Avoiding supermarket Xmas jollity.

I shop online now - so avoid that problem. Still, I remember being very irritated by it in the past, feeling trapped with the awful music. It's as if Christmas jollity is compulsory and you're just Scrooge if you don't even fake it.

When my husband died in the November, leaving me with four kids and Christmas to organise, the inner pain was almost unbearable, the effort to function and appear 'normal' immense and exhausting.

Waitrose doesn't play music.

Losing someone at any time of year is painful, though I'm guessing it is even harder at Christmas time with all the jolly stuff going on around.

But Christmas music in supermarkets doesn't get people dancing in the aisles or leaping about, does it? And if they played ordinary music that might be just as upsetting to someone who has memories of a favourite song.

I think it is just something we have to put up with.
When I have lost people near and dear to me, I remember wondering why everyone was just carrying on as normal when I was dealing with such sadness. However, that’s the way life is and the world keeps turning.

I always feel sorry for the staff, weeks of the same music playing on a loop.

Hetty58

I shop online now - so avoid that problem. Still, I remember being very irritated by it in the past, feeling trapped with the awful music. It's as if Christmas jollity is compulsory and you're just Scrooge if you don't even fake it.

When my husband died in the November, leaving me with four kids and Christmas to organise, the inner pain was almost unbearable, the effort to function and appear 'normal' immense and exhausting.

How dreadful for you.that must have been a nightmare.

Asda, Morrisons and Tesco all do “quiet hours” a couple of times a week for people who find noise disconcerting. That should definitely include Christmas music.
It is a recent feature but has become popular.
Hetty58 what a devastating thing to happen to you and your young family. ?

Our small town has a large population of over 60’s and our local large Tesco doesn’t play music all year,after many complaints , apart from a few weeks before Christmas.
We are shopping on line at the moment due to DH’s compromised immune system from cancer treatment.

I used to hate the UK Xmas hype. Then I went to China to live. Their supermarkets are rife with all manner of live, in-person advertising. Yogurt in particular is heavily promoted. By girls in pretty costumes and megaphones, deafeningly shouting the benefits of their products. The seasonal music is played at loud volume too. One tune in particular I still have as an ear worm, many years on. Far too cacophonous for a grumpy old woman like me.

I see the UK as a milder version now.

Working in retail for many years I did not play Christmas music on Christmas Day and many of my colleagues were the same. You have the same Christmas songs on in your place of work constantly from November. One company I worked for decided they wanted Christmas music on from late October. My manager was inundated with complaints and had to refer it to head office. It got stopped, till late November. I find we are inundated with loud music all year round and I hate it. No one gives a thought for hard of hearing people like myself who become even more isolated as you cannot take part in conversations. You just cannot hear people with loud background music.

Have to say the music tends to go over my head but I did hear a female voice absolutely massacring 'All I want is you' as I shopped yesterday. Awful. All I could think of was the poor staff who have to endure this repeatedly but I guess they become immune. Hope so.

Deliveries for me too. I haven't been in a supermarket for two years now.

I don’t like it in the supermarket, because as people have said...it’s on a roller, and is so boring. It stops me concentrating. I feel so sorry for the staff who are in it constantly.

Thanks for the replies, I will see if any local supermarket does ' quiet time'.
I worked in retail for some years, and never quite got the hang of switching off in my head the never ending loop Xmas music.
Have a peaceful Xmas or as near to it as you can.

Thank you Ellylanes ,
and a very Happy Christmas to you too.

I go late at night to avoid people.

It is working for me! Today I congratulated myself on the fact that I have not had to see one child or hear one Christmas song. The last thing I want to see is other people's happy families since my son estranged me and I cannot see my beloved GC.

Sorry to be a bit "Bah Humbug", but it is a painful time.

Sorry for the position you find yourself in OnwardandUpward I can only imagine your pain particularly at this time of year ?

GagaJo

I used to hate the UK Xmas hype. Then I went to China to live. Their supermarkets are rife with all manner of live, in-person advertising. Yogurt in particular is heavily promoted. By girls in pretty costumes and megaphones, deafeningly shouting the benefits of their products. The seasonal music is played at loud volume too. One tune in particular I still have as an ear worm, many years on. Far too cacophonous for a grumpy old woman like me.

I see the UK as a milder version now.

Christmas carols were plays out in a hairdresser’s in the August heat.

Played

Thanks Tilly Trotter it might get harder to avoid people when the kids have broken up from school

Completely sympathise with your point of view OP it just goes on too long. Pushing my heavy trolley around Sainsburys today, God knows where all the smaller ones were, for what seemed an interminable amount of time, listening to among other horrors, "it's the most wonderful time of the year" given the worrying couple of years we have been living through, it really isn't appropriate at all.

My nest shop will be on Sunday and that will be Waitrose where thank God they don't play Christmas shite

Or even next shop, nest shop is Easter time I imagine.

So sorry for your loss Hetty and to all those who are also bereaved at this difficult time of the year.

Hetty58

I shop online now - so avoid that problem. Still, I remember being very irritated by it in the past, feeling trapped with the awful music. It's as if Christmas jollity is compulsory and you're just Scrooge if you don't even fake it.

When my husband died in the November, leaving me with four kids and Christmas to organise, the inner pain was almost unbearable, the effort to function and appear 'normal' immense and exhausting.

When my husband died in the November, leaving me with four kids and Christmas to organise, the inner pain was almost unbearable, the effort to function and appear 'normal' immense and exhausting.

That has me in tears... how stoic you must have had to be at that time, coping with your grief, yet having to give the children a decent Christmas, with all that forced jollity going on around you. You must have felt you were living in a different world, being amongst happy people who were totally unaware of your pain.