Imagine a Christmas where you just turn up...

[MrsClausCanCanCan]

I'm starting to think about Christmas presents, but money is tight and I'm kind of low on ideas right now, but I was imagining how nice it would be to be the kind of man person who just turns up for Christmas day, opens some presents, eats some nice food then has a relax on the sofa...

I love Christmas and I like the excitement of the lead up, and spending time with my family. We (me, DH and 2 DC) live abroad, so always travel back home and stay with my parents for a couple of weeks. On Christmas day, I do the cooking with help from DH (I get him to do the veg minus the potatoes!), but I have 3 siblings who come with partners so there's a lot of people! The kitchen isn't that big either so getting everyone to chip in isn't very practical, unfortunately.

I was just having a little daydream about how nice it would be to just turn up and wait to be served...

Anyone else?

Do people not bring things? We have people bringing salads and sides and desserts and nibbles and a ham…

I’d like to go away for Christmas, I’ve ended up somehow hosting my parents, my MIL and two elderly relatives. It’s going to be so dull.

Do you have to do the cooking? Particularly as it is your parents' house, could one of your siblings not take the lead this year? It isn't fair for all the responsibility to be on one person year after year

ETA or you could do the meat and they can bring all the sides - potatoes are better twice roasted so they could get them to the first roast stage at theirs then pop them in your oven when the meat comes out.

I see three quick easy wins here :-

1. discuss with the family going out for Xmas lunch at a local pub/restaurant…for whoever says they aren’t up for it you then suggest they cook as you don’t want to this year.

2. everyone brings an item. One family cooks the turkey, the other family brings the veg, someone else responsible for dessert ect

3. M&S (or wherever) ready made items and throw them in the oven with no prep needed. This is what I do as I have young children and don’t want to spend my day in the kitchen missing the magic and fun of Xmas with the kids. As this will be expensive for a large group you work out the cost (the food brochure is already out) and you tell everyone their “share” will be £x. If anyone doesn’t want to pay then you revert back to the fact they are welcome to cook :)

Because of my first sentence “I usually enjoy it all”.

I usually very much enjoy buying the presents, making the dinner etc. But this year I don’t really want to (due to bereavement).

DH is certainly not a “horrible user” given that he does by far the majority of household stuff for the rest of the year.

Foods the easy bit.

Can someone come up with Christmas ideas for my kids and organise them?

I would love to go away for it but I have hosted most years . DCs don't yet have homes of their own . Wood love to go out for Xmas lunch but DCs still love the traditions at home But I have started to simplify things . Last year got the turkey ready cooked .
Christmas thread on here has recommended a way to precook roast potatoes so looking forward to trying that .

I kinda prefer being in my own house (I realise that's not the case for you OP) and cooking a dinner with the amount of effort I'm prepared toput in that year (eg buying pre-prepared stuff vs peeling parsnips myself). I don't find a roast particularly arduous, and with only 3 of us I don't have to do much else snacky (although I'd probably just buy those too)

I think if I didn't have a roast to cook I'd feel like I'd kinda wasted the day, I like having a bit of structure :D

I have Claude doing that for me already.....

I used to absolutely love Christmas. As the years go on I don’t like it as much and it’s because as u say all the pressure is on me. I mostly buy and wrap every present, buy the food, cook the food. It’s just not as fun as it used to be. Infact I think it’s the cooking that I don’t like coz when I used to go to family I liked it a lot more 😆 I think when the kids are older we might go out for our meal. Right now would be a waste of money and they wld moan about it 🙈

It must be like when you're a child and Christmas has that magic of one wonderful thing after the next just unfolding in front of you. It's my DC's birthdays in December as well so it's a non-stop time of year for me and my DH has never lifted a finger as he 'doesn't do birthdays and Christmas' but I've made my peace with it now. I do it for the DC but once they're grown up I'm going to go somewhere snowy for Christmas and be entertained. I love the season but getting to sit back and enjoy it would be great. I'm a terrible cook and used to spend hours struggling to cook the dinner that would be eaten in 5 minutes so the biggest break for me has been booking a lovely Christmas dinner at a restaurant on Christmas eve the last few year. We all got a treat and despite a lot of grumbling about the cost DH has accepted it's the new tradition and I've booked it again this year. Then Christmas day I do all the special no-cook buffet food and play with the kids toys. You have to see it as a brilliant achievement organising and hosting a family Christmas and a gift to your guests I think or resentment can creep in. And buy yourself a special present. No-one gets me anything so I always treat myself to something that I can look forward to that will brighten January.

Hmmm, so your siblings always just turn up with their partners but you do all the work? And you’re fed up. Understandable.

Why do it?

Stop and say it is someone else’s turn this year.

I read nibbles as giblets at first

It must be lovely. I go every other year to my ILs and if it weren’t for the fact that my FIL is a toxic old bastard and the house is like a mausoleum it would be lovely. When they come to us he stands around telling me that everything will be ok and to stay calm. I am calm. He’s pissing me off and he’s never cooked in his life! EFF OFF BASTARD

Until you stop enabling the behaviour nothing will change.

I definitely feel like I'm the "capable one" that can manage cooking for 12 people. We have been on holiday all together before and taken turns cooking and you can tell who is used to cooking for large groups and who isn't 😁

If I handed the reins over to one of my siblings, I'd be afraid we'd be sitting down to eat at 8pm!

And since we come to stay with my parents several times a year, I feel a bit more "at home" than my siblings, who live closer so have little reason to stay over - usually just Christmas.

There's lots of reasons why it's difficult, but there's no harm in having a little daydream about having an easy ride at Christmas - though in fact, achieving it would bring its own challenges!

I have come to really dislike the whole thing. I don't mind the cooking as it gives me something to do!

I dream of the carribean for a week, no xmas dinner and no boring twixmas to fill.

I wish I could do this! Every year I stress over the turkey that no one is overly keen on yet I buy one every year! Might dare to be different this year 😆

I don’t get this at all. DH’s has responsibility for his side presents, I do my side. We sit and write cards together.
Food wise we plan well ahead and he does most of the cooking with me usually making desserts.

This year we will jointly cook a ham for a Christmas eve party and he will do much of the sides. We’ll prep Christmas day veg and so on together. He’ll make stuffing. I do gravy and carving/ serving up.
We clear up together.
We plan the shopping list and go together.
I do the decorations but he gets them out with me and floofs the trees and hoovers when done.

There isn’t much discussion when we are actually doing it, we just seem to mirror each other naturally.

He is amazing actually!

I have @lxn889121 and @Lillers ideal Christmas most years.

I do the advance work (buying presents, wrapping, planning, tree, placing food orders etc). DH does making the breakfast Bloody Marys, to go with the bagels, and all of Christmas dinner and Boxing Day food.

On the flip side to you, I’d love to be the one to host of big family Christmas, to do all the planning and cooking, to have people just turn up at my home and enjoy themselves.
Unfortunately I wasn’t able to have children, didn’t marry, my parents are too old to enjoy much and my siblings went down the line of a “just us” for their family Christmases.
I only have my elderly parents and my dog to buy presents for, don’t get any in return now parents are too old to manage, friends long since dropped doing Christmas presents when their kids came along. I love cooking but no one comes for dinner. No one comes to see all of the decorations I put up (yes, I put them up for myself!).
So there’s always the other side to a situation. Your daydream to turn up and be served would also be my daydream to have people turn up and be hosted and looked after by me. I’m not criticising your dream btw, just adding the flip side.

Pie and peas! That’s it! Super duper easy

We are a small family of 3 and alternate Christmas with our parents. Then we sometimes spend the evening with extended family :)

Last couple of years we’ve eaten out which has been great, meaning I just get food in for Christmas eve and snacks/nibbles/treats.

I do love being in the kitchen with my mum though, with Christmas songs on, drinking bucks fizz while we make Christmas dinner 💚♥️

DH goes nowhere near dinner which is just as well but he does ‘organise’ the gifts on Xmas eve 😆 and plays with DS all Christmas Day. He also takes the grandads for a pint!

We all have our uses 😆

I don't mind the thinking and buying and wrapping, I don't mind the cooking... My Christmas wish would be to live with people that give as much of a shit about Christmas as I do.

My husband and 18-year old son indulge me to a point, my husband will take on anything I ask (I mean, OBVIOUSLY I have to delegate and bear the entire mental load) and in fairness my son isn't too bad - but they are bewildered by my delight in the decorations, they'd rather eat their own feet than come to a Christmas market with me, or carol concert, they don't give a shit about Christmas films...

When my son was little, loads of traditions and rituals were established that we both really enjoyed. Now he's pretty much an adult, he REALLY doesn't want to be doing the Christmas baking with me, or a Christmas craft day, or going to a farm to feed reindeer, or taking the dogs on a walk to find the best Christmas lights... Of course he doesn't. What teenage boy on the brink of manhood does?

BUT I STILL LOVE ALL OF THOSE THINGS. And while I can do all of them on my own, it's not the same.

So that's what I would like. A magical year where my family gifts me the magic back.

I couldn’t be bothered with all of that.

We either go away or tell people we’re away and then enjoy our Christmas with just the 3 of us. Absolute bliss.