Are You A Christmas Scrooge?

I have 3 siblings in town, and we have adult children. Somebody is always hosting Thanksgiving, and Christmas. We enjoy each other's company, and always have a merry time. We do not buy gifts for each other, only for small kids. No decorations in recent years. Just lots of food and drink. It's like a pot luck.

We do turkey for Thanksgiving, but with lots of other side dishes, and appetizers. For Christmas and New Year, we all bring finger-food dishes. It's a lot of fun with a smorgasbord.

My wife's siblings do not get along as well, despite her effort to keep them together. They have also moved away, and rarely see each other anymore.
 
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LRDave said:
I hear this same story a lot from my contemporaries and on forums like this. I wonder if the Christmas consumerism cult might possibly abate?
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I still see a lot of frantic buying on other Boards. Many times everytone gets the same gift and it's whatever the "must-have" gift is that season- last year it was InstaPots, when iPads first came out one woman on another Board got one for each of the grandkids, I suppose it was the iPod when that was new.

And of course there are gift cards. I don't think I've ever given one. To me, it's only one step above handing someone cash. I know that cash is more useful than 99% of gifts but it doesn't show much thought.
 
Arizona1 said:
And what time do you have to go to these multiple places for Christmas dinner?
2pm! Everyone wants 2 pm so somebody is always upset your giving 2pm to someone you like better.
We’re in the Yucatán for a month now. Wife has a big family of Mayans about 4 feet high and can’t speak English. She says the get together will include a lamb cooked underground inside banana leaves.
I would really appreciate cookies!
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If I send you cookies, will you send me that lamb? Sounds great!
 
What if it turns out to be old mutton and not lamb? :cool:
 
mountainsoft said:
Traditions, Sheesh. WHY do we have to do the same thing every year. Why do we always have ham for Christmas. Why can't we have a stir-fry, or bratwurst, or chili? I like ham, but just because it's Dec 25th doesn't mean I'm in the mood for it. I'm probably not gonna be in the mood on the 26th, 27th, or 28th either, but I can bet I'll still be eating it.

Actually, several years ago my father-in-law was in the hospital at Christmas. We ended up going out to Shari's for our Christmas dinner since we didn't have time to prepare anything. Not the greatest food, but I enjoyed doing something different and it ended up being one of my most memorable Christmas's.
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Two years ago we had sushi for Christmas. Homemade with Miso soup and edamame and chicken teriyaki for the non sushi folks.

It is what you make it.
 
Another thing to remember is that not everyone is Christian. I Was born Jewish but became an atheist as a teenager, so I simply went from something which doesn't observe Christmas to something else which doesn't observe Christmas.


In my working days, I was in the Secret Santa grab bag for a few years before the simple act of trying to find one of the gifts listed in my recipient's list became too much of a PITA, so I dropped out. I never had any interest in attending the Christmas party, either. With the long, tiring commute, I never wanted to deal with the scarce trains after 8 PM.


I have a very small circle of friends, and except for my ladyfriend nobody observes Christmas (and she understands my indifference to the holiday; even SHE stopped attending her nearby office party and dragging me to it). I'll just be glad when we get to December 26th so the radio stations and TV channels can stop playing Christmas songs and showing Christmas episodes and movies all the time. Even the Johnny Carson reruns on AntennaTV have Carson reading Christmas letters from kids every night from different years.


Just call me Scrooge.
 
24601NoMore said:
DW has a large family, and they LOVE to get together. To sit. And talk. For HOURS. At least once a month, and often many more times than that - especially during the "holidays" when it seems the #1 thing to do on their list is to "visit". Drives me batty
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My brother from another mother! :) Yep, that describes my wife's family. How they can sit and talk for hours about nothing boggles my mind. Worst still is when they want to play games. Yikes, I can't stand board games or dice. I need to be productive, games and talking feels like a colossal waste of time that I'll never get back.

Heck, my wife will spend 90 minutes on the phone with her mom Friday night to let her know we're coming to visit Saturday. Why are we even going, you just talked about everything on the phone. No worries, they'll talk about it all again tomorrow. :)
 
RobbieB said:
Two years ago we had sushi for Christmas. Homemade with Miso soup and edamame and chicken teriyaki for the non sushi folks.

It is what you make it.
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+1

We've done that before and it's much better than going out for a traditional meal and more memorable than doing it at home.
 
Yep, I'm a Scrooge, but I don't rub it in and I let my family carry on without me. I'm happy about it and they are happy about it. They know I won't touch any outdoor nor indoor decorations and I won't be shopping for gifts.

I do hear: "Do you want to see what you bought me for Christmas?" and I answer, "No, thank you, but I hope you like it anyways."
 
I enjoy Christmas though yes the consumerism is a bit much and thankfully it is somewhat less here than in the US. It probably helps not to have Thanksgiving in such close proximity - one of the blessings of colder weather perhaps. We had 50 students over to the house for a Christmas party last Wednesday and although it is quite a bit of work and somewhat expensive, after it is all done we realize that it well worth it. The outside lights go up much for the enjoyment of others. When we were young, and when our children were young they were especially special times and I expect that when the grandchildren eventually arrive it will be so again. Peace on Earth and Best of the Season to all. Cheers.
 
6miths said:
I enjoy Christmas though yes the consumerism is a bit much and thankfully it is somewhat less here than in the US. It probably helps not to have Thanksgiving in such close proximity - one of the blessings of colder weather perhaps. We had 50 students over to the house for a Christmas party last Wednesday and although it is quite a bit of work and somewhat expensive, after it is all done we realize that it well worth it. The outside lights go up much for the enjoyment of others. When we were young, and when our children were young they were especially special times and I expect that when the grandchildren eventually arrive it will be so again. Peace on Earth and Best of the Season to all. Cheers.
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Thanks! And to you and yours! A very nice post.
 
I’m similar to scrabbler, raised in a Jewish family and have been an atheist since early adulthood. DH was a from a large Christian family but he’s also been an atheist a long time.

My sister used to host a “what do Jews do on Christmas” party just as an excuse to have people over who weren’t doing the expected celebrating. DHs family was all out of town so a couple of phone calls completed his duties.

We raised our sons to be religion free. Now our younger son is married to a woman from China. She’s all excited to experience an American Christmas but she picked the wrong family for that! They are doing their best to give her a taste of that. We did the Polar Express train ride (did you read the book first?) and she is attending many parties with her Chinese friends. They put up a tree and have some decorations. And they decided to go to NYC (staying in NJ with family) a few days before Christmas to see the big city stuff. But I don’t do Christmas dinner, we don’t exchange gifts and there is no hint of the religion behind the event.

Our grandson just turned one in November. Since I’m the grandma I get to make up my own rules and that means he gets a Christmas present even though we don’t trade gifts. Last year it was cash to his parents to help with his travel documents to go to China and meet his other grandparents. This year will be cash or an amazon gift card to his parents for whatever they want for him. He just got a load of toys and clothes on his birthday.
 
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scrabbler1 said:
Another thing to remember is that not everyone is Christian.
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Hmm... I wonder if I could claim to be Jewish or Muslim for a month? :)

Sadly, I think the reason for the season has long gotten buried under Santa and Christmas trees.

scrabbler1 said:
I never had any interest in attending the Christmas party
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I'm looking forward to the day my wife retires and won't need to attend those work parties anymore. No more decorating the office, no more gifts for coworkers, etc. Those expenses really add up every year. Hopefully she'll finally be willing to let go of a few decorations and not just add more to our house.
 
You could always celebrate Christmas the way the ancient Romans did -- throw an orgy!
 
mountainsoft said:
Hmm... I wonder if I could claim to be Jewish or Muslim for a month? [emoji4]

Sadly, I think the reason for the season has long gotten buried under Santa and Christmas.
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I think Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, atheists etc. should consider themselves lucky that the retail industry has not done to their beliefs what they have done to Christmas. It is the single biggest example of ‘cultural appropriation’ I’ve seen in the USA.

I am waiting to see what they do with Lent. How does one take 40 days of self denial and inward contemplation of one’s spiritual journey and turn it into an excuse to buy more stuff? So far they haven’t figured that out.
I’ll ignore Fat Tuesday for the time being
 
This is what I like about the Christmas season:

1. Seeing the joy on the young wife's face as she finishes decorating the house and admires her handiwork.

2. Watching her spend hours picking the precisely correct books for our four great-nephews, as she did years ago for our nephews.

3. Participating in the candlelight carol service at church last night and watching the children's Nativity pageant last week.

4. Seeing all the beautifully lit trees on our 1/2 mile long town green.


I don't much care about the rest of it.
 
Yup, time to party before the bleakness of January sets in!

Just 5 more days to the shortest day of the year.

A small retirement loss however, when working I always managed to have from Christmas to New Years off. Now all days are the same.
 
I am also an atheist, but enjoy the season just the same. Sorry if I offend any Christian, but I have long forgotten about Christmas as a religious event. It is just a time to be happy, and the world needs any excuse to be happy.

We do not do gifts because it does not make us happy, but if some people like it, they can do what they want. We like to get together with family to enjoy good food and booze, so that's what we do.
 
Cheers to the food and the booze! Deck the halls! Bake me some cookies! Bake me some bread.

The women are busy with all sorts of baking and I will be getting fatter _ :)
 
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