Do we have a MN Christmas threads full house yet?

[CloseEncountersOfTheTerfKind]

Another thread has made me realise there are so many threads/posts about Christmas stresses and angst, and the same things seem to pop up every year. Every single year! I think we need cards and a competition to see who wins Full House first...

DH went out for his works Christmas party and has not come home yet and it's 7am - where is he?

[churchandstate]

My favourites are the gift ingrate threads:

Plastic tat
Baylis and Harding horrible stinking blah
Candles
I don’t eat chocolate
We rarely drink
Blankets give me hives
Storage
Will go straight to the charity shop/be regifted/used to line the dog’s basket/go on the compost heap

[Isleepinahedgefund]

... don't forget the person who always comes on threads like this for telling you how sad/lonely/bitter/awful you are for posting threads that make fun of people....

They've already been to this thread! Bingo!

I loved this thread by the way. I normally find that numbest gets a bit dull at Christmas but now I'm going to play thread bingo!

Haven't seen a "SIL is charging us for Christmas lunch" one yet this year.

And let's not forget the inevitable Christmas Day meltdown threads:

My present was crap
DH didn't get me anything, I got him a Porsche
DD told DS Santa isn't real on Christmas morning
The cat ripped all the presents open and knocked over the tree
MIL said my sprouts were over cooked and DH agreed
And a few tipsy MerRy Chris Mass everyone hic threads in the early evening

[DadDadDad]

Have you got the "parent of DS's classmate is cross with me because my DS told the classmate that Santa isn't real, and they wanted to keep the magic going for another year"? At which point we discover they're in year 8.

[BarbaraofSeville]

The cat ripped all the presents open and knocked over the tree

Bagsy that one. We have 4 x 8 month old kittens and we haven't put the tree up yet, because I fear what they will do to it.

First year we had cats, they did open a load of presents, trying to find the catnip mice someone had bought them.

We also have one whose party trick is chewing through the cable for the lights. Thank fuck for low voltage.

[FruitcakeOfHate]

Don't forget the martyrs!

'My MIL just got out of prison for attempted to murder me with a butter knife and my dog, too. IABU not to invite her to Christmas dinner?'

Martyr: 'Yeah, well, it's Christmas and you should be grateful you even have a MIL! Mine died before DH was born, he had to be gestated in someone's handbag.'

[CloseEncountersOfTheTerfKind]

I am imagining us all sitting here licking our bingo pencils, and peering over the top of our glasses (which have little chains attached to them so we can take them off and wear them dangling over our bosoms)

[CloseEncountersOfTheTerfKind]

Gestated in someone's handbag

I LOVE THIS THREAD.

[Isleepinahedgefund]

There have been a lot of OMG quel horreur I've got a SURPRISE VEGAN coming what do I DO?!!!!!! threads this year.

Answer bingo:

Uninvite them immediately even though they're your bestest friend ever and they've flown halfway round the world to see you

Make your whole meal vegan you selfish planet destroying meat eater it's not too late even though you bought all the food months ago and they only turned vegan this morning

Make the selfish vegan bring their own and sit in a corner by themselves in disgrace, the self righteous selfish person

Just serve them the vegetables

They can make an effort and just eat meat for this one day (selfish spoilsport vegan that they are)

M&S do it all frozen, why does anyone cook anything at all at Christmas

I've donated all my Christmas food to the food bank so the vegan can eat dust and air with the rest of us. Is dust vegan by the way?

[CrocodileFrock]

And then there's the inevitable thread where the guests (usually a BIL and SIL) take home the unused food and drink? Bonus points if the guests arrived empty-handed and still took stuff.

• BIL arrived for dinner with an out-of-date box of mince pies. Needless to say, we didn't let those foul supermarket-bought monstrosities pass our lips. BIL knows I spend hours making my puddings from scratch! And now I discover that he's gone home with three bottles of my best wine and all of the leftover Christmas cake (homemade of course!). AIBU to kill the selfish arse?

Would-be snobs: How dare you use the word "pudding"? Everyone knows that one should always say "dessert"!

[Thread temporarily derails as various factions argue the merits of "pudding" vs "dessert]

Food puritans: How can you eat two courses? I'm always full to bursting after one brussel sprout and a carrot stick! Such gluttony!

Smug-brigade: He bought mince pies from a supermarket? Tell your DH that you're going no-contact with his disgrace of a brother. If he doesn't join you then LTB!

The had-a-few-bottles-of-wine-already brigade: You're such a tight-arse! It's Christmas. Whatever happened to the spirit of goodwill?

[Someone jokes that BIL probably drank that too and is promptly banished from the thread]

The upright and uptight gang: But that's theft! Call the police and log it! You might even be able to claim the cost of the wine back on your household insurance.

The lets-go-to-the-spa brigade: Book yourself a spa weekend with DH's credit card. You deserve it!

[SmuggyMcKnobson]

This thread is like a breath of fresh air.

I was seriously beginning to think that I was the only one who wants to just write FFS on all the types of threads mentioned here.

[wanderings]

Christmas was originally a Pagan festival, with nothing to do with the birth of Christ: tick tick tick.

AIBU to cancel Christmas: although there have been a few threads about it, I haven't yet seen the reply "you've said you'll cancel it, so you have to FOLLOW THROUGH, and too bad about all the presents you've bought".

The thread about whether or not to charge devices before Christmas was a new one, especially combined with the rights or wrongs of "teaching them the lesson that things need to be charged" on Christmas Day.

[Obligatorync]

Ooh I have one! After two years of heady success, my MIL has ticked the wrong box on the customs form again and my choice is (a) pay the £45 they want for her Christmas parcel (b) ask her for the money or (c) let it be returned to her.

None of them appeal. I've just paid up in the past.

[francienolan]

Don't forget the threads where someone posts asking for advice or is stressed about Christmas dinner, and the dozens of replies that say "Christmas dinner is JUST a glorified roast!" Followed by the phrase "bung it all in the oven"

[CloseEncountersOfTheTerfKind]

If you don't literally cancel Christmas, put a lump of coal in their stockings.

FML as my teenagers would say.

[CloseEncountersOfTheTerfKind]

And take the Christmas tree down.

(This is a general point, sorry to take the funnies out of the thread ) Do people seriously do things like this, for bad behaviour? Either they have DC who are too old to give a monkeys the tree has gone, or they are young enough to be upset that the tree is gone, in which case what can they have done that's terrible enough to cancel Christmas/take trees down?

I don't know. I just think if DC are naughty enough to have Christmas cancelled, it's surely not just bad behaviour over Christmas, it must be the rest of the time? When mine were little, Christmas was the one time of the year to be more relaxed and cut a bit more slack due to high excitement levels (and that was just me )

Maybe I'll start a fight on this thread now as people will either think yes I agree, or your DC are older, you can't remember fuck all about it so don't be SmuggyMcKnobson

[CloseEncountersOfTheTerfKind]

(no offence to the real SmuggyMcKnobson!)

That's not a sentence you say every day...

[Isleepinahedgefund]

I don't know anyone who has actually cancelled Christmas. I know a couple of parents who have threatened to - and yes, their kids are little shits all year round and threatening to cancel Christmas yields absolutely no improvement in their behaviour, and possibly makes it worse.

[Isleepinahedgefund]

Ooh ooh ooh how could we forget the "I'm WORKING at CHRISTMAS" threads where the OP is heaping recriminations on anyone who isn't. I've seen at least one already.

I understand that it's a bummer to work over Christmas but it's not my fault they have to - the tone of the thread is always that anyone who isn't working over Christmas should deliberately enjoy themselves less in order to compensate.

See also "I haven't had Christmas off for 10 years because Brenda always gets in there first." Although I genuinely feel sorry for those posters.

And the "thank you hic to all the nurses who arrrrrr working today..." posts on Xmas day afternoon - I'm sure your tipsy posts from your front room at home make it aaaalll better for them hey!

[TriangularRatbag]

Thanks @CloseEncountersOfTheTerfKind - gave me a good laugh

[DreamingofSunshine]

@FruitcakeOfHate I wet myself at the gestating handbag!

People definitely lose their sense humour at Christmas.

Although I've been guilty of taking presents straight to the charity shop pile, but in my defence DS was a baby and it was a lego set that he would have eaten.

[PlomBear]

Reading all the inane posts this time of year...🥴

[SmuggyMcKnobson]

@CloseEncountersOfTheTerfKind

[CloseEncountersOfTheTerfKind]

I imagine actually cancelling Christmas would give you that feeling like when you drop your DC off at the school gates, and they're crying because you had a row over hair brushing that morning. There is nothing like that feeling of horribleness when they've gone in all upset, even though it was for their own good.

I imagine cancelling Christmas would give you that horrible feeling of guilt and upset, and who wants that at Christmas?!

[derxa]

What about the multiple "AIBU to insist that Santa is frightfully horrid, common and American 😱, we shall only refer Father Christmas (Pere Noel at a push), and we should rebuild Hadrian's Wall to keep out the disgusting riffraff who maintain that Santa is a perfectly reasonable, established traditional figure". My favourite this year. Normally nothing phases me on MN but the steam was coming out my ears this time. You might think an SNP bot had started the thread. In other news my DH has bought me a shepherd's crook.

[70isaLimitNotaTarget]

And take the Christmas tree down

Well, I have done precisely this .
Tree went up last Saturday . Lovely family tradition , watched a film that we always watch this time of year . Tree sat splendidly in the corner Ahhhhh

Then on the Monday ( less than three days ) one of my "Dear" Twins (the cats) decided to chew the wires and the bulbs

As I don't really fancy electicution .for Christmas , I told them the Christmas Tree is coming down

How many fecks were given?
The square root of Diddly Squat .

Female cat is on The Naughty List