“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.

Oh, you'd still be able to go to the pub. 👍

I'm working Christmas Day so nothing would change for me personally. DS 3 and DP would stay at home rather than going to the inlaws and have a relatively normal day, I imagine.

I'd be concerned about my mum spending the day on her own, nearly 80 days self isolating was really bad for her mental health.

I've been saying for a while now that I suspect we'll be back in lockdown on 2nd Jan 2021 as the government know people wouldn't stick to the rules over Christmas and New Year. Though the way things are going I imagine it'll be lockdown mark 3, rather than lockdown 2.

But I am assuming most people who had planned an Eid party had only sorted it for one other household not a vast number of households, and if they had, that was one of the reasons they had to enforce the lockdown.

if my dm was joining us or vs versa we would carry on regardless.

not going to her her on her own!

@FuzzyPuffling

Halloween, however, is completely fucked.

HURRAH!!!!!

Oh god, yes please! In hate the constant stream of trick or treaters.

i agree
what is the point of this post?

@CraftyGin

Reading through this thread, the one bit of practical advice is that, if you are a traveller for Christmas, makes sure you have a couple of days food in the house. I imagine the big shops will still be closed for two days.

If Christmas does go into lockdown at the last minute, it’s going to affect New Year too. This would affect my children, who are all young adults. I thing Edinburgh Hogmanay has already been cancelled?

They've stopped selling tickets for the Edinburgh Hogmanay as they won't be able to have as many people as usual. It's not been decided if that, or the Christmas markets, will be completely cancelled, or just scaled back.

I think the OP is trying to argue that cancelling Xmas is not a big deal and has cleverly chosen to do so on a site famously populated by people who don't like their families, don't open their doors and downplay anyone "making a fuss" (apart from situations where their mil looks at them a bit funny, in which case they spend many hours talking about how she is narcissistic and triggering and swapping tips about how to go no contact).

Sorry, that should read cancelling Xmas by tweet at 9.30 the night before

I would suck the juice out of a liquor chocolate.

Pretty much fuck all - I’m estranged from my Stately Homes parents (so that jeans entire family sees me as black sheep) , only child, and my partner’s parents are dead and his siblings do their own thing. My eldest child is estranged from me in the USA with his rapist and financially abusive father and it’s my youngest’s turn to be with her abusive father. Frankly, Christmas can go fuck itself (for the third year running)

I kind of had a 'cancelled Christmas' one year.

We were invited to my InLaws for Xmas Day and Boxing Day.
250m trip.
Christmas Eve 8pm MIL called to say she thought it would be
'too stressful for her and SIL to manage the extra mouths'
(no money / space issues, reg host larger groups, plus we were taking our pre-arranged food contribution of M&S fancy puddings)

We had no Christmas food in at all
Had packed to go (best clothes, Christmas gifts in sacks)
My children were 4 and 6.

horrible (the kids were quite upset)
but, we survived (though my relationship with MIL didn't)
And we ate a lot of fancy puddings over the next few days.

I hope that if family gatherings are restricted over Christmas then the Govt gives people more warning than they have for Eid.

For me this Christmas the main loss would be Church.
I really missed Easter (take part in a short pilgrimage v important to me) Mind you my Church is not yet open so I'm missing it now

We have no guests don’t go mad either on food we have luxuries. So for us no problem present sent earlier in the month.

Given that we don’t live near any of our families, on Christmas Eve we would always be with family if we were seeing them. Our Christmas Eve activities would be the same regardless of where we are and remain the same.

We stay with my mum, so I wouldn’t be able to see my dad or grandparents over the Christmas period. The problem would be my grandma or grandad, who are both single households on either side of my family, they wouldn’t have company for Christmas. Both my grandparents have followed the guidelines really well and so I’m not sure they would be comfortable breaking lockdown guidelines to spend Christmas with someone.

We usually alternate - one year with my family and one year at home by ourselves. This year we were due to travel to my family but I’m not sure if we will this year. Christmas at my grandad’s would be 4 households mixing (but only 6 people) and I don’t think that’s going to be appropriate, especially as 2 households will be seeing other family - some on Christmas Day and some over the Christmas period. We’ll be fine staying home by ourselves but we would usually travel up a few weeks before and do a mini Christmas and I think I’ll struggle not doing that. Especially as I’ve not seen my family since February and we usually see them every 6-8 weeks. I’m not expecting to see them this year really. My family are also in an area with recent lockdown restrictions so that’s factoring into my doom and gloom.

“In terms of family get togethers, people who were already in each others' houses would stay there, but other guests wouldn't be able to come. Some would still go to their grandparents/cousins/sisters, with kids in tow, but stand at the end of the path, crying and trying to calm their children down. Others would stay at home, crying, and trying to comfort children who don't understand why they can't see grandma at Xmas or receive presents from her.

There would be significant number of households who had spent weeks preparing for and days cooking for Xmas, decorating their houses, rearranging their furniture, setting up their tables, buying luxury food, choosing presents in anticipation of sharing them with people they loved, whose plans would now be shattered. Like my friend's mother, who sobbed as her immediate family helped her to bed before selecting which food to pack away in the freezer so she wouldn't wake up and see it the next day.

And then that next day, bereft of the warmth and company of those they loved, those same householders would watch other people piling into pubs while they couldn't hug their children.

It would, in short, be pretty devastating.“

I think the pubs should be shut as well. But the above is precisely why it had to be “cancelled” - nobody should be planning the sort of event described above in the first place. All these plans were involving just two households indoors or up to 6 individuals from different households outside were they? Correctly socially distancing, while “hugging their (presume adult) children”? Yes, it’s awful people can’t celebrate the way they want, but that’s the rules, put in place for good reason. One low key year isn’t actually that big a sacrifice - Christmas, Eid or whatever celebration it is.

Surely if the rules still said only 2 households can mix indoors, no one would have plans to have Christmas dinner with huge numbers of people anyway. I would also be very wary of meeting indoors in the middle of winter too if things are still as mow, or worse.

Christmas wouldn't be cancelled, you'd just have to stay in your own family group.

It almost certainly wouldn't impact me although I may be doing it with friends this year and as the husband is currently undergoing radiotherapy - just completed - chemotherapy and immunotherapy for stage 4 lung cancer, that would have to be called off.

I think for a lot of people who celebrate Christmas it's at home with the immediate family and as food and presents would already be sorted it wouldn't make that much difference to most people. If, however, we celebrated Christmas in the same communal, lots of family outside immediate family, as Muslims celebrate Eid-Ul-Adha, it would be pretty devastating and I think that the government doing exactly that to them yesterday was completely out of order.

My DBs would have to concoct their own lunch from the contents of their cupboards. Our DM died a few years ago and as they're in their 20s, I want to look after them at Christmas. There would be a lot of food waste as that would be 6 fewer adults (my DBs and their partners) and a child.

We're not religious but I don't think the impact on practising Christians should be underestimated.

For me selfishly, it would be wonderful it would mean I wouldn't have to work for the first Christmas since leaving school 22 years ago, we wouldn't have a great deal of food in as we meet at my parents once I we finished work for lunch.. My parents would still cook us a meal and one of us would collect it from the porch, exchange gifts and we'd spend the day just the two of us and our pooches... absolute bliss

@user1495884620

I understand the point being made in relation to Eid.

But there is still absolutely no point in winding people up about ifs and whatever's that are unlikely to happen. It's scaremongering and not helpful .

@Linemanfort

Why would they spend weeks preparing when only two households can mix anyway ?

@howfarwevecome

So you are saying they would have been breaking the rules that were in place prior to Friday ?

@howfarwevecome but people shouldn't have been preparing food for a large number of people, because under the current guidelines, before the additional lockdown rules, that isn't allowed. It is sad that due to the selfishness of many people, families who had planned a small gathering with 6 outside or another household inside were not allowed to carry on.

It would be a plan b Christmas. Ie with backup Xmas dinner I keep in the freezer in case bad weather/illnness etc stop us going to the inlaws.