Hello ladies,

It's getting closer by the day...

So, I was wondering how you all felt about the festive season. Is there a special family tradition you keep up? What do you like the most about Christmas? What do you like the least? Will you be doing anything differently this year?

I enjoy the social aspect of Christmas - getting together with family and friends, time off work etc. What I hate is the fact that it's getting more and more commercial. The shops are encouraging us to buy more. The lights and tinsel and tat go up earlier and earlier. We seem to waste more. Children expect more... I can remember when an advent calendar had pictures but no chocolate, LOL.

Rachel

I am really looking forward to Christmas as I love it, but totally agree with you that it is all getting out of hand with all the commercial side of it. I hate the stupid adverts for all the toys, we are drowning in toys after having 4 boys so there is nothing I need to buy, but I still feel mean.

I am looking forward to trying to make my Christmas cards. I plan to do it each year, but never get very far. I also wanted to make some stuff but again I have the will but not the oomph!!

Daniel is in hospital end of November and we hope to be out before Christmas so I plan to enjoy being with the family and Tim cooking, cooking and cooking some more! oh, and drinking!

I think everyone this year will be cutting back, which actually is a good thing. We should concentrate on the more important stuff of Christmas people and food and friends and wine, rather than rubbish!

lisa xx

Hi Rachel

I love the scents and flavours of Christmas, but loath the shopping, the artificial decorations and the nasty gift sets.  Thankfully no-one in our family is too commercially minded and we're happy to share each other's company and food without too much pressure on us. 

I haven't given it a thought yet, but as always, I'll regret that when it creeps up on me in December..........

Luv Maid

Hi Rachel,

Christmas is the area where I just pick my battles, tbh. For us, there is no point in greening it up. We do what we do in the house, which is not that much! We don't even have fairy lights, but in terms of presents we've done the green thing and it just wasn't appreciated by our families so we take the easy option!

My parentals and my MIL are not too bad as they ask us what we want and they buy it for us, my mum always buys a few stocking fillers but she knows what we like and what we'll get use of so it's not too bad. But FIL is a different matter and this is probably neither the time nor the place to start discussing it (do we have a swear filter?) We don't send many cards - if we do it's mainly e-cards and most people I know make their own cards so wrapping paper and cards get used for that so not too bad I suppose. We spend most of our money on socialising rather than gift buying tbh.

What I hate most is that I know when I return to "work" at the charity shop we'll be full of gift sets, slippers and all the stuff that people received as an unwanted gift. And we can hardly give them away!

In terms of the commercialisation again I pick my battles and choose to be amused and amazed by how quickly I see signs of it. Having said that Hallowe'en seems to be getting bigger so Christmas stuff hasn't yet taken over the shops. Now THAT is a totally unnecessary amount of chutney for sale - plastic pumpkins that cost more than actual pumpkins, horrible nylon witch outfits and who knows what else! I digress...

Our main tradition involves going to the Christmas market in Manchester - but we do get the bus :-)

Great topic for discussion.

I must admit I've not really thought about Christmas yet, probably cos I've no idea what state I'll be in then! But it is my favourite time of the year, because it's the one time when everyone actually slows down and spends time with each other, so again it's mainly the social, food and drink aspect of it that I particularly love. This year, the one thing I have done is set up savings accounts for my nieces and nephews, I pay a set amount into them each month, and then they get this once a year in lieu of birthday or Christmas presents. It spares me the guilt of massive consumerism, and hopefully it'll inspire them to good financial habits - but maybe I'm expecting too much, lol! The rest of the family, I'm not sure yet, but I'll try and make sure that it's something useful, hopefully with a green or ethical angle too, I'd really like to do the whole good gifts thing through Oxfam or Wateraid, but I'm really not sure how well that would go down, like Sam said, it's about knowing how to pick your battles ;-)

Much love

Rach.xXx

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