“Cancelling Christmas” what would this look like?

[CraftyGin]

Imagine that at 9pm on Christmas Eve, a government minister tweets that lock down is intensivied with immediate effect. How would that affect you personally, recognising that we all have different ideas of Christmas.

Our church activities are 11pm service (which would be unaffected), and Christmas morning service. TBH, I would be happy to skip this service but generally have to show up as a warden. All of our services from March onwards are streamed on YouTube, and this will continue indefinitely

Presents - Amazon.

Guests - my DS1 and his wife have stayed for the last two years. With a short notice announcement, they would already have been here for four or five days, so presumably they would continue to stay. My locally living DS and DIL would not be able to socialise, but we could give them a food package.

We would continue to Zoom relatives far from us, and DS would be included as he is now.

Christmas food has leftovers built in, so we would not have any waste.

MIL and DC would already be here. See my parents the week before.

Wouldn't go to mass on Xmas morning but God would understand because he's God.

Friends who usually come Boxing Day wouldn't.

Not a big deal.

It might finally bring on the civil unrest when people decide that they have simply HAD ENOUGH of being screwed over by Her Majesty's incompetent bunch of clowns.

By 9pm on Christmas Eve all the food needed would have been bought, all
Presents would already be wrapped and under the tree, and any guests would already be here (or we would be guests at someone else’s house) we love to far away from anyone to have guests on the day so actually a lock down at 9pm on Xmas eve would have absolutely no impact on our Christmas at all! We could probably be in the house for a week without having to leave and then it would be for milk etc.

It will be the same as last Christmas, only I won't be in bed sick. I had flu (or possibly COVID) all Christmas week, so couldn't visit family as planned. We had to cancel our hotel stay too. I had a brief Facetime session with my mum on Christmas day.

We had a turkey lunch with all the trimmings two weeks later and got together a month or so later to exchange pressies. No big deal.

It's potentially just one year. Not the end of the world.

If there was a last minute Christmas Eve lockdown the real sufferers would be those who invited their difficult MILs to stay while telling themselves "it's just until Boxing Day" only to find they've decided it will be safer to stay put until the lockdown ends

I think the issue is that no one has had the balls to say that this is about Eid because it could be perceived as anti-Muslim, whereas it should have just been dealt with head on earlier in the week: “Look guys, we’re really sorry, but infection is rising again too fast and we know it’s Eid, but we would have had to do the same for Rosh Hashanah and Christmas, and as you know we already had Easter and Passover under lockdown.” Technically Easter most important festival anyway. Christmas actually pagan festival commandeered by early church.

I dont think Christmas will be cancelled but perhaps scaled down. No big family gatherings or trying to please everyone at the same time...every cloud

@SnuggyBuggy, this is the nightmare scenario for DH....

t might finally bring on the civil unrest when people decide that they have simply HAD ENOUGH of being screwed over by Her Majesty's incompetent bunch of clowns.

So that's an excuse for putting other people's lives at risk? It's exactly this attitude that will make a last-minute closedown of Christmas inevitable.

Anyone who is making huge plans for this Christmas is quite frankly dreaming.

This is out first Christmas living close to Dh family - we moved here in Jan and he was looking forward to having xmas with everyone coming over, he’s not spent xmas with his family in years.

That all changed in March. It was quite clear then that this virus is going no where and we’d probably be in a shitty situation in winter. That’s just the reality of it.

So it will just be us and the kids anyway, presents ordered from Amazon as usual as I hate shops anyway and a roast dinner.

We wouldn't be going out to eat. But I could rustle up fish finger sandwiches.

It totally depends what the mixing rules were at the time.

Last Christmas it would have meant cooking all the food as normal then delivering food for the 17 who couldn't come into the house to their house/AirBnb/Premier Inn. The 12 staying in the house would have much more table space.

This year plans will likely be very different. Which will be difficult as it'll be the first without FIL, and DH's BIL & family were due over from Australia for Christmas, but everyone has already agreed it not going to be possible to have our usual Christmas.

And I hate the phrase “cancelling Christmas”.

It’s not like Boris is going to send out the army on xmas eve to seize and burn all your presents and arrest Santa and the baby Jesus.

If it happened at 9pm on Christmas Eve my mum would already be with me. Not much point packing up and driving 160 miles home at that point, we'd just stick to our plans.

The issue would be if the announcement was made by the 22nd as that would be before we went

Yes my mum usually comes Christmas Eve morning, so as long as they hadn't announced anything by 9am on 24th we'd be ok. Any earlier than that and we'd have a dilemma, that said she bubbles with us anyway.

Easter was cancelled. Couldn't even go to mass. Acting on the presumption that Christmas is probably cancelled. I do think the timing of the announcement so last minute relative to Eid was rather unfortunate.

I would be distraught. We're a very Christmasy family. We have our own traditions, and us all being together is really important to us. If my daughters, their partners and my grandchild couldn't be with me for Christmas, we'd all struggle with that a lot.

I feel enormous sympathy and empathy for the Muslim community. Eid is all about hospitality and the sharing of food with family, friends and neighbours. This must be dreadful for them.

Well Easter was cancelled which is one of the two main festivals in one religion.

In the case of no church services, lockdown, no NT Easter Egg Hunts etc

My mum lives with us, so not much would change really. The outlaws might be here already, not sure what their plans are this year. Neither me nor OH have siblings and DC is only 7

We’re planning on prepping ahead and taking presents to relatives in good time, just in case and I always prep and freeze Christmas dinner ahead (the veg and accompaniments), so food shopping will be done ahead, just in case of an earlier lockdown

Won't make any difference to me!

It would be bliss. Wouldn't have to make up excuses for not seeing the rest of the family. I love Xmas with just the four of us.

Normally I’d have 10 extra for Christmas lunch. We just won’t plan a family gathering this year probably and just have our household. We’ll go to church if it’s open and zoom church if it’s not. Kids presents will have been bought for ages, we already have a tree, decorations and more lights than Blackpool which will go up regardless. We’ll have a different Christmas meal to the traditional turkey, depending on what’s available and what we fancy. Basically we will plan a very low key Christmas anyway and then we won’t be disappointed. It’ll make a nice change, and one slightly lame Christmas out of a lifetime won’t hurt. Hopefully we’ll have a big family Easter, or summer bbq instead.

I'm buying presents now, just stuff to open really so we'd probably have a Zoom present opening session.

My parents are in a support bubble with us so hopefully we could still go there or they could come to us so we'd have a bit of family time.

We might walk over to a couple of friend's houses and wish them Happy Christmas from a distance.

Then board games, chocolate and lots of crap Christmas TV.

We've had other Christmases that were disrupted for one reason or another, we'd manage it's not the end of the world!

Well, I would be prepared for the possibility of this happening and would suck it up and focus on the fact that we were healthy. In fact, it would make for a nice relaxing day! I wouldn't blame the govt. Perhaps I would silently curse all the irresponsible idiots who had caused another lockdown.

On Christmas we usually go to every ones house which is a farce because we don't drive. Did it last year with a 9 month old and said never again.

This upset a lot of family, so I'd actually be a bit smug if Christmas got cancelled at 9pm on Christmas Eve.

I'd also be leaving hand sanitizer next to the mince pie and brandy.