OPINION: Seven reasons why Christmas often fails to live up to its hype

Prepare yourself for the world’s most unpopular opinion: Christmas (even in normal years) is overrated.

No one likes a negative Nancy, but when you break it down, everyone’s favourite holiday can often fail to live up to the hype. Here’s why… 

1. There’s too much pressure to have fun

Christmas Day is the golden goose of the calendar: if you aren’t squeezing memories out of every second, you’ll have to wait a full year to try again. It’s just one short day, and after a 25 day countdown and months of snow-themed advertising, it’s hard not to wind up feeling short-changed.

2. It’s expensive

If Ebenezer Scrooge could see today’s Christmas commercialism, he’d probably go back to being a miser. Presents, decorations, enough food to strain any dinner table – ’tis the season to deplete your bank account and worry about it in January.

3. Christmas dinner is always stressful

And no, not just because you have to eat sprouts. Preparing Christmas dinner is a rite of passage for fledgling householders (and a yearly nightmare for those stuck doing it every year) – a single mistake can leave the turkey blackened and the day ruined.

For bystanders, it’s hard to know how much to help. Control freaks will see offers of assistance as a comment on their competence, but it’s probably worse to completely abandon floundering chefs.

4. Family can go either way

Relatives (if you’re allowed to see them this year) generally serve up the best and worst of Christmas, depending on who you end up with. Down one road lies a harmonious family dinner filled with photo albums and getting tipsy with your parents. The other brings long-dormant tensions, snarky comments and increasingly fraught games of Monopoly.

5. There’s always one person it’s impossible to buy for

Few sentences are more annoying in the run up to Christmas than, ‘Surprise me!’ There’s always one person who’s reading list is already too long, their wardrobe too unique, and their job well-paid enough that if they really needed something, they’ve probably already bought it. If they don’t know what they want, how are you supposed to?

6. It can never compare to childhood Christmases

Magical beyond measure for kids, Christmas joins funfairs, car journeys and waking up early as things that were more fun when we were young. Nothing can match up to unwrapping gifts from Santa Claus when you’re tiny, not even the prospect of dressing up like him when you’re big.

7. Some of the traditions are just weird

Mistletoe is creepy, eggnog is disgusting, and it is never the right weather for the vaunted Boxing Day walk. Throw in next door’s seizure-inducing roof-lights, and up to four months of Christmas songs; we’d quite happily take the presents and run.