Do your parents have the 'Christmas Crazies'?

Feathers

Well-known member
I don't know how else to describe it.

My parents are Catholic and they get obsessed with cleaning and such before Christmas (or Easter) holidays...

Dad gets drunk then mum is cross at him. (And yells at us all, yikes.)

I miss my Granny. Thought it would be 'calmer' this year, without her. (She usually 'took Dad's side' cause she's oldschool that way, hated quarrels and liked a drink now and then too... not too much, just to toast..)
I always thought mum had the 'cleaning crazies' cause Gran was coming over... apparently not!!

We still have some boxes of Gran's stuff... Mum and I basically flipped at each other over them... (I don't know why anything in my attic or on the way there would bother her either??!) I feel very embarassed about it all, mum's had heart problems so loud quarrels are the last thing she needs, she doesn't seem to understand Christmas is difficult for us...

Isn't Christmas supposed to be about love & peace & understanding & good cheer, not about yelling and being cleaning-obsessed?? Yikes.

/Sorry, rant over./
 

Feathers

Well-known member
Well, describe so we can commiserate? :)

Any tips on how to make it better?

One year I cleaned the whole house/helped a lot/did what mum wanted me to do before Easter - then she was smiling and I was cranky/exhausted!! yikes!!
There needs to be a 'middle ground' between these extremes?

When I was at Uni, I usually came home the last day before Christmas, the afternoon/evening.. (and not a bit sooner!) Now I know why!! lol!!

I'd probably need to reserve a winter getaway somewhere, with friends or alone!! (I actually swore to do that last year, but then kinda forgot about it!! Yikes!!)
 

Lea

Banned
I wish someone here was cleaning obsessed. Unfortunately my parents are not into this kind of stuff :(.
 
Well, you can't "change" your parents... if they can't change themselves, much less can you...

I guess the best way to deal with it is to look at it from a bigger picture... Does your mother's cleaning obsession really hurt anyone? Sometimes you just gotta let your parents be... But then other times, if it gets too extreme, you have to stand up for yourself and say "enough".
 

Feathers

Well-known member
lol Lea, you want my mum to come over? :)

I honestly think a daughter who'd be more into cleaning and such (and who'd get married and have a proper career & give 'em grandkids yikes!) would be a way better daughter for them!!

I think maybe Christmas/New Year also make'em realize they do not have these magical perfect daughters (that don't exist!) and then they can be miserable, and lash out at us... (Or maybe that's just my imagination...)

Being single and miserable for Christmas is depressing enough, they want us to be 'cheerful' too huh?? and have energy to clean everything? and jump around, visiting people etc?

I wouldn't mind it if mum would do the cleaning by herself, but she expects everyone else to do it too, and to be as obsessed as she is!! (which I'm just not!!) Sometimes she starts something and then I have to drop everything and come take a look/finish/take it away (the boxes) etc yikes!!
Instead, she would need to rest now, not jump around like crazy!!
(Though quarelling about this is probably worse for her heart yikes!!)
 
Nah, their just relaxed about it.

My mom only wants to buy gifts on Saturday. Oh well, that's cool right. xD

and with xmas we're gonna brunch at a hotel i think, just the morning breakfast we're gonna spent there and we're going to make a long trip.... i think to amsterdam (i hope..) other than that, we're gonna watch movies and just eat a lot of nice food. I like it that we won't celebrate it with a bunch of people and we're just gonna go somewhere, discuss what we all like. and that's totally cool with me!

But my mom is a cleaning freak every day, christmas or not.. So I guess my mom always have the clean crazies... O_____O. I wish she only did on XMAS XD hahahah
 
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