Share your Christmas expectations vs reality with NOW TV - chance to win £300 NOW CLOSED

[AnnMumsnet]

We all know the biscuit tin or movie version of the ‘perfect’ Christmas is not quite what actually happens at Christmas, and the team at NOW TV would love to know how different your expectations for the most wonderful time of the year were with how it actually went down.

Has snow or bad weather at Christmas stopped visitors from coming? Was your turkey still defrosting when the Queen was making her speech or did the dog ruin your lovingly decorated tree while you were out at the panto?

NOW TV say “if your Christmas plans go a bit wrong or you need something to distract the in laws then at NOW TV we’re all about making things extra easy: sign up and start watching instantly on one of our clever apps - including on iPad, iPhone, games consoles and selected Android devices - you’ll get access to loads of great content for families, including over 1,000 movies on demand plus a new premiere every day - including Christmas classics like Love Actually and big movies like Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them.”

Share your tale where the reality didn’t quite match up to what you envisaged at Christmas time you will be entered into a prize draw where one person will win a £300 voucher for the store of choice - from a list (which might make you feel a bit better! ).

Thanks and good luck
MNHQ

Standard Insight T and Cs Apply

My partner and I went over to his mother's for Christmas dinner, just a nice quiet meal for the three of us. She assured us that all the food was sorted, and all we needed to do was cook it. It sounded great, until I saw the meat she'd bought - a rib of beef. An 11 lb rib of beef. For three of us. It was more like a rib of brontosaurus! It only just fit into the big oven, and I reckon we'll be eating beef until well into the New Year. It was jolly nice though :)

Every year I envisage the perfect start to Christmas with Christmas Eve, tidy house, fresh bedding, presents wrapped, baking cookies and mulled wine all cosy watching Christmas films.... NO Christmas Eve is can't get anybody out of bed, so cannot clean all the rooms, cannot change the bedding, get it washed or ironed. Rush around wrapping last presents, run out of time for baking cookies and drink a gallon of mulled wine late evening watching a film shattered ! One year I will get it right.

Expectation: relaxing big family xmas

Reality: hectic family xmas

Expectation: a decent present
Reality: socks and a dressing gown (again!)

Being brought up on a farm my expectations were not too high; I knew there were cows to milk, people coming and getting their Christmas Day orders of clotted cream and cheese and my dad still having to work but...one Christmas was quite spoilt by a cow calving near lunchtime, only things did not go to plan and a difficult birth (Christmas Day Elf was in fact the Vet!) and it was nearer teatime we had a rather spoilt Christmas dinner!

Expectation was that MIL would stay at home, one mile from ours as she refused to come to us and insisted she was fed up with Christmas and wanted to stay on her own.
Reality was that, having delayed opening presents and putting dinner on to walk to hers mid morning to exchange gifts, she had put a sort of weird buffet on, which we were then obliged to eat. She then spent ages stalling us so we couldn't leave to get back to ours as she obviously had changed her mind about wanting to spend Christmas alone. The result was that we re invited her to ours and she said she'd come mid afternoon for a mince pie.
Back home, we started cooking and had to cobble together a veggie dish for her as she was arriving when our dinner was ready and doesn't eat meat.
If she'd only accepted our invitation in the first place...

My husband and I decided it would be fine to prep the turkey and then pop it in the oven overnight, so it just needed to be turned on in the morning. I had a sudden panic in the morning and decided to check online if that was wise....to discover it shouldnt have been out the fridge for more than 2 hours....it had been out for almost 12! We had to cook it anyway but I felt anxious all day and eve until I knew we hadn't poisoned anyone!!

I forgot to take my turkey out of the freezer... so no turkey for Christmas day, we had it yesterday instead :)

Expectation - everyone sitting round, relaxed and happy, drink in hand watching each other opening presents - followed by a beautiful stress-free roast dinner.

Reality - a mad free for all, mess and wrapping paper everywhere, bickering, dinner timing all out, and burned pigs in blankets!

it was my first Christmas cooking for extended family but one relation said not to worry, they'd help - all they did was lay the table

Expectation: That everyone in my family would love and adore their presentations that I had thoughtfully chosen.

Reality: i got sent to China for work with two days notice, returning back to the UK on Christmas Eve with a blocked credit card and only Tesco's to salvage Christmas. Happily most of the elderly aunts appreciated the bottles of gin. The 8 month old niece took more convincing...

My sons second Christmas but 1st at the in laws and they were so excited to have him there and for him to enjoy his Christmas dinner....the reality he slept the whole meal time and was niggled for the rest of the day!

I always hoped my blended family would come together and get on well even if just for one day. D
Reality - so different and not at all interested in each other's lives that christmas is a big challenge. I'm sure if I'd deliver the older ones the pressies - or cash! We would not see them at all.

made a chocolate cake for xmas day pudding - after I'd put it in the oven realised I'd left the butter out of it altogether.

I expected this amazing Barbie Campervan when I was a kid and I'd been desperate for it all year.

Reality: Plastic tat that consisted of 3000 pieces we had to seperate from the sheets ourselves and construct and it took about 5 days to build lol

I expected to have a lovely family meal with everyone engaging with each other in reality my kids left during the meal and went into play board games with their uncle.

Skiing at xmas in Austria - expected lots of the white stuff, but reality was it rained all the time, and were stuck in some hotel where no-one spoke much english, and old, fat men and women used the sauna naked, and then wandered around still naked!

My turkey was dry - tasted good in a pie the next day though

Expectation - Buying the kids loads of board games to play thinking they'd have happy, quiet times whiling away the hours playing them, leaving us to have a bit of peace over Xmas, reality- "Muuuum, Daaaad, we don't know what to do, it's so hard to understand the instructions, help us!". A load of hard, boring games that nobody wants to play! :)

Looking forward to Children really loving opening their carefully wrapped presents.

Reality one big go for it, paper everywhere. then not knowing who the presents were from.

Expectation - Santa Claus visits every household.

Reality - My household. Nope. !

Expectation : Having family with you and loving the time of year.
Reality : Please see above :o)

Expectation: getting up giving the kids a big hug, having a lovely breakfast together and playing Xmas music whilst opening presents. Cooking the dinner with family making an effort (after all it's Xmas day). Nice festive meal a few drinks and kids wash the pots.

Reality: it's 7am (kids still not up) best prepare and get dinner on.. its 12pm (kids still not up) I'm stressed.. pass the prosecco! Dinner all prepped by me it's 1pm kids have roused.. come down grumpy huffing and puffing! I've nearly finished the prosecco. Opened presents, left rubbish on floor for me to tidy. Have dinner, kids go back to their rooms and leave me to do the pots! Next year I'll go out,, they can do some chicken nuggets and fries

I had a Christmas vision. The extended family, aunts, nans, cousins, sisters, parents - everyone, would come and stay. We'd all muck in with the food etc and we'd have a real laugh. I had a new puppy too so plenty of people to keep him occupied. WRONG!!!! It was a disaster! Everybody turned up and mistakenly thought they were staying in a hotel. It felt like I didn't get to sit on my own sofa for a fortnight and on one occasion my cousin actually snatched the remote off me and changed the TV channel from something I was watching to something he wanted to watch - sport. Nobody mucked in, they just periodically came into the kitchen asking if I'd make them some food. Then on Christmas Day they helpfully said they would "leave me to it" while they all went to the pub!! When I served up Christmas dinner in the dining room, I eventually sat down to eat (on the dodgy chair) and I heard a thud. I went to see what the noise was and the puppy had managed to pull the turkey (which was nearly as big as him) off the table. I didn't shout. I just picked it up and cut the bits with teeth mark off it!! I didn't tell anybody what had happened and said the pup had knocked a book off the worktop.......

Thought we'd watch it's a wonderful life - the original version. Kids were v disappointed when it was in B&W - whoops!