Why I won’t give up the festive reins (From Bradford Telegraph and Argus)

Why I won’t give up the festive reins

6:37pm Tuesday 27th December 2011 in Helen Mead By Helen Mead

Every December, I brave crowded shops, tie myself in knots choosing presents, write and post dozens of cards, wrap piles of gifts, buy trolley-loads of food, bring home a tree, put up decorations and make sure everything is in place for Christmas.

While I'm running myself into the ground tackling all these festive tasks, my husband simply mutters: “I don’t know why you bother. Christmas is a waste of time and money.”

My friend’s husband says the same, believing that it’s a lot of unnecessary stress and can’t understand why she puts herself out.

They’re not unusual. A third of men think women make too much fuss about Christmas. A survey revealed that they think the festive season would be less rushed, cheaper and less stressful if blokes were in charge.

Half wouldn’t bother with cards, and a quarter would ditch the turkey, with almost a fifth opting for steak and chips or a takeaway.

What men don’t realise is that many women would love a simpler Christmas, but it just isn’t possible.

We care about Christmas and its traditions in a way that men don’t. We fret about returning cards and gifts, while cards given to men often lie in bags unopened until their wife discovers them weeks later. “Did you give one back?” I will ask my husband, knowing what the answer will be.

Year after year, men carry on with their normal everyday lives while women burst blood vessels racing around ‘doing’ Christmas.

They don’t appear to even register the million-and-one extra things we are doing, nor do they seem to have even the slightest interest. On Christmas Eve, when the children have gone to bed, my husband will ask: “ What have we got for the girls?”

Women couldn’t do that. However much we want to, we can’t sit back and let others take the reins. We’d be frantic.

Men may grumble, but they’re happy to bask in Christmas when it arrives, fully packaged and gift-wrapped. It amuses me how, even those men who help out for the rest of the year, revert to couch-potato status at Christmas. They sup their ale and pull their crackers, and then have the cheek to say we make too much fuss.

Most women will agree that Christmas starts too early and some people go overboard and organise it as though they were overseeing the Olympics.

By all means tone it down, but it wouldn’t be the same without a bit of fuss.

The one thing my husband does at Christmas is cook. He won’t trust me with a pack of turkey twizzlers let along a fully-grown bird.

And what do I say as he labours? “Oh hurry up, you don’t need all those vegetables – your're making too much fuss.”