Christmas 2017

in reality, all of this has been a total load of old bollocks

Your thoughts on Xmas

I love it. All the traditions, dinner, family etc...
8
32%
I like it, but it goes on a bit nowadays.
2
8%
I put up with it for a quiet life.
3
12%
I'm totally unfussed by it.
6
24%
I sort of dread it. Enforced conviviality etc - but will get in the spirit just keep appearances up.
3
12%
I actively dislike it.
1
4%
I HATE IT
2
8%
 
Total votes: 25

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KeithPratt
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Christmas 2017

Postby KeithPratt » 29 Nov 2017, 11:25

Christmas is coming....

Personally, with a young child at home, I do really like it. He totally believes in Father Christmas and I feed off that. We have quite a few home-made traditions that stretch from the 1st of December all the way to Christmas eve which we've accumulated over the years. There's a lot of really good food and drink planned throughout the period, rather than having it just on Xmas Day itself, which for me is actually a bit dull. I much prefer Xmas eve and that sense of anticipation.

Anyway, I sense most on here are bah humbug types but anyway...

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Re: Christmas 2017

Postby Dr Markus » 29 Nov 2017, 11:31

Can you even say Christmas anymore? Does it not have to be "holiday". ;)
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Re: Christmas 2017

Postby never/ever » 29 Nov 2017, 11:45

It used to mean something when my parents were still alive but with then and their parents gone and my only living relatives about 20.000 Ks away, I have to make my own Crimbo-fun. Used to be emotionally hard not to be home but now not so much. I Skype with my sister and my uncles, catching up.
Since I work on Christmas Event and Boxing Day there is one day to catch up on stuff and relax. It's pretty much a non-event that way.
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Re: Christmas 2017

Postby Your Friendly Neighbourhood Postman » 29 Nov 2017, 13:46

Love it -

perhaps more than ever before, because of the dreadful and unstable times we live in.

I will spend lots of time with my close family - dining, going to mass, being cheerful. It will work, I trust in that.
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Re: Christmas 2017

Postby Goat Boy » 29 Nov 2017, 14:10

I’m somewhere between the first two. Yes it goes on too long but the moaning about early Xmas adverts is as tedious as the adverts themselves. There are some events associated with it that make me want to die (Xmas jumper day at work, work meal) but I love the build up, specifically the last week or so. For me the best part are the 2/3 days prior to Xmas. The day itself is always slightly compromised for me somewhat because the lass and I only spend part of the day together due to commitments with her brother. Therefore we have breakfast together, we go to my folks and open presents but she doesn’t stay for the meal and if I can manage it I walk to her brothers sometime in the early evening which takes me about 50 minutes. Easier said than done when you are in that post meal, slightly drunken haze. We then have to walk back to hers or pay over the odds for a taxi.

Because of different commitments we are often quite busy but I’ve decided to do less this year and lounge around a bit more. The thing with Xmas is that if you want it to be great/magical then you need to make it happen. Do Xmasy stuff, go and see It’s A Wonderful Life, bake some gingerbread, put up some nice decorations, you know? It takes a little bit of effort but it's worth it.
Last edited by Goat Boy on 29 Nov 2017, 14:21, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Christmas 2017

Postby KeithPratt » 29 Nov 2017, 14:19

Yeah definitely - you need to put the work in to make it happen.

We have traditions that happen on specific days. Some of them are small, some of them are quite big, and we have a new one every year.

My only regret is that we are basically saddled with my Dad (nearly 90) and my mother-in-law and her husband on Xmas Day, and none of them are particularly convivial or much fun - i.e they're not going to get sozzled and have a good laugh. My dad will fall asleep and she doesn't drink, and by 5 pm I'm actively wishing that they would go home (except I have to drive my dad home). The mother-in-law is of the type that if you don't see someone on Xmas day then she's sort of mortally offended by it, whereas I don't really see it that way, particularly when we'll see them over the Xmas period again anyway.

If we could afford it, I think we'd probably go away each year from Boxing Day until the schools go back. We did this last year with two other families and it was really good fun. I do sort of wish we had the big idealised family do that you see on adverts - and also that friends were just as much a part of the Xmas time as "family" is.

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Re: Christmas 2017

Postby Goat Boy » 29 Nov 2017, 14:35

It’s a bit weird for me cos my folks don’t really drink. I mean my dad will have a couple of beers but that’s it. Mum will have half a glass of wine with water mixed in for lunch. It’s not that they aren’t fun or they don’t laugh but it does mean you are at different levels. I never get drunk with them, ever. Of course when I turn up I’m straight into the beers and I polish off most of the bottle of wine so after the enormous Mother sized portions I’m fighting off the need for an afternoon nap. We sit around and watch a movie and then I head off alone into the cold night. It’s a bit of drag. Ideally I’d like to do some parlour games or some shit. I know that sounds terribly old fashioned but something interactive, you know?

Maybe I just need some speed for after dinner.
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Re: Christmas 2017

Postby Darkness_Fish » 29 Nov 2017, 14:49

Goat Boy wrote:Mum will have half a glass of wine with water mixed in for lunch.

I think that would ruin my day. I'd be screaming "JUST HAVE LESS, OR HAVE A GLASS OF WATER AT THE SIDE!". I couldn't cope with that at all.

Unless it was Thunderbirds, then I guess I'd let it lie.
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Re: Christmas 2017

Postby Darkness_Fish » 29 Nov 2017, 14:58

I always find Christmas a bit weird anyway, to be honest. I've got a 10 year old son, and it's always fun to see him become super-charged and over-excited, but the actual day always feels as stodgy as the food. You know, you get up really early (if you have kids), you start cooking, you're still cooking as relatives arrive. Then you eat an enormous amount of food, drink a bit too much wine, then probably eat even more food, just because a relative brought some Christmas pudding and you feel obliged. You continue to drink small amounts through the day, watch some really atrocious telly, and by the time everyone's gone you've been stuck in the same room for like 14 hours and start going a bit stir-crazy. But you can't really go anywhere because you're drunk, fat, and it's dark outside. So you drink some more, eat some more, watch more effluvium pore out of the TV screen, and think "it was better when Eric and Ernie did Christmas".
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Re: Christmas 2017

Postby harvey k-tel » 29 Nov 2017, 16:24

:D
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Re: Christmas 2017

Postby Your Friendly Neighbourhood Postman » 29 Nov 2017, 16:38

Darkness_Fish wrote:I always find Christmas a bit weird anyway, to be honest. I've got a 10 year old son, and it's always fun to see him become super-charged and over-excited, but the actual day always feels as stodgy as the food. You know, you get up really early (if you have kids), you start cooking, you're still cooking as relatives arrive. Then you eat an enormous amount of food, drink a bit too much wine, then probably eat even more food, just because a relative brought some Christmas pudding and you feel obliged. You continue to drink small amounts through the day, watch some really atrocious telly, and by the time everyone's gone you've been stuck in the same room for like 14 hours and start going a bit stir-crazy. But you can't really go anywhere because you're drunk, fat, and it's dark outside. So you drink some more, eat some more, watch more effluvium pore out of the TV screen, and think "it was better when Eric and Ernie did Christmas".


:D

Great litte write-up. I can almost feel your pain, DF...
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Re: Christmas 2017

Postby copehead » 29 Nov 2017, 16:39

I will be on board a Japanese vessel so I am not sure how far they go with Christmas once they have put up the crucified Santa Claus decorations

They made a bit of a fuss about halloween doing fancy dress but we were busy deploying the gear so we couldn’t get to immersed

We have been told to bring a secret Santa present so I have got a blues harp in C

I will also be trying to lay off seasonal goodies as I have lost 14kg/2st this year and I want to lose a similar amount next year

Obviously alcohol is banned which is nice

So all in all it will be shit as 500 people in my company are being made redundant next week too, so all in all, as I said, shit
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Re: Christmas 2017

Postby sloopjohnc » 29 Nov 2017, 16:46

Toby wrote:Christmas is coming....

Personally, with a young child at home, I do really like it. He totally believes in Father Christmas and I feed off that.


I did too. It's a great time with lots of memories. Although, I'd like to forget how long it took me to put together all the toys after the kids opened them. There was one pirate ship and Barbie camping van that took eons to assemble.
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Re: Christmas 2017

Postby KeithPratt » 29 Nov 2017, 16:48

sloopjohnc wrote:[ Although, I'd like to forget how long it took me to put together all the toys after the kids opened them.


My son has requested the Lego Millennium Falcon and it has over a thousand pieces. I suspect it'll probably take around 4 hours or so to construct.

This gives me an excuse not to talk to anyone during that time.

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Re: Christmas 2017

Postby sloopjohnc » 29 Nov 2017, 16:53

It's been a tradition that the day after Thanksgiving my son and I get the tree. For the last few years, I've done it for my ex's place because the kids lived with her. This year, I got her one and I got one for the first time since being separated/divorced because my son lives with me now.

He's 15 and loves decorating for any holiday - Halloween and Christmas, especially. I have decorations all around the house and even put up lights on my apartment deck railing. My son told me he loves having two places because he gets to decorate two houses.

My work shuts down the week between Christmas and New Years (it's kind of a Silicon Valley semiconductor thing) so I'll have the whole week off to do things with the kids and/or friends.

With parents gone, my brother has kinda taken over Xmas Eve, but he sounded kinda reticent this year because his family has lots going with his wife's side, but that's been the recent tradition.

We open some presents on Xmas Eve but mostly on Xmas Day. My ex makes breakfast and we sit around after until we go down to my ex wife's sister's family, open a couple more presents for them and have a very casual dinner.

I like it. Here's a pic of the Xmas tree my son and I decorated. The star on top is a craft my daughter made in kindergarten (she's almost 22 now). I've gotten a tree skirt since taking it.

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Re: Christmas 2017

Postby naughty boy » 29 Nov 2017, 16:53

The Ox sez: Kristmas is kooool
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Re: Christmas 2017

Postby sloopjohnc » 29 Nov 2017, 16:55

Toby wrote:
sloopjohnc wrote:[ Although, I'd like to forget how long it took me to put together all the toys after the kids opened them.


My son has requested the Lego Millennium Falcon and it has over a thousand pieces. I suspect it'll probably take around 4 hours or so to construct.

This gives me an excuse not to talk to anyone during that time.


:lol:

There's definitely strategy with that too.
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Re: Christmas 2017

Postby Your Friendly Neighbourhood Postman » 29 Nov 2017, 17:10

sloopjohnc wrote:
Toby wrote:
sloopjohnc wrote:[ Although, I'd like to forget how long it took me to put together all the toys after the kids opened them.


My son has requested the Lego Millennium Falcon and it has over a thousand pieces. I suspect it'll probably take around 4 hours or so to construct.

This gives me an excuse not to talk to anyone during that time.


:lol:

There's definitely strategy with that too.


:D

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Re: Christmas 2017

Postby KeithPratt » 29 Nov 2017, 17:19

The Tree goes up in our house around a week or so before. Part of me goes a bit swivel-eyed when I see any decorations out before then if I'm honest.

My brother-in-law does the whole tree up and everything on Dec 1st every year and every year the tree is forlorn and sagging by the 25th.

There is something in the whole "Oh do you remember these?" when you get the decorations box down from the loft. I put cinnamon sticks and cloves in it so that every year it smells like Christmas when I get it. We have loads of poncey glass ones and disgustingly tasteful ones that have accumulated over the years as you might imagine. I try to buy the odd kitsch one like a Burger in a Bun or something, but somehow they never make it to the tree..

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Re: Christmas 2017

Postby Jumper K » 29 Nov 2017, 17:22

Utter meaningless shit. An excuse spunk cash on rubbish I’ll be working, as I do every year. .


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