, last thing on Christmas Eve, think about presents and food for everyone else. Might.

My DH mainly does Christmas. I selected Christmas day dinner but he faffed around with it, making it more complicated than need be.

I normally wrap all the presents but this year my nails are very weak and snap off at the slightest provocation, so I couldn't do the sellotape. He took over the wrapping.

An unorganised shit show if left to my DH.
They’d be less presents (not necessarily a bad thing)
The dinner would be good but probably served at 10pm
because he’d forget to defrost something and Is a massive faff in the kitchen.
They’d be no planned activities.
The tree and decorations
would look naff.
He would help more if I asked but I think part of the problem is that I can be a little controlling over Christmas because I’m better at it.

It would be largely the same, just minus the magic bits that mums conjur up. There would be less presents for the kids, possibly not a bad thing, but they would be thoughtful, relevant to them etc.

He is the cook so dinner would be great. The decs would be up later than I would like and he probably wouldnt bother with the outside ones without me nagging him to do it.

We mainly share the christmas load but I am obsessed with Christmas so tend to do more naturally.

Loads of lovely expensive bits-but no meal. Cheese for a small principality. No booze. Turkey bought last minute on Christmas eve, so either enormous or tiny. Badly made mash, rubbish veg. Stupid expensive massive piles of presents when kids were young. Now-money sent over in the morning. And a couple of inappropriately sized gifts. We'd eat about 7. Lots of shouts of "where is ...?"

He does much of it anyway. It'd be fine. He's 61 years old. It would be pathetic as fuck if he couldn't buy gifts and cook a meal at his age.

My DH DID do Christmas this year! I came down with flu so he ran round collecting all the last minute presents, including some additional thoughtful bits that took the load off me. He prepared Christmas dinner for 8 (all my family!), including the traditional family dessert. He also did a lot of the wrapping.

I was well enough to decorate earlier in Dec but if I had have been unwell,
Tree would have gone up much later and there probably would have been one, not two (I LOVE Christmas trees!) but he would have made the effort to get all my favourite decs out and put my outside lights up! He would have needed input on gifts for my family but I consider that normal. I would have got a thoughtful gift and he would have made a donation to the cat shelter we support.

None of it comes naturally to him but he’s watched me over the years, paid attention and knows what parts are the most important to me and what makes Christmas feel “special” and would want to do it nicely for me! The wrapping wouldn’t be amazing, but he would try hard!

My DH is late 50s and does most of the stressy Christmas crap. I basically do the finishing touches. Teamwork.

I don’t know why so many women martyr themselves at Christmas. If you’ve got a useless men who doesn’t pull their weight - give him a ‘to do’ list at the beginning of December and seriously expect him to step up. Let him know that he’s letting everyone down if he doesn’t.

My husband already does most of the cooking throughout the year, and during Christmas is no different – I play sous chef to his head chef when it comes to our Christmas lunch, and it’s a veritable feast. As for presents, we’re both equally engaged in thinking of and buying things for our family members, including the children. And while I’m in charge of decorating the Christmas tree, that’s just because I’m more particular about how it should be.

I’m sure if I was unwell, he’d carry it all off perfectly fine, and the kids (who already whiz around and vacuum/clean on Christmas Eve morning with me in preparation for our guests on Christmas Day) would pick up the slack with a bit of whinging.

Any husband who doesn’t muck in and at least do all the clean up afterwards is an arse who shouldn't get to participate in Christmas.

If my DH took over ….

presents would be great, probably one or two would arrive a bit late though and be New Year presents.

food would be great - possibly slightly later than planned but still great

the cocktails would be strong and the wine would be good

the house would be a bit of a tip

we’d go to midnight mass AND church on Xmas morning

I’d happily let him do it!

Dh does the Christmas food shop anyway and takes care of the turkey, ham stuffing etc anyway. We use the same decorations every year so that would fine, and the dc are all grown now and I ask them what they want so the gifts are fairly fail proof too, so yes I could safely hand Christmas over to dh. But I like buying and wrapping the presents for the dc so I wouldn't.

Quite possibly. 😂

Before Christmas, DH and I were planning for boxing day as we were having guests. I said that I would make a lasagne. He dismissed this and a few other cooked meal options so I said I would do a buffet. He replied with, "ok but don't do a boring buffet like you normally do." I duly handed over responsibilty for Boxing Day catering to him. Early on Christmas Eve afternoon, he started googling buffet recipes. When he couldn't find anything he felt capable of cooking, he rushed out to the shops and came back with all the buffet/party food items I usually buy! He has admitted that it's harder to make an exciting buffet than he thought it would be.