Not Xmas celebration

[mickythefish]

I hate xmas, not as in baaa humbug, just I'm not a kid, don't really enjoy the whole process.

So this year going to go hikng on my own.

Anyone else got not Xmas celebrations?

Edited by mickythefish on Tuesday 19th November 06:18

[MikeM6]

I keep trying to not get involved with it as what I really want is a break from work and to relax. As you get older, you tend to wonder why everyone gets worse worked up about having "the perfect Christmas". The two best Christmas day meals I had were fillet steak last year and Mexican the year before.

However.... It's not about me, and other people like it. So I humour them.

[mickythefish]

I guess it's the atmosphere I hate. Would be nice to have not Xmas celebrations as an option.

[cliffords]

I hate it too. I have grown up kids , grandchildren, all here on the day and before or after. Sister and mother too.I have already started hating it now mid November. Wife says she likes it ,but will be stressing a week before ,and the next day will do a big sigh and say glad that's over .
I hate the hype, commercialisation, spending, mess, waste , disappointed, effort, expectations,stress, competition and overall the false made up happiness.
As I get older I genuinely hate it more and more . If I suggested we don't do it , I would be told off by all the family.
60 next year and I am floating the idea of not getting involved in 2025 as a gift to myself. Taking myself off to walk around in a warm place for a week .

[Jamescrs]

I make the effort as I have kids but buying gifts for wider family and having to visit everyone is becoming a major chore now.

I have now got to a point where my sister will inevitably give me a gift voucher and she has mooted I give her the same, complete waste of time. I need to speak to her about an agreement where we both just don't bother and buy gifts for each others kids only but it's now too close to Xmas and if I suggest it just after I seem ungrateful so I'll have to remember to do it mid summer.

I'd love to have a quiet Xmas at home with just the wife and kids.

I envy people who can simply not bother so I look forward to reading others not Xmas celebrations

[generationx]

Our respective families are far too widespread to be bothered with the enormous, expensive faff of trying to go and visit them, we save that for more convenient times which has the side effect of reducing the "pressure" to have festive fun. We usually spend the big day by ourselves with the occasional pub visit, the rest of the period are just normal days really. When I was a bit younger and living in the South East my parents lived in the West Country and it was a GIANT ball-ache to get there and back over the Christmas period, we made sure we saw them fairly regularly at less busy times.

No presents either (certainly to each other), we're both fortunate that we don't really want much, especially frivolous token gifts, and prefer to use the "Christmas budget" on enjoying ourselves, going out and spending weekends/weeks away - we usually visit somewhere new each New Year's Eve period for example.

[welshjon81]

I've got two kids (7 & 15) and I still hate it. Obviously, I enjoy seeing them open their presents for around half an hour but everything before and after that, I hate. Its just rammed down your throat so much since October time, that by the time the day comes, I am sick of it.

I also hate the fact that I am forced to use 4/5 days of my annual leave to essentially sit in the house, during the worst part of the year (weatherwise) when I could take that week during the summer! Its a travesty!

If I ruled the world, it would be the first fecking thing to go.

[AC43]

It's already cancelled at work. We're going out for "December Celebrations" instead.

[languagetimothy]

as a kid my house was always full of people on Christmas Day, I think I enjoyed ... well I was a kid. I sort of stopped doing Christmas in my late teens and definitely in my early 20s. one particular year during an evening of the usual long hard working week, I found myself around Oxford street trying to get a few more presents. it was cold, very busy, I had no idea what to get for who and thought to myself "this isn't going to happen next year" and it didn't, and hasn't since. I don't have kids, my nephews are adults, my sister knows I don't do it, my parents are no longer here

I often give a little more to chaaaarittty.. but that's all.

"oh, but its about getting family together". ....erm yeah well I can do that anytime and if I want to go to a restaurant with them, or away for a few days I can do it in the knowledge that im not paying the additional "its Christmas" fee.

new year too... try to avoid it most of the time, at least travel. nice to go out for a drive an empty roads and stroll along the beach on 1/1 when most others are sleeping or feeling a complete mess.

bah and no doubt humbug for good measure

[Jim H]

Fly on 21st December to my place on the Costa Del Sol. Have been doing so for the past 10 years - returning January 6th. I used to do Christmas Day an Boxing Day with family up to about 6 years ago. Then that became a chore I didn’t enjoy at all. The simple answer was just avoid it all together, I’m not a Christmas hater as such, it’s just the weather and lack of daylight that gets to me down. I do tend to find colleagues etc to seem to display higher levels of stress and emotions in the build up.

I couldn’t imagine spending a Christmas in the UK now. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had one bad experience when it pissed down constantly Xmas day and Boxing Day a few years ago. I went out during Covid and that was a bit crap, bars / restaurants only open in the afternoon.

Apart from that they’ve all been excellent.

[Seesure]

Kids have fled the nest and don't live locally, so we'll put up tree etc and meet up with friends locally but I really can't be bothered with all the falseness that the marketeers and media would have us believe.

Xmas adverts in October / November do my head in...

Adverts showing snowy scenes do my head in as we don't have a white winter wonderland over Xmas normally. It's usual to have a grey, damp, miserable outlook.

Massive table laden with an obscene amount of food do my head in...

Encouraging everyone to think of Xmas as some sort of retail splurge does my head in...

Delivery of sofas and carpets by Xmas do my head in... really, why would you buy new furniture or carpets for the kids to drop food and drink all over them?

I'm seeing some people with their decorations up already... FFS why are people constantly looking to tomorrow instead of living in the present... ?

The retailers and marketeers have a lot to answer for as everything is aimed to pressure people in to thinking the only way to have a good time is to spend more money than they have... For some people it takes them months to recover from spending...

[DannyScene]

Me and the Mrs will be having our first Christmas with no in laws this year, we've been trying to tick off a few wainwrights this year so weather dependant we're considering driving up to the lakes and having a Christmas hike up haystacks and raising a Christmas toast to the man himself before driving home for Sunday dinner, too much booze and Christmas snacks and some crappy Christmas films.

[ARFBY]

I'm OK with Xmas, but never really cared so much about it.

In my mid 20s (30 years ago) I started going on holiday around Christmas time, just to get away from the cold wet UK. I'd buy and wrap gifts for family, leave them with parents then go off for a couple weeks, maybe skydiving in Spain or an adventure trek somewhere.
14years ago I went to Cuba with Exodus travel, I met a woman on the tour who is now my wife.

Christmas is now just for our kids. 10 and 13yo. I generally only put up the tree and cook Christmas dinner, the wife and kids do any decorating and gift buying. Not going back to UK for the first time in many years, I'm in Singapore, so it'll be about 28° and blisteringly sunny.

[ThingsBehindTheSun]

Other years my partner has gone home to Australia for a month before Christmas and I have joined her there, so I never bothered putting decorations up.

This year we are flying to Australia on Christmas day, quite looking forward to it and not having to deal with the day.

Apparently we are still putting decorations up this year which I absolutely hate as they make the house look so untidy.

[119]

Bit early for the yearly miserable fkers thread isn't it?

[CypSIdders]

119 said:

Bit early for the yearly miserable fkers thread isn't it?

Why did you turn up then?

[cobra kid]

For me it's the 1-2 days a year where everything stops for nothing but pleasant times. No work, nothing.

[soad]

I’m more about the New Year, in all honesty.

[vaud]

Having two pre-teenage daughters, I have quite enjoyed the last few years for Xmas and we avoid wider family on Xmas day, no turkey and keep things simple - presents, breakfast, walk up the hill to a nice pub for a few drinks, home, light fire, cook steak, watch a film or comedy together, play with aforementioned presents.

Boxing day is then wider family in a freezing cold Victorian house in the fens.

[keo]

soad said:

I’m more about the New Year, in all honesty.

I don’t like Christmas or new year. Proper miserable git