Christmas with young kids is shit

[tuttifuckinfruity]

anyone else?

It looks wonderful with kids from maybe age 5 or so......but I have a 3 year old and a 1 year old and my husband and I are tearing our hair out.

3 year old is obviously overexcited, but that has manifested in some pretty naughty / defiant behaviour today. 1 year old doesn't have a clue and, when the 3 year old is behaving nicely and trying to help wrap some last minute presents / lay out snacks for Santa and Rudolph, the 1 year old is ripping up wrapping paper and scattering milk and porridge oats everywhere. Which gets the 3 year old stressed and bad tempered.

I dunno. It's just chaos. But everyday is chaos with them. I'm not really explaining it very well, I know I'm not. I know I'm not the only one, but I'm just putting out there in contrast to all the perfect Facebook posts doing the rounds tonight.

Happy Christmas 🥃

The year my nephew was 3 , he was so excited in the run up to Christmas, my brother didn't actually tell him that Christmas Eve had arrived. So Michael woke up to his stocking on his bed, and signs that Father Christmas had been, including a note telling them that as they'd obviously forgotten he was coming, he'd helped himself to whisky and a mince pie and a carrot for the reindeer, and he hoped they didn't mind.
Michael of course, didn't realise that he'd missed out on anything, but I felt my brother had. Christmas Eve was so special in our house, and I loved having babies and toddlers about. Mess and all.

My children are 18, 16 and 14 and I've loved every minute so far. They are all sleeping in the same room for one night because they did when they were little and we've been tracking santa all day and they were so excited leaving out mince pies and lemonade for Father Christmas. It's so much nicer and less stressful than when they were little. Happy Christmas everyone x

Yup, two and a baby here, and you've reminded me next year will be worse when the baby is a toddler...

As a mum of 2 teenage boys I would say make life as easy as possible for yourself. They don’t remember when they grow up! When mine were really young, Father Christmas appeared unexpectedly on Christmas Eve a couple of times - meant we had no early mornings!
I agree. When DS was 2 we did midnight mass, then presents, then bed at 2am, slept until midday. Make the most of it!

My kids are all grown up now but I remember Christmases as being damned hard work when they were little, yes there were lovely moments, but it was hard work. DS1 used to get ridiculously wound up, I clearly remember one year when we couldnt get him to sleep on Christmas Eve no matter what we did, I think it was gone midnight before he properly settled, then he was awake again about 4 hours later. We were both shattered that Christmas Day and both boys were grumpy and badly behaved while we visited my parents and tried to keep them under control.

I wish someone had told me not to put so much pressure on myself back then trying to have the "perfect" Christmas. Just do what you can and try to enjoy it, there will be a lot the kids dont remember anyway.

@lovemakespeace 100% agree. i clicked on this thread for some nostalgia - its not just C eve it was all the time that i remember it being hard. kids are now 11, 12 and 14 i'm supremely proud of them and those early years are now a world away and photos are all i have left of that time. deep breaths all round and take lots of pics even of the tantrums they are the funniest when they are older- it will pass in a flash everyone honest! xxx

I made the mistake of having my four year old neice for a few hours this afternoon, to give her mum time to do some last minute bits as she's been working all the run up.

Being child free, I'd imagined a lovely afternoon of Christmas crafts, a bit of baking, maybe a few christmas songs, and then I'd bask in the glow of being Awesome Auntie and reflect on how lucky I am to have such wonderful little people in my life.

My usually sweet-natured niece has been an absolute twatbag all afternoon. She's overtired, overexcited and over stimulated. She had a huge tantrum, which is most unlike her, over what flavour ice cream to have.

Managed to calm her down enough to settle and watch a film but she was just overwrought with it all. In hindsight, I should have just taken her lead rather than trying to get her to do the stuff I thought she ought to be doing. We'd have both had a better day for it!

Meh. I refuse to engage with all the commercialism.

We've been to the park this AM, played in the snow, watched Home Alone, had popcorn, played a few games. Will leave a biscuit out for Rudolf, then bed. I'm not going too crazy, the kids are excited enough as it is!

OP I hear you I have a 3 year old and 10 month old and this year has been a slog. I’ve found the last couple of weeks easier in some respects (partly because older DC know Santa is always watching) but also there’s been a lot on locally to do. Christmas trails to follow, advent calendars along streets, special streets of Christmas lights. She also loves craft so we have been doing lots of Christmas craft. I decided early on we aren’t doing elf on the shelf or Christmas Eve boxes (too much faff) and our tradition DH and I had and have now carried on with the kids is a (nice) takeaway pizza Christmas Eve in front of a film. They’ve been overexcited and a handful but tucking my three year old in and her shaking with excitement bought back all those memories from my childhood and made me so happy that I’ve helped create that for her. I am lucky as they both went down at normal time so can’t complain there. Tomorrow will be long and tiring but hopefully nice. I’m anxious about January and February and how crap it’s going to be so have made myself get in the spirit this Christmas. But it’s ok to find it stressful, it’s ok to not enjoy it hugely, ok to be excited for them they’re older. Try to see the little lovely moments and get those pics that they hate having taken because one day you will be looking back misty eyed.

I’m sorry if that sounded patronising. I’ve just come out the other side of severe PND and wishing I’d never had kids for months since DC2 so I’m in the ‘honeymoon phase’ at the moment.

Its really hard work. Mine are 4 and I swear the school have been building it up since mid-Nov so now they are about ready to explode. Such hard work, I want to chill but I cant. Work is easier.

I'll swap for an argumentative, stroppy, ungrateful nearly 13yo who stripped off to her room after telling her sister to eff off, and hasn't been seen since. The 8yo is being an absolute sweetheart and telling me how perfect this evening was. If it wasn't for her I'd take the tree down and stay in bed tomorrow.

I enjoy it now.... mine are 20 and 16

*stropped off

It is a handful and there are times you wanna scream.

I promise you this though, you will look back on these years with fond memories. I sure do. I promise!

You’re so right OP!

People who don’t have kids the same age don’t realise that children that age have no clue really what’s going on - just that it’s something everyone gets excited about.

I’m a bit jealous though because you have it all to look forward to. My eldest is 9 and I think this will be our last year. So sad. You don’t get long at all.

I'm so glad I found this thread. DH is from a country that celebrates on 24th so we did our Christmas dinner and some presents tonight. So much prep, cooking, cleaning, then in the end DS (2) was being so naughty we had to eat in shifts while the other constantly supervised him to stop him from throwing lamps/playing with cables/spilling food everywhere. Has just left me wondering what the point of all the hard work was

Seriously - enjoy it!

Mother of two adult sons. Christmas mayhem and magic has not happened here for a decade or more.

My elder son's stepdaughters (4 and 7) are coming for the day tomorrow and we are beyond excited to experience all of the Christmas excitement with them, mess and all.

I put a small Christmas Eve gift together just pj I had to buy anyway, a small cheap Dino (£1) and some old glow in the dark Sara that my sister left behind when she moved out. When my 3 year old came back from the park he ran gabbed the present ripped it open in the room furthest away from me... honestly I'm scared for tomorrow

Mine are now 6 and 8 and high maintenance in a different way, but I remember when they were the age yours are OP and a family member saying "Merry Christmas!" and I responded "it's really not MERRY at all!" it took me a long time to realise Christmas with small children is nothing like it was before we had them. It's definitely more joyful now that I can get 5 mins to get stuff done and they can join in with more things etc but their behaviour is so undeserving of presents sometimes! It gets easier

Stars not Sara 🤣

@Bunnybigears I have a teen and a preteen too - neither are in bed yet! I also have a six month-old who is wide-awake and wired!!

He also tried to stay up late to catch Santa running around the house hiding.

Yep as are most tings. I used to lie about the date of Christmas, how many more sleeps, same for holiday as quite frankly the pain wasn't worth it with Dts. It does get better though.

Yup, my 3 year old has not wanted to cooperate with any of the nice pictures I've wanted to take 😂 He won't watch anything except Mr Tumble or Blippi so no Christmas movies for us! I hope he's just a bit young yet and that the best is yet to come!