My birthday is Christmas Eve so always felt overshadowed, Now it is about family and children (Christmas in General)

Member Name: sarah101

Product:	Christmas in General
Date:	19/10/08 (38 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Family, children's excitement and brightly lit faces makes me happy, pressies!

Disadvantages: I am a year older!! It only lasts one day!

December 24th around 11pm 26 years ago I came into this world. Was in the paper with my lovely mother and she welcomed into the world along with by my dad, brothers and sister.

Well actually no I wasn't welcomed, I have heard all my life how I ruined that Christmas as my dad could not cook a Christmas lunch and they all had to eat chops and mashed potatoes as that is all my dad could cook! Oh and Santa did not come when he was supposed to and of course mum was in the hospital with me!

Second Christmas I managed to pull the Christmas tree down on myself on my birthday and get another little trip to the hospital - another attempt on my part to ruin Christmas for the second year running according to my siblings! I however blame the person that put chocolate figures on the tree!!

Third Christmas, I have had no complaints to I must have broke my attempts to ruin my family's holidays that year!

Christmas has always been an excuse for me and my family to sit around all day, eat lots and lots of food, play bored games and compare gifts. Sadly it has not really changed that much - we still sit at my parents house all day long eating, comparing gifts and playing bored games!

As a child I would not say I hated Christmas but in a way I definitely did not like it. I would wait all year for a time when people would celebrate my birthday and it was always over shadowed by last minute shopping and people running around wrapped up in making sure everything is done and dusted for the big day.

I remember being envious of friends and family members that had birthdays in the summer and felt left out when it came to my always over shadowed birthday. Also I can only remember having a few parties which at the time was something I could not understand (it is only now as an adult and understanding that people would not want to let their kids go to party on Christmas Eve on top of the fact that my not many people could afford to throw a party so close to the big day)

As I got to be a teenager birthdays were not as important and I just got used to the fact that mine was at an awkward time, only one since then have I felt upset. I think I was 14 and had planned for the first time with my parents and siblings that we would have a family meal at home together and celebrate my birthday as its own day, rather than Christmas Eve. My parents "popped" to the shops for about 6 hours, my siblings then decided to go and visit friends and do last minute things, something they easily could all do as they were all 20+. I sat alone that year for most of the day and decided Christmas sucked!

For the next few years it was just an excuse to over eat and go out with my friends to nightclubs (yes at 15 onwards! something I now frown upon but at the time thought it was fine!) Christmas was not really special until children came into the family. I was 18 and for the first time that I could remember Christmas felt special, it all made sense that it is about families and being together and yes its still about food!!

I absolutely love Christmas now and I think I make up for feeling miserable and basically being a selfish spoilt brat for so many years by really getting into it. Once the lights are turned on in the main city centre as far as I am concerned it is Christmas! Even though it is usually the second weekend in November! I was a manager at in a retail outlet for three years and had three Christmas periods there and I was the only one who enjoyed having the Christmas music on from mid November and loved decorating the shop because I could do it at least two weeks before I could decorate my house!

I am also very very organised when it comes to Christmas, because of the year I left it all to the last minute and ended up spending a fortune and not really getting things people wanted! Here I am just over half way through October and I only have a few more presents to buy. I even have wrapping paper, tags, bags, bows and today got some napkin rings for my mum to use on Christmas day! As I am on a weight watchers diet and plan to follow it as much as possible over Christmas I have also got a load of recipes ready for some points controlled food!

I always spend Christmas at my mums as does my sister and kids. My brothers usually go to their wives parents but come to mums for breakfast first then head off. I am not too sure what they are doing this year but I know my parents, sister and kids will be at my mum and dads house from Christmas Eve to Boxing Day.

I will go for a few drinks with my friends late in the evening and usually get home before midnight, then spend the next 3 or 4 hours wrapping up the kids pressies and get to bed about 3 hours before I am woken up with the excited screams of children finding stockings on their doors! We then head downstairs - usually me first with the camcorder taking the kids as they collect the chocolate coins Santa has placed on the stairs for them and leading to their piles of toys. They they take turns opening their pressies and we sit around playing them (yes even at 27 this year I will be playing children's toys!!) Mum does breakfast and we sit around eating. I then take the dog for a walk just to make some room for dinner and to get a break from the heat (my mum insists on the fire on full blast!)

I help where my mum will let me with the dinner, usually just setting the table and doing vegetables or desert! We turn off the TV, pull our crackers, put on the wonderful hats and eat enough food each to feed us all! Dad then insists on doing the washing up whilst we all sit and groan that we feel sick because we ate so much. Dad then gets dressed into his Father Christmas outfit to hand out the pressies under the tree. We then open up our pressies from each other and friends/family.

By the time we finish pressies mum is usually trying to feed us all some more food!!!

This is when the bored games come out and we all sit and play a game of whatever the kids were given and finally all head to bed when we can no longer keep our eyes open!

The last few years we have gone to a panto on Boxing Day but this year we are going on New Years Eve so will most likely spend the time in between sales shopping and trying to walk the dog just those extra 20 minutes each day to try and work off Christmas dinner!

So my Christmas experience has gone from not really liking it, to just being about an excuse to go out and have a few too many drinks, to being about family and being with those I love most in this world.

I would love to say I spend time doing something for charity and others at Christmas, but the truth is apart from the giving tree that I donate to through the school and the kids one that This Morning run I dont. I have a friend who works with people who are homeless and spends her Christmas with her children going out and giving something warm to people who don't have a family home to go to - I commend her for it and all those like her.

I always find myself feeling sad for my parents at Christmas, my dads father died in mid December about 9 years ago and my mums mother died a few days before Christmas when I was a few years old. I think this only makes me want to enjoy my family Christmas as much as I can for as long as I can.

Thanks for reading for those that managed the whole thing!

Summary: I love Christmas and am like a big kid getting all excited from mid November