For those that can’t stand this time of the year, my misery seeks company. What does it for you?
For me: aside from the usual family stuff:
I worked front-end in a post office back when that meant a line-up before I opened the doors to the end of the day when I had to inform the line-up that was still out the door that, yes, I was going to close on time. (Some didn’t take that well. For me it was just another Tuesday…)
It meant a lot of work with little thanks and I had to listen to the same shitty Xmas playlist over and over all day.
Edit/PS: The quick downvote sells it. Perfection. chefs kiss
Deep down I’m still an edgy militant atheist, and really want nothing to do with religious celebrations.
The only things I really want are things I’m not realistically going to be gifted. No one’s going to buy and install a new heater/windows/deck for me for Christmas, or pay down my credit card, etc. I have too much junk already, I have all the clothes I need, I don’t really need more snacks in the house, and I’m pretty much set up with everything I need/want for my hobbies. I don’t need gifts. Inevitably I’m going to get a bunch of junk I don’t need or want, and I’m gonna take it straight home and throw it out or donate it or otherwise I’m going to spend the next eternity shuffling around my house because I don’t have anywhere to put it.
I’m probably a bit autistic or maybe just a bit dead inside, so even on the rare occasion I get a gift I’m really excited about I don’t really have much of a reaction to it, which I feel is disappointing to the people giving it to me.
I really hate decorating and then having to take it all down a month or so later, having to haul all this crap down from the attic and then back up again is a real drag. It’s part of the reason I get a real tree, it’s easier to just strap it back onto my roof and haul it to my friend’s house to burn in their fire pit (which is very cathartic) than to try to wrestle it back up the ladder. My wife likes it, so I suffer through it, I just wish she’d do more of the work.
I don’t want to spend money. I have things I want to save for and dropping a couple hundred bucks on presents isn’t helping that. I don’t mind getting people gifts if it’s something I think they really need or wound like, but thats usually not why I’m buying them stuff for Christmas, I’m getting them stuff because I feel obligated to get them something.
Family gatherings suck. As far as families go mine isn’t too bad, I’d even say I kind of like most of them, but getting all of them in the room together and having to spend most of the day with them is too much. There’s too many people, it’s too loud, and while they’re generally all good people, I don’t really have enough in common with most of them to make it worth the aggravation, they’re best enjoyed in small doses. My wife’s family is smaller and quieter, which would be great, except they want the gathering to go on all day, my wife is bringing stuff over to make breakfast and it sounds like they plan to keep things going until at least dinner, so thats probably gonna be a 12+ hour ordeal when you figure in the time it takes to go over the river and through the woods to grandmothers house. Also, most of our family just aren’t great cooks, and even if they were there are some picky eaters in the family, so family meals are pretty lackluster. I think my wife’s family’s dinner plans are a stouffers lasagna. Luckily I have to work this year so I have a good excuse not to go.
Christmas music can be good, but not the stuff that’s been piped into every single fucking store I’ve had to go to for the last month, and I’m sick of it.
This is mostly just a me-problem, but I have way too much shit going on this time of year. My anniversary is in November, then thanksgiving which we usually do with my father in law who’s about an hour away, my wife’s birthday, my mom’s birthday, christmas even which is usually with my family, usually about 45 minutes away depending on who’s hosting, Christmas day is usually with my mother in law about an hour away, and then after that I usually host a new years eve party and between work and holiday obligations it’s kind of crazy trying to get my house ready for that.
I work in 911 dispatch, we always get some really crazy/sad calls around this time of year. I deal with it just fine personally, but it doesn’t exactly put me in a holly jolly mood.
I don’t know, I made it this far and just kind of wanted to leave it on a nice round number I guess… Maybe I find tinsel distracting?
Fishbowl guy needs some love too, no? (sorry, from a previous post but lol, that stuck.)
The older I get the more atheist I become rather than agnostic, and the more militant towards that I become despite trying not to be. But everything just screams it to me the more and more I understand the world on a fundamental level and experience life. Been a couple things in the past few years that have really clicked for me that didn’t before. And where I am right now (staying in a hostel) where I meet people who won’t turn on BlueTooth because it “messes with their brain” have…
…
…
Yeah. Them five whole G’s on a cellphone are going to break you, but you go ahead and have a loud conversation in a public space on your speaker-phone…
I want to chime in on 2., because I have a similar problem and there’s some ways I’ve found to work around that. Maybe there’s something you might like out of that. Because for God’s sake, I don’t need another scarf that I am not going to wear, my daughter doesn’t need another plastic toy, and we really don’t buy stuff at zalando and my family keeps gifting this to my spouse who owns like 3 t shirts and a sweater and likes it that way.
My favorite: Ask for donations in your name. Find a charity you can really get behind. My husband likes a buddhist foundation of a demised teacher, I like OVD Info. If the person who is gifting doesn’t like the idea, maybe point out that it is tax deductible.
Ask for specific vouchers. If your folks are running out of ideas and are about to gift you an amazon voucher, try to think of something that you might use in your everyday life. Maybe it even is amazon; then set the same amount of money aside to get you something you really want or need and spend that money on everyday stuff. At least in Germany, there are services like Task Rabbit, where you can book a handyman to fix your window, install your heater, etc. This might be worth a voucher.
Ask for a voucher of time together. That’s usually a stupid one (especially when you’re autistic) because usually you can just spend time with people you like without a voucher. But sometimes it keeps them from getting you more junk.
Even worse for autistic people, but also worth a try - as kids we were encouraged (at school) to make voucher books for our parents with things like “1x taking out the trash”, “1x vacuum cleaning” etc. I personally don’t think these things should need a voucher, but maybe you can think of your own version. (Like, I shouldn’t need a voucher to get one hour of gaming or for my spouse to compromise on what’s for dinner, but maybe you’re in a stressful home and this works for you.)
Obviously, self made presents or hand me downs. “Do you have something in your home that isn’t of any use to you but you feel like I could still like it? I would love to have something that used to be yours and makes me think of you, while I also can give it a new, beloved home!” And everyone can glue a card sized collage.
Ask for things that you will consume. Cookies, good bread, pens, soap, whatever. So it doesn’t accumulate.
Not trying to be contrary, but I’ve gone down this rabbit hole a lot over the years
As far as the donation goes, the argument I keep running up against is usually that they want me to “have something to unwrap” that isn’t just cash or a gift card (no matter how many times I tell them that I don’t care about that) I feel like a little “a donation has been made in your name” note would probably feel like even less of a present to them
Unfortunately I don’t think any of my family are itemizing their deductions.
And as far as vouchers and gift cards go, I hate those things enough that in retrospect they probably should have been point 10. I never remember to use them, I have probably over $200 in various gift cards sitting around in my house right now that I’ll probably never think to grab when I’m running out to the store or making an order online. And I hate being forced to shop at specific places. And of course the amount always ends up not being exactly what I need, so either I’m left with like $2.37 left on a card that I’m really never going to bother using, or I still have to pay something out of pocket in which case I’d really rather I be able to shop around to get the best deal possible but can’t if I want to use the gift card.
Cash would be great, but again they want to give me something besides cash or a gift card.
And as far as personal vouchers go, my home/family life is mercifully pretty harmonious. Except for Christmas I don’t have many complaints, I see everyone pretty much exactly as much as I want to, get to do the things I enjoy doing, etc… About the only thing I would want there is a “get out of Christmas free card” which feels like a weird Christmas present.
And we’re sort of the cooks in the family, so I am the source of good bread and cookies and such, and I don’t really go through a lot of snack foods. I just recently threw out a bunch of candies and such from last Christmas to make room for what I surely have incoming this year, and my soap and such needs are pretty minimal, my preferred brand comes in gallon jugs that lasts me a good long time, and other consumables tend to last me a long time and I never seem to run low around the holidays, nor do I have the storage space to really stockpile a bunch of extras.
And my family is already really good at moving around stuff we’re not using, my brother in law (sisters husband) was kind of astonished at how often we end up moving furniture from one relatives house to another and handing off random things to people who can use them. We could maybe save some of that for Christmas, but then it becomes a problem of “where do we store this second couch we bought in August until we can give the old one away in December”
And handmade stuff I don’t need is still stuff I don’t need.
1 - Is it even religious anymore? My extended family aren’t even christian or like take religions seriously in anyway afaik (context: Chinese Americans, but I have like some uncles from HK), they still “celebrate” christmas as a sort of “oh its another year and the calandar is says its a holiday so I guess we should um… do something?” type of thing, like an excuse to get together or something.
2&3 - When I was a kid, I’d want stuff but rarely get stuff lol. My cousins all have like Wiis and DS and all the fun stuff… so spending time with them just reminded me of how much stricter my parents are with “no video games because it’s unproductive and waste of time” and also reminded me that we are lower on the wealth-social status than them and we’re poorer. Honestly I don’t even have any of these “gifts” that are memorable, that how much my brain didn’t care to remember.
4 - Lol you could just skip that part. Who cares, have some random lighting and call it a day lol. I never even had a chrismas tree.
6 - Yea, I had cousins that are assholes since they feel so privilaged about their birthright citizenship. They be playing with their Nintendo DS or something and I had nothing… so I was always an outcast… I get it… I remember I always wanted to go home when in a relative’s house. I have like memories just watching cousins play games while I felt sad and bored and my sould kinda died inside lol. Like loneliness in a big crowd. The only one I could relate to was my older brother… my abusive older brother who I had fights with a lot…
7 - Holiday music makes me cringe, and I feel anxious af… idk why
Me too, but ironically though I agree with most of your other criticisms of Christmas, this one I actually consciously reject. I make a point of emphasising the fact that in the year 2025, Christmas is 99% a secular holiday that just happens to have a little religious backstory.