I hate Chritmas

reply to post by calstorm

I'm sorry you have gone through something traumatic and Christmas makes you think about it. I can totally understand that. Have you tried counseling for it??


I am not a fan of Christmas at all and everyone who knows me knows it. Well this was the first year I celebrated in about 10 yrs and that is only because I have a 6 mth old now. I didn't want to but my husband was home from overseas and Christmas is his favorite holiday so I did it all. I did the tree, lights in the house and outside, decorations on windows and doors. We are taking the little one to see Santa today with my mom. I haven't seen a Santa since I worked in the mall 7yrs ago.

I don't have a job so I have no income of my own so it stresses me out when it comes to the dreaded gift swap. My husband has all the money basically. I felt really bad buying his gifts with his money. I know we're married and it's our money but I don't see it that way and that's my own issue. I was highly upset when one of his presents got here after he had already went back overseas even though I paid to have it here a week ago. I do NOT like the stress the holidays bring when it comes to money and gifts. People say it's not about gifts but lets face it that is ALL that is shoved in our faces, BUY BUY BUY!

This year I made holiday gift baskets with homemade bread, cookies, candy bars and granola bars. I made everything from scratch. I was in the kitchen for 12 days from 9am-9pm, no joke. I enjoyed it because to me cooking IS my gift to people. Well I had heart failure when I went to send one package. It was a small tin of cookies to my friend who i've known since she was 7 and she has a 2 yr old now. It cost me $63 bucks to send that damn package! I wanted to cry but I knew I had to send it. She was my person for the book group I was in and I also had another person to send cookies to from the cookie swap I joined for December, that one cost $24. I still had other packages to send but literally was sick from the cost to send those two items. The lady at UPS told me rates went up during the holidays because the trucks were on the road more. UM ISNT THEIR JOB TO BE ON THE ROAD TO BEGIN WITH!! I felt like it was TOTAL price gouging. I send packages all the time so I knew that price to send such a small item was insane! I still have a few left to send but I told those people I will send them after Christmas because of shipping costs. Only one person seemed to be a little bothered by it which ALSO bothered me. It's like do you expect me to pay $100 bucks to send you a box of cookies!?! Um no!

I have always stayed away for the holidays. I remember last year I went to Denny's and had steak fajitas. I don't like how greedy people get. It's all about what you will get them and I HATE when someone gets me a gift. I feel obligated to get them something. People say oh you don't have to but I KNOW they were expecting something. It just irks me. I'm not saying i don't appreciate the thought but when I say don't get me something I mean it.

IF I had to like one thing about Christmas, it's the food. I love making a huge meal. My husband requested Boeuf Bourguignon and that is what he got. We had our Christmas on Sunday before he left yesterday.


Christmas should be about those around you not the gifts around you. Kids today want the most ridiculous and expensive things. When I was a kid I was happy with a Barbie doll and my favorite gift as a kid was my microscope. I remember being forced to open the rest of my gifts because once i opened that i didn't want anything else. I was happy as a clam with just that.

So this Christmas I will go to my moms. Her in-laws will be there so we shall see how that goes.

reply to post by TrueBrit


I haven't seen carol singers for about 15 years. I must live in a particularly sacrilegious part of the country.

reply to post by LiveForever8


Well like I said, when you live roughly in the middle of a triangle of Protestant churches, with a bit of Roman on the side, you get more carols than you can shake a candy cane at!

reply to post by TrueBrit


Lucky you.

Closest I get to carol singers is some drunkard singing Slade at 3AM, which has it's own subtle beauty I suppose.

reply to post by calstorm


Your post made me feel sad :-( ...

I have for the last few years dwelt on how Christmas's have changed over my

lifetime ...

* Firstly my childish Christmas's, remembered as family occasions, and very little to

do with commercialism as I remember!

* Then my Christmas's as a young mother with her children, setting out new

traditions!

* Then as a mother with 'older' children and bringing in my own elderly parents to our

traditions!

* Then my children with their children embracing my 'elderly self' with their own

adapted traditions!


There has been much change and adaptations over the years, and I have learned in

life you have to make your own traditions to suit .... No one size fits all ...

there are divorces and deaths and partings and separations ... the family

dynamics change.

A family can be two, or twelve, or sixteen. Crises force the issue and adaptions

have to be made.


Through experience I have long ago dismissed the myth of "The perfect family" Lol!!

Today it struck me (and I don't know if its a memory or my own words) >>>

If life throws sh1t at you grow roses ...


So tomorrow, wallow for a while, then fill up your glass and have an internet drink

with me .... MERRY CHRISTMAS and a BRIGHTER NEW YEAR!!!

reply to post by calstorm


calstorm, I don't know what happened exactly in your past, but do you think that the ones you lost back then would want you to feel so unhappy at this time of year?

There are no written rules that says you have to celebrate Christmas like everyone else. Perhaps just a quiet day spent with someone watching movies and ordering out. Start your own traditions and do what makes you happy.

Though it is sad that my Dad has passed away and won't be here for Christmas, it is a holiday he always loved. We all know that he would want us to continue celebrating and enjoying all that the holiday has to offer.

Try seeing Christmas with all its magic and wonder, the enchanting lights, music, time spent with people you care about. It's more about love than anything else.

I do hope that one day your pain doesn't outpower the magic and wonder of Christmas. I wish you love and peace this holiday season and always.

lazernation
I hate it too. I've no particularly tragic reasons to feel the way I do. I just hate it. It really is my least favourite time of year.

What I hate most is that there is no escape. Even when I lived in Thailand (an overwhelmingly Buddhist country) it was in your face with jingle bells, Santa outfits and a mass consumer frenzy. I'm hoping to buy a farm in the middle of Spain next year and I shall refuse to leave it from November to December 31st. Although, I may try to start a new, equally obnoxious festival and shove that in every santa hat wearing, carol singing idiot's face. Maybe throwing goat's excrement at cars for winter solstice.

Any ideas for a new festive event?

We must replace this #!

Festivus for the rest of us!!

Night Star
reply to post by calstorm

 

Try seeing Christmas with all its magic and wonder, the enchanting lights, music, time spent with people you care about. It's more about love than anything else.

You seem like a nice person and I don't want you to be angry with me but:

Magic and wonder? I truly don't understand this... What is magical and wonderful about this festival? Millions and millions of people are made to feel even more miserable than normal for many different reasons. OP and me for twos! Some hate their family but feel duty bound to visit, Some don't have any family or loved ones so feel lonelier than normal, some are too poor to be able to buy gifts for their children and get sad because they know their children will feel left out or even be taunted when back at school by friends who got new tech and other stuff they didn't need, many tens of millions of people won't be able to afford food any better than the gruel they normally afford.

Tens of thousands will be living on the street. People will be abused, domestic violence will increase, violence on the streets will increase, people will overdose on booze and drugs, drunk drivers will kill more innocent people than normal, private debt will increase and many people will be forced to take holiday which they cannot afford to take, meaning they will be even poorer than normal after this time of joy. There will be utter misery in villages, towns and cities across the world.

How magical and wondrous.

Merry Christmas!

Enchanting lights? I and many I know think they're damn irritating. And a waste of energy. If you want lights, keep them inside your house.

Music? Christmas music is diabolical. I include both hymns and pop music from the likes of Mariah Carey, Cliff Richards and Slade. The only close to decent Christmas song ever penned was the Pogues song with Kirsty McCol. If you like Christmas music, remember to keep that volume down to -1, please.





I apologise if you think I'm being a downer but I think I've gone very easy on this absurd ejaculation of decadence, consumerism and one upmanship. Christmas (the very sound of the word makes me nauseous) is a pile of steaming turd. And I'm usually a very jolly person!

I could blurt out plenty more to urinate on this parade but I think I'll leave it for now. I have to make sure the old man has showered before I take him up the pub to have a drink with his moronic, decrepit, christian Tory so called friends.

OP, stay strong. This bull# will soon be over. For another 9 months, at least.

reply to post by nixie_nox


Festivus


hahahaha... I like the idea but was thinking of something a little more obnoxious. With work, this could be a winner though!

Good evening.

reply to post by calstorm


Yes, being culturally forced into this pagan holiday that is truthfully far from spirituality, and in reality a birthday of a sun god. We've been bamboozled, run amok. I don't want that tree in my living room, or holly from a questionable wood, or even jingle bells on my ears. I just want to be left to my own truth. The truth is no one can "make" you like a holiday that is a deception to begin with. Santa isn't real, and elves wouldn't choose to hang out with him.

I'm sorry about the PTSD, and at this time you are having to deal with that. This too will pass, and spring is around the corner with earth re-birthing baby animals and spring flowers, never knowing about this fake idea of Christmas.

I much prefer Thanksgiving where you focus on friends and family and eating all you want, while being thankful, but sometimes I wonder if the Indians hate that holiday for if they hadn't helped those white folks, then their land would be in a better place. No they don't have to like that holiday either.

The Christmas season is tainted in some way for me, thanks to holiday movies. I don't get why those charming comedies mentally ruined the feel of the whole holiday for me, but I can't stand it. Christmas to my homebody self now just means getting and decorating a tree, and eating desserts. And trying not to gain weight.

I hate christmas songs.

I hate giving ideas for presents and I also hate figuring out what to give for presents...in the end, it's mostly useless junk because everything really usefull, people already have it or it's too expensive to ask for a present.

I hate christmas songs.

I hate having to either visit the family, or suffer the concequences of not visiting the family in the first place...oh and mostly, we end up with multiple ''families''...it's no wonder we don't see some of them more than once a year.

I hate christmas songs.

Seriously, what's there to like to christmas...everything we do like about it, we shouldn't deprive ourselves from it all the rest of the year if that is what makes us happy! Egg nog all year long if that's what pleases you!

I hate christmas songs by the way....
Jingle bells, jingle bells, jungle bell phoque.

I always feely pretty grim this time of year too. As others have said, the guilt-forced consumerism, effects of too much alcohol, tacky lighting etc. I remember when Christmas lights used to be pretty. Now they look like they've been stolen from a nightclub. Electric-blue and Christmas don't mix IMO.

I don't even like the food. I'm a vegetarian and the rest of my family is not. I don't even like that sort of boring veg; the thought of it makes me feel sick. I don't drink excessively either, and feel like a bit of a spare part when everyone else is getting "merry".

The whole thing has got out of hand. I probably wouldn't hate it as much if it wasn't so commercial/corporate. There are so many companies making a killing from this "religious" holiday, while some people can't even afford a place to live.

There should be some sort of international law stating that you are not allowed to celebrate Christmas unless you are a Christian. Makes sense to me. You should have to earn a Christmas licence from your Priest by going to church so many times a year. That would put an end to it. It's a cultural embarrassment.

Imagine what Jesus would think if he came back and saw what was going on.

I'm sending the Family away Christmas Day.

I am going to the Shelter to help out.

It makes me feel better this time of year (selfish I know).

I like the other posters idea, go talk with a Pro.

I hate it that you are suffering this time of year.

Peace

reply to post by calstorm


I'm not a big fan of Xmas the way it's celebrated in America; drunken, credit card rituals, ugly middle finger traffic, violent child and spousal abuse at it's highest point, emergency rooms filled to overflowing and family gatherings where old resentments can once again be brought out and shined up with tears and profanity!! Just like last year!!

I think my lady and I will have our holiday in some Mexican beach town where the only xmas decoration is one pitiful strand of lights in all it's surreal glory. Surfs up!




Feliz Navidad

My particular feelings about Christmas are mixed at best.

On one hand, years of retail work have made me despise every bit of commercialism involved with it, but on the other I occasionally catch myself sitting quietly in the darkened living room with my 1 year old, looking at the lights on our little tree in silence, and loving it.

I don't like the gatherings that take place during Christmas, as my family tends to be more than a bit obnoxious and selfish.

I can't stand the weather, and I despise all of the phony 'goodwill' that will soon be replaced with the more common self-absorption and xenophobia.

There is a LOT more story to all of this, but what it boils down to is:
Yes, I hate Christmas, and I love it.

calstorm
reply to post by Metallicus

 

Considering that Christmas to me represents the loss of the family I had at the time and the fact that it triggers symtoms of PTSD not really.

No it doesn't have to, you are choosing to believe that to punish yourself.
Like if you don't get bent out of shape and sad, you do their spirit wrong?

Wouldn't the spirits of those gone want you to stop beating yourself up, and instead try to lift yourself up and enjoy what's left of your short lifespan? That's what I hear from the Void.

PTSD isn't meant to linger and fester.
It's to be overcome and conquered.

Trust me, I despise having to learn my lesson like anyone else does.
But there is a time when we must face our fears, sorrows, and hatreds in order to raise to the next level of human experience.

I think you have had enough suffering over this, it's time to take a look in the mirror and begin healing.

What did Scrooge do after he found out the truth about the Spirits of Christmas?
He went and changed his life, he became a new person.

Think about it.
(This post applies to anyone suffering from similar issues)

calstorm
Yes that is right! I hate everything about it, the songs, the lights the crowded stores, and you can't get away from it unless you never go out and stave from the end of October until at least the 2nd week of January.

I have a good reason to hate Christmas. My Christmas as a child were pretty non existent. My drug addict mother never did anything because she was too high and spent all he money on drugs and my grandparents who resented being forced to take me in and never let me forget it always said "We do for you year round, why should we have to do anything for you for Christmas." But the kicker is 2 days before my first real Christmas as an adult. Tragedy struck. I would rather not talk about it. Just know it resulted in me having PTSD, something I have never mentioned here before. But every year on Christmas I am forced to relive it. Whether it's music in the store or Christmas lights. I avoid it the best i can but it's hard, and it never seems to get better.

I know there has to be other people here on ATS the hate Christmas as much as I do.

So come join me and celebrate our dislike of this very miserable day.

(((((HUGS)))))

All I can say is the best way to get over it, embrace it and change your way of thinking.

Love to you and yours! xoxox

reply to post by calstorm

I am truly sorry to hear about the pain and suffering you experienced as a child during this season. These are your feelings that you have and it's ok to feel angry and unhappy, considering what you experienced. It's also good to talk about it, here in Rant, and just allow your feelings to be felt.

My only consideration is possibly realize that you can control these feelings now, you are empowered to choose what you want to focus on. Perhaps, this could be your time to stop and reflect on all the things you truly are grateful for today, in your life and how you will improve upon these in the new year...just a suggestion.

I know it is difficult my friend. All the best!! Peace!!

reply to post by calstorm


Anyone who told you life was gonna be easy or fair lied.

If you have a problem man can solve then you have no problem.
==================

Just don't internalize what happened so much. Also you should go over the memories and actually use this technique that anothy robbins talks about where you scratch up the memory using strange things you add to the memory, you'll have ot look it up. But it works. Might snap you out of the pattern of constantly reliving it. You don't want to keep using it as a crutch which is what you're doing. Also christmas is NOT ABOUT WHAT YOU CAN GET. It's about giving. So if you want to enjoy christmas go down to whereever they're putting on a christmas dinner for the homeless and either bring down a few turkeys there and voluneer to help out in the kitchen preparing and serving food for the homeless. It's not about what you're gonna get under the tree. It's about what you can give. Please do this, it will heal your past once you see how you can make a difference in someone else's life who's less fortunate than you ok.

Also the past is over, and also the future doesn't equal the past. Just start over today and reinvent your life.