Not sure what we're doing for the solstice yet - it's all a bit weather dependent and i'm sick of nob-ends digging multiple fire pits at all the local sites.
As for Christ Mass? Well, it's just me, the missus and our little girl with huge amounts of rich and tasty food - all in-lwas and out-laws have been banned. My boys are coming over on Boxing Day and we get to do it all over again. Happy times 🙂
2 weeks off work
Go to a Carol service Christmas Eve
Wake up to presents on Christmas morning
Have all the family round for dinner
Drink lots
Play bored games
Then go aawy for a few days with friends to spend NYE somewhere fun
I love Christmas time
reading this thread has made me realise that I quite like Christmas! I've had some awful ones, but in recent years it's been really chilled, just a chance to catch up with the family, eat good food and generally unwind. But we have quite a small family, so it makes it easier.
As for the 'c' word, I've been trying all year, but it just keeps coming up in conversation!
All very quite this year for me working right through and on the day will just be me and the GF. Long walks on the beach, quiet lunch and a good DVD with a bottle of something. Then I get my son for Boxing Day so that shall be awsome as me and him can play with all teh toys and have fun out doors 😀
Bittersweet for me - no dad this year (died a few days into the new year) but we have our twins.
So I will be celebrating, but remembering dad.
I spent a recent christmas trying to keep someone 'alive' so they didn't die on Christmas day.
A lot of you moaning ****ers need to wake up and be thankful for what you've got.
what C word?
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i'm determined to get banned 😈
A lot of you moaning ****ers need to wake up and be thankful for what you've got.
Not moaning at all. Just really looking forward to Christmas this year, because I'm doing nothing 🙂 Funnily enough, I like my family so am happy to see them throughout the year. This might be assisted by the fact that I only have 1 relative living in Europe 😉
Seriously though, I just can't be arsed this year. Family have been asked to sponsor me on a charity ride if they want to. My brother's been doing charity presents for the last few years so I'm following the trend. No special food or drink, I'm just going for a long ride somewhere.
best thing to do at Christmas time....
go to a muslim country. Unfortunately for me my holiday in Morocco returns a week early so I have to put up with the over hyped tacky commercial crap for the first time in a few years. Grrrr.
Kev
bah humbug.
when im King, christmas will be christmas eve, christmas day, and boxing day.
mention of the C word out of those 3 days will be a crime.
im bored of it already, and its bloody november.
Miserable sods, most of you.
I enjoy Xmas ...My kids still enjoy it, they're 9 and 12, we try to limit their pressies and stuff, and we've always just exchanged small gifts amongst the adults, so it's not really a consumer-fest. Partners sister and Mum live opposite us (sounds awful, but is in fact great) so dinner's a shared thing, will probably be chicken this year, I'll make the pudding, Mum in law makes cake, kids make all the decorations, and the jelly (dunno why, family tradition now). Some friends are pretty religious so we'll probably end up at church at midnight helping all the oldies and singing our hearts out, the kids love being up late anyway...We'll remember some folk who aren't here anymore, and generally have a lush time. Oh, and I'll get miles of riding in...
I'm with coffeeking. Cheer up ffs!!!!
Eat too much, get drunk, get grief for eating too much and getting drunk. Get too drunk to care, fall asleep happy. Great motivation to set New Year riding resolutions the following day. (Never drinking again ! will ride in ALL weathers etc) Christmas is coming like it or not.......
Yey it's mithras's birthday, oh no hang on the christians borrowed everthing from mithras, named him jesus and turned him from a roman sun god into a weak insipid boring little f*ck.
Instead of sacrificing a bull I have a nice steak and chips 😀
I thought this was going to be a Children in Need thread!!
I like xmas we have a mellow family sadly this year with two less in it than last year, one sudden, one less so, will be a good a time to catch up with all the close family over the period but not all at once it's in nice size time chunks 🙂 No one likes a family overdose.
Added excitment this year we should have our campervan, so heading down kipping en-route and some more camping over the festive period.
Got some good eating, social friends/family and biking planned so for us I think it will be excellent and I am looking forward to it.
I'm with coffeeking. Cheer up ffs!!!!
Im working X-mas day and don't have any kids - so its just another day for me and the missus - so not much cheer really.
Prob go out for a night ride later in the day - might put some decorations on my bike to mark the day.
We'll be off to a cute as anything Christingle service in a nearby village on Christmas eve with some friends then a chinese takeaway after at ours. Then on Christmas morning we'll be doing the unwrapping with our 4 and 6 year olds first thing followed by eggs Benedict for breakfast. Then off to the beach for a bit of french cricket with the 4 year old's new cricket bat. Then to my mum and dads (15 minutes away) for a slap up trad Christmas dinner, but back home for tea and get the kids early to bed, then orienteering on Boxing Day at a local score event with mobile checkpoints including a Christmas fairy and father Christmas.
What's not to like?
Its a C day indeed, the very day my company of 11 years have decreed, going forward, I will be redundant. Immaculate timing boys, combined with the absolute minimum redundancy pay allowed. Thats £380 per year service. And they expect me to work right up to this date too. C**ts.
However, there are those that face greater challenges that me, so, keeping things in perspective, I am only really hacked off, it could be a lot different.
Don't usually do Crassmass, preferring a bike holiday somewhere warm, but not this year. May well have xmas lunch at IKEA for a quid!
Oooh, I thought you meant c**t!
I'm sorry for those who have lost loved ones and will be reminded, horribly, amongst all the fakery and over-indulgence.
I do the Solstice thing, so Christmas (which I don't think is even Jesus Christ's birthday anyway) has no significance for me.
I will go for a ride as usual and I'm trying to find a charity who could use an extra pair of hands on C Day - preferably an animal charity reasonably local to where I am at the time (Enfield).
I ****in love Christmas. Going to be in Delhi for it this year though which will be a little strange.
Someone used the phrase 'quiet frustration' which sums up a day at my inlaws pretty well 🙂
Nothing majorly bad, just having to laze around a smoke filled, boiling hot house eating soggy vegetables, dry meat and trifle from some packet and pretending to enjoy it.
Crap telly on a bit too loud all the time.
Hopefully it's wet so I ain't missing a nice day for a walk/ride.
Skiing with the kids and missus - whoo hoo 😀
Can't wait!!
Yeah me, were not having Chicken that day, its Turkey for us.
besides the crap presents that i don't need, and those that i buy, i think it'll be a good one this year. My ex shoehorned me into christmas mass, carol singing, very boring family days out (her side, not mine) and such trivial stuff. This year, it's with my folks and friends going to the best pub in yorkshire and drinking and eating and being merry! So tat should be good.
i'd love it if people didnt buy lots of awful presents, but put some money towards plane tickets or bike stuff or somet. I'd happily do that instead of trawling round meadowhall on xmas eve, after work......
Well, what a good response and how interesting to read such differing views on quite an emotive subject.
Last year, due to different circumstances, I decided to "opt out" of everything relating to the "C" word. This year I will do the same again - a solo bike ride in an area that I enjoy, accompanied by a little picnic including a flask of hot proper coffee. The ride may even include footpaths and tracks where I'm not allowed 🙄
Progressively disengaged from the whole festive period.
Last year, what with circumstances, I did the hermit thing. Didn't even send one card...
This year will be the same.
So for you, the "C" word is "Cheeky".
Have fun.
It looks like I will have to be with the in-laws on the farm. But they're OK and we will get out for a walk to feed the sheep before nightfall.
Ah, but the hermit thing is through choice. I didn't send one card or give one pressie. It's liberating to feel disengaged from such cr*p 🙂
I was willingly sporting a santa hat in public last Sunday. Funny what parenthood does to you. Had to welcome santa to town with 2 year old.
Anyone who knows what a miserable bas***d i am wont believe this though.
When you strip away the big dinner and family gathering (otherwise known as gluttony and quiet frustration - both of which are possible at any point during the year should anyone be that bothered) it's hard to see Christmas as anything other than an opportunity to sell lots of tat to lots of frenzied sheep.
+1 Left to my own devices I'd just take the opportunity to get out and do something in the hills and forget the rest.
So ... people ... any changes of heart/mind/circumstances?
A little update would be interesting ... and wind up those who accuse some of us of being miserable!
C for me is the 90 min in the morning of the 25th seeing my kids, then its back to abnormal. except this year lacking a mtn bike for the usual c-day ride. might have to go for a run instead. not a problem.
xmas-free zone here, though I did feel quite xmassy walking through the snow to my mum's house yesterday afternoon :o) And I tried to buy some blue tinsel to wind round my bike but either it has fallen out of fashion, or all been snapped up 🙁
Well I for one cant wait
I have 2 small children that are really excited about it.
and I am going to eat and drink my arse off !!
and lots of time off to go riding (starting with afan monday)
Wooohooo 😆
My wife is obsessed, one xmas prezzie is not enough, we have to spend the GNP of Mali on stuff for each other and the kids not to mention food ,drink etc. The younger son has inherited her obsession. Well. you say ickle kiddywinks love it. HE'S TWENTY EIGHT for GOD'S SAKE!! He has taken 3 weeks holiday from work so he can play on his console and do nothing. I don't know what his girlfriend thinks but when it gets to summer and she wants to go somewhere warm, he has no holiday left! He won't even go out on his bike--it might be cold. In fact I have been thinking of selling it as it is in my garage at the moment because he has no storage at his current house. I don't mind xmas but I am cast in the role of Scrooge if I say a word about these excesses. Oh and I can hardly get out on my bike because her indoors thinks it is anti-social to leave all the hundreds of people she invites to go off on my own!
Well, I'm doing a bit of compromising but being the contrary type, very much on my terms 🙄
Nevertheless I am sticking to my guns about gifts - scrooge moi?
This will be my 1st ever Xmas un-employed in 42 yrs. Not a nice feeling when everyone makes a point of telling me 'don't bother with a present, save your money'...
It's a bit weird, what with everything thats gone on but it's only one day.
FOG - that's terrible! But I really would choose your words carefully - most mothers think the sun shines ... etc etc... of their sons (and I can empathise here). Let him be his gf's problem, not your wife's!
Next year you need to order a couple of expensive bikes and then tell her there's no money left 😉
We're not sending presents this year, unless it's for the children of the family, even then it's a £5 minium.
We were invited by some close friends to spend the 25th at their gorgeous cottage. Mtbing with them in the day, very late Christmas lunch, then a nice slobby evening in front of their wood burner - perfect.
Then the guilt of not being at my Mothers house overcame me and I had to say that family loyalty came first. Sometimes we can't always do the things we would like, instead thinking of others, even though it'll make us a bit cheesed off.
if only i could............ 🙁
Bunnyhop - that did sound like a lovely invite though. Sometimes it's very difficult to live with your conscience.
I was determined not to cook another Xmas dinner last year cos circumstances had changed, I needed to move on. Family thought I would still do Xmas though. My (adult) kids were particularly disgusted by my attitude.
No regrets on what I did. For once I did what was right for me and not try pleasing everybody else.
c_g - you've totally done what's right for you. High five to you.
Bunnyhop - my family told me I was being selfish!
They're being selfish expecting you to wait on them.
My Mother always annoys me at Christmas with her magic words ' let the men relax, they've worked hard all year', aarrgghh, what does that mean?
On Christmas day my brother, brother in law and hubby, don't have to lift a finger, while we ( females) run around like idiots, cooking, washing up, making drinks, letting then have what they like on the box. I always leave early on in the evening, otherwise I'll explode.
And breath.
