Six out of ten Brits will fall out with members of their family this Christmas – with empty wrappers being stuffed back into the chocolate tin among the most common triggers, a study found. Research carried out among 1,000 adults also found not mucking in with the after dinner clean-up to be a major bone of contention amongst families, with wasting food another issue.
The study, by home solutions specialist Häfele UK, also found that drinking too much too early on in the day and leaving a mess after helping out with the cooking are also guaranteed to lead to frayed tempers.
Additionally the stats also revealed families in the North West have the shortest tempers and are most likely to squabble with loved ones over Christmas.
Furthermore the report found Londoners will avoid family gripes by spending the least time of any region in the country with their frustrating nearest and dearest – just four hours, 57 minutes.
Rachel Willcock from Häfele UK said:
”Small annoyances can come to the fore when you’re spending more time with family at Christmas, and when dinner prep and entertaining expectations are putting you under pressure.”
The research also showed two out of three Brits will only really start to enjoy the company of their family when the stress of Christmas Day is over.
And nearly half (43%) of the women who took part in the poll admitted they would get along better with their partners and families if they helped to tidy up more on the big day.
The study also found that remarkably, one in ten adults will lose at least the equivalent of one entire day of the Christmas period tidying up after their visitors have left.
Regionally the figures showed that on average, families in Northern Ireland will spending over twice as long (6 hours, 53 minutes) clearing up than those in the North East (3 hours, 17 minutes).
Rachel added:
”We want Brits to spend less time stressing and instead enjoy more quality time together over the festive period.
”We recommend having your cooking essentials to hand and getting the whole family involved in making this Christmas extra special.
”With a bit of clever storage and making sure there’s a place for everything, we could save Britain almost 450 million hours of tidying up time after the festive holidays.
”Häfele can offer storage solutions, but unfortunately we can’t do anything about those pesky empty wrappers in the chocolate tin.”
TOP 12 FESTIVE FRUSTRATIONS
1. Putting empty chocolate wrappers back in the tin
2. Wasting food
3. Doing nothing to help
4. Buying so much food there is nowhere to store it
5. Not taking the bins out
6. Making a mess when cooking Christmas dinner
7. Being disorganised
8. Drinking too early in the day
9. Being over-competitive at board games
10. Getting stressed in a small kitchen
11. Complaining they’re full – then immediately eating more
12. Making everyone wear the paper hats out of crackers