It’s 9am, Christmas Day, 1990. I’m six and wearing a Care Bears nightie handed down from my sister. I’ve just unwrapped my presents (a Glo Worm and an easel); I’m clutching a selection box in one hand and a Terry’s Chocolate Orange in the other. I’ve never felt more festive joy before or since. I’d waited all year for that moment. The most Christmassy thing I’d done in the lead up was watch Santa Claus The Movie on a telly on wheels in the school hall.
Compare this to Christmas 2024. I’ve attended to two toddler Christmas parties, been on a ‘gonk hunt’ (don’t ask), decorated biscuits, watched four Christmas movies, sweated through my flammable festive pyjamas and fished a pound shop elf out of the garden pond… and that was just this weekend. Yet somehow, after just a cursory glance at Instagram, I still felt guilty I didn’t book the UK’s finest grotto back in August.
I have serious festive fatigue. We’ve already bought all the presents, cleaned the house for the in-laws and cobbled together a shepherd’s costume, haven’t we done enough? Yet thanks to social media, there are always new crazes to jump on, each more time-consuming than the next, and it is perilously easy to absorb the impression that the rest of the world is doing them and that somehow, therefore, you must too.
So in case you have fallen down that rabbit hole, here are five absolutely crazy Christmas trends that I’ve spotted this year, and which you can absolutely step away from, guilt-free. In fact, they are stellar evidence both that the female festive load has gone too far (because how many men do you see buying matching pyjamas in Asda?) and there there may, in fact, be a global conspiracy to make women so exhausted, we fail to notice how terrible our presents are.
Charcuterie Chalets
Ever caught yourself thinking: ‘I like the idea of a gingerbread house, but I’d prefer mine with a side of E-coli?’ If so, the Charcuterie Chalet trend is for you. Not satisfied with trading the ham and pineapple hedgehog for a ‘grazing board’ – a party offering so maddeningly intricate you need a graphic design degree to achieve it – the internet overlords have invented a house made of entirely of room-temperature meat. Where on earth are we meant to chill and store it? Who, except Kris Jenner, has a spare fridge shelf in December? Hard pass.
Christmas Eve Boxes
We’re already buying for the kids, the teachers, the milkman, the school friends, the work secret Santa… What else do women want at this time of year? An extra gift-giving day to shop for! While the original idea of a Christmas Eve box is cute – a film, snacks and PJs for a cosy night in – the reality is that all the movies are on Netflix, someone will immediately spill hot chocolate over the sofa, and the pyjamas that are out-of-season three days later will be grown out of by next year. Do yourself a favour and stick to the best bits – Home Alone 2 and a box of Maltesers.
Festive front doorscaping
First came the wreath – very demure, very traditional – then ‘the swag’ – chic, French, available from Dunelm. So far, so fine. I’ve even made a nod to the big bow trend on my own front door… alas, it fell victim to Storm Darragh and now lives in the neighbour’s crab apple. But the insanely decorated porches being displayed online this year are next level festi-nonsense. Think Elton John’s annual floral budget, canon blasted at the entrance to a link-attached semi.
Single-use tree decos
Back to the bows… This year’s Christmas trees are covered in them. Last year’s kitsch cool decorations, (disco balls, a hot dog, David Bowie’s head), are out - hopefully in the attic, possibly in landfill. As if Christmas wasn’t already super sustainably suspect. So resist the pull toward 2024’s colour scheme or theme, and make like my grandma who used the same multicoloured lights for 52 years – decorations are for life, not just for 2024's Christmas.
TikTok photoshoots
Not content with snapping actual memories, this year people on TikTok are dressing up their kids, putting them in a cardboard box filled with fairy lights and barking orders to ‘Smile Amelia, the elf’s watching!’ All in the pursuit of the perfect Christmas snap. I can guarantee when asked in 30 years what these kids’ best festive memory is, it won’t be the time they were almost garroted by fairy lights. So let’s focus on making memories, not content. Because while there’s not a single snap of Christmas 1990, I clearly haven’t forgotten a second.
