“AITA for being firm on not celebrating Christmas?”

I (41f) have 3 daughters, Kate (23F), Emmy (6F), and Lila (4F) with my husband (41m). We had our oldest pretty young and then eventually had our younger two when we were more stable. Before we had our youngest two we celebrated Christmas with Kate every year.

However, once Emmy and Lila were born we stopped because at that point Kate had grown up and we realized we were putting so much effort into a consumerist holiday and we both were honestly just too tired to keep doing it for the younger two. Neither has ever known what Christmas is like and we’re happy that way.

Kate is in the military and doesn’t see us often, and usually doesn’t talk to her sisters because we don’t want them using our phones. We see her once a year in the summer usually. This year she decided to visit us for Christmas.

I guess she still celebrates but we were firm with her and asked her not to talk about it with Emmy and Lila because we know they would want to celebrate it too. Unfortunately she didn’t listen and she told our kids about her childhood and what Christmas was like for her.

Then the girls came clamoring to us about how they want to celebrate Christmas this year. We quickly told them absolutely not and told Kate off for not respecting our boundaries. Not only is it a waste for us but there’s only a week until Christmas so even if we were to celebrate we couldn’t get anything in time anyways.

We asked Kate to leave early and right now we’re trying to keep her away from the girls until they move on from the Christmas stuff so she can’t push them to want it more. Kate says we’re aholes for not even letting the girls experience the non-gifting parts of Christmas like decorating or watching movies together, but my husband agrees with me.

We’re both getting old, we don’t want to do any of that stuff anymore and the girls will be fine not having Christmas experiences like Kate got. It has me thinking if I’m making the right choice though. AITA?

Here’s what people had to say to OP:

Mooshu1981 said:

YTA. Why take the magic of Christmas away from 2 young kids. Your daughter is right. I’m 44 and I can not believe that you are tired of the BS. Just call it what it is. Your lazy. What will happen once the kids start school and all the kids start talking about the holidays.

Normal-Grocery-752 said:

What happens once they start school? Ban the teachers from mentioning Christmas? Ban your daughters from having friends just in case those friends mention how excited they are about Christmas? You are of course free to raise your children how you see fit, however joyless and soul sucking that may be. Well done on alienating your oldest, BTW. YTA.

Purple-Haku said:

Doesn’t matter if it’s a “consumerism” holiday. A child needs Christmas, don’t buy toys. Okay games, bake treats, do something. Sure, you don’t need presents. You can do pass the parcel, or something else. YTA.

Ok_Television_7926 said:

YTA it may be a generally consumerist holiday, but it is also a communal experience. You are denying these children something which has a resonance that will leak in to future encounters.

RedKittieKat said:

YTA and you won’t even let them talk to their sister?? Wow! That’s just plain cruel!

The-Reanimator-Freak said:

YTA. You can do a low key version. Make a nice meal. Do a family activity. Make cookies?