How to get through Christmas without a row

ska_lover

Ahh the old pressure cooker that is Christmas. The forced jollity is nearly amongst us, and anyone who isn't having a fab old time with a mountain of presents a roast and the perfect family generally sitting around playing board games and enjoying each others company make themselves feel inadequate or guilty about it. Christmas = huge amounts of stress for many people,

Op your OH has a very different attitude to money than you. He doesn't sound (unless there is stuff you aren't telling us) like a neccesarily bad bloke, just that you both have a difference of opinion where money is spent, at Christmas and other times of the year. Cos it is Christmas, it seems so much worse, cos we all have this image of the 'perfect' day burned into our minds. Couple of question I would like to ask is, is he the only breadwinner, and are you in debt? Not meaning to be overly nosey and please don't feel I expect an answer, but just may be a pointer why he wants to be frugal.

Is anyone's Christmas like in the adverts on tele? No. There will be a lot of family arguments go on, people pretending to enjoy the company of relatives that they aren't overly keen on. It really is a pressure cooker.

I used to do Christmas in the traditional sense when my kids were small for them, but over the last five years have opted out as we are not religious, we don't believe in Christ, and the stress of Christmas is what I call the opposite of fun. Even when we did Christmas I wouldn't go over the top, perhaps £50 per child. I don't believe in spoiling children, they just expect more and more from you I think

Opting out really IS complete bliss in our opinion, no spending fortunes, no forced jollity, eat what you want (great for me, as a roast really isn't my favourite) without sticking to tradition, watch what YOU want on tele in our own house, or generally do what you want. We don't do shopping, cards, or swap presents with anyone. Our Christmas day will entail me and hubby snuggling down together in our onesies with whatever food takes our fancy, and generally enjoying being together. Family think we are mad and offer us Christmas dinner every year, but we say no. They say the pity us because we are 'on our own' and not having a roast dinner. To be honest, we snigger and secretly think they are the mad ones..but we wouldn't say that to them, as each to their own. I would honestly suggest anyone try a Christmas free Christmas as these have definitely without a shadow of a doubt, been some of our best

Maz

How old are your children and how many have you got?

FBaby

loved your post ska lover My husband and I have already decided that once the kids have grown, we will be off somewhere hot for Christmas and away from all the fuss.

Loz01

Counting_Pennies wrote: »

The first year my DS was born I spent such a nice time buying him lovely gifts and creating his stocking. That morning when DS woke up, my DH could not be shot of him soon enough, to be dispatched to the grandparents so he could come back and have his leg over

Sorry but to me this is what would've annoyed me the most if I was in your boots! And hopefully you did not oblige

Vicky123

Taking the OP at face value she says the business is taking up a lot of her time, she runs 2 charities and is catering to his family at xmas but what seems to have got lost in all this is the bit about keeping them ot of the kitchen to avoid their criticizing how she does xmas.
This sounds like far more than a disagreement about how to celebrate xmas and more like a person being driven to distraction trying to please an impossibly demanding husband and in-laws while at the same time trying to give her kids a traditional xmas.
If it were me I would try and limp through xmas as it's pretty much here now and then do some serious thinking in the New Year before being burnt out, maybe suggest he's right after all, dreadful fuss over xmas, all that cooking and present buying so lets make a start and next year ditch the in-laws.

Lunar_Eclipse

FBaby wrote: »

loved your post ska lover My husband and I have already decided that once the kids have grown, we will be off somewhere hot for Christmas and away from all the fuss.

Sounds brilliant, but when does that happen? I'm guessing the few years between them finishing education and having children, if they have a partner or friends to spend the day with. The chances of both children doing that are slim I think.

I'm currently forty something years old, and have spent every single Xmas with my parents, or DH's parents. Looking at this from the other way round, my 60 something year old parents still have Xmas with their kids!

I like the idea of escaping it all (even now), but in reality I'm not sure that would happen, unless both our children end up travelling or living overseas, or choosing not to spend Xmas with us (which I know is possible but personal experience tells me it's rare.)

belfastgirl23

Surely the value of an open forum like this is that we all have differing views? I can't just think about what the OP is saying because I don't think anything is ever as straightforward as one person's version. That's me, that's who I am. So if I post, I'm trying to think about the reasons WHY someone feels as they do. They OP clearly feels under huge pressure and that's awful for her. But I don't know for sure that this is because her OH is a horrible bully. He could be a decent man who just has different views from her. She could still be suffering from depression and seeing the world in very black tones. That's why I posed the scenarios I did - and it could well be that the OP thinks about it and realises he is horrible bully. Or she could realise he's a decent man trying to do his best (and failing like we all do sometimes) and they need to find some time to talk this through. All relationships go through bleaker patches and I'm not a one for saying 'just give up' unless there's real physical or psychological mistreatment. Again that's me.

As an example, I have a co-worker who's driving me crazy at the minute, in late, leaving early and distracted most of the time he's in the office (and even worse, tries constantly to distract me as well). He's not pulling his weight and hasn't been for most of this year and it's putting me under huge pressure since I share his workload. I'm doing all the travelling for both of us as well. And if I came on here with this part of the story, a lot of posters would say 'yeah he's a loser, get rid'. But his father is dying, his mother is also ill, his wife is going through the menopause and their only daughter has just left to go to uni in England. That kind of changes the story. It doesn't change how I feel about it when I'm under pressure, but it might well change the kind of advice that would be good for me to hear. I was having a mini rant to a good friend who asked 'is there anything going on in his life that might explain how he is' and that's when I put together the full story in my own mind - I knew all the bits but when you put it all together and see it from the other person's POV sometimes something just clicks. But you just need someone to say, here there's a bigger picture. Or this might not make the slightest difference at all. But I always figure it's worth asking.

Anyway would be really interested to hear what the OP thinks about all of this!

margaretclare

ska_lover wrote: »

Ahh the old pressure cooker that is Christmas. The forced jollity is nearly amongst us, and anyone who isn't having a fab old time with a mountain of presents a roast and the perfect family generally sitting around playing board games and enjoying each others company make themselves feel inadequate or guilty about it. Christmas = huge amounts of stress for many people,

Op your OH has a very different attitude to money than you. He doesn't sound (unless there is stuff you aren't telling us) like a necessarily bad bloke, just that you both have a difference of opinion where money is spent, at Christmas and other times of the year. Cos it is Christmas, it seems so much worse, cos we all have this image of the 'perfect' day burned into our minds. Couple of question I would like to ask is, is he the only breadwinner, and are you in debt? Not meaning to be overly nosey and please don't feel I expect an answer, but just may be a pointer why he wants to be frugal.

Is anyone's Christmas like in the adverts on tele? No. There will be a lot of family arguments go on, people pretending to enjoy the company of relatives that they aren't overly keen on. It really is a pressure cooker.

I used to do Christmas in the traditional sense when my kids were small for them, but over the last five years have opted out as we are not religious, we don't believe in Christ, and the stress of Christmas is what I call the opposite of fun. Even when we did Christmas I wouldn't go over the top, perhaps £50 per child. I don't believe in spoiling children, they just expect more and more from you I think

Opting out really IS complete bliss in our opinion, no spending fortunes, no forced jollity, eat what you want (great for me, as a roast really isn't my favourite) without sticking to tradition, watch what YOU want on tele in our own house, or generally do what you want. We don't do shopping, cards, or swap presents with anyone. Our Christmas day will entail me and hubby snuggling down together in our onesies with whatever food takes our fancy, and generally enjoying being together. Family think we are mad and offer us Christmas dinner every year, but we say no. They say the pity us because we are 'on our own' and not having a roast dinner. To be honest, we snigger and secretly think they are the mad ones..but we wouldn't say that to them, as each to their own. I would honestly suggest anyone try a Christmas free Christmas as these have definitely without a shadow of a doubt, been some of our best

I agree with much of this, except that we take a different perspective. We do believe in Christ and we could be called 'religious' in the sense that we go to church and enjoy all that church does at this time of year - carol services etc. That's all that we do regarding Christmas, except that I still send Christmas cards. We don't do a roast dinner, and that kind of idea started many years ago when my first husband and I read a magazine article which suggested 'an alternative' dinner to the usual idea of roast turkey with 'all the trimmings', whatever they may be. We always have something different from what is expected. This year it might be a game pie from a local farm shop, it might be a venison casserole with red wine, we haven't decided. A nice walk along the sea-front, sometimes we see people sitting out eating ice-creams especially if it is sunny. We've recently had TalkTalk installed on the TV and that will be better, we should be able to avoid all the Christmas soaps and watch films without the frequent ad breaks. It's possible to 'be religious' and still avoid all the razzmatazz described above.

aileth

If you were upset about getting rid of baby with grandparents ASAP and him coming back wanting to get his leg over, why did you oblige him and not tell him how you felt? Maybe I missed something...

picklekin

To me it sounds like your husband is a bit jealous of your baby. I know he's not handling things well, but could you arrange to maybe do something together for a short while without the baby this Christmas, when you both open the presents for each other (sorry, but it did sound mean that you weren't interested in what he gave you but only wanted to get on with seeing your child open presents, I'd have been hurt too).