And so it's Thanksgiving, my sign to hide.....

[Fade2black]

I've always hated the entire season from Thanksgiving to the New Year. Everyone scuttering around mindlessly, the traffic, stores are crowded with loud pushy people, etc. And the family get-togethers... I haven't been to one in decades yet the memories are still fresh of everyone behaving fakely and talking about how great their lives are, how much money they make now, etc.

I will stay home today, by myself with the blinds down. My mom always calls to greet me, but I never take the call because I hate this time of the year so much. I know she feels bad because I won't answer, but answering will just make me feel worse. The entire month of December causes me to have deep depression because I hate being around people.

Anyone else feel the same? Or am I just really far into the spectrum.

 

[Juliettaa]

December doesn't cause me to feel depressed; however I dislike Christmas and New Year.

Thankfully there's no Thanksgiving in the UK otherwise I'd be avoiding that too

In my world, Christmas and New Year are 'just another day' and because it's compulsory for me to take the Christmas day, Boxing day and New Year's day off work, I just 'pretend' it's the weekend and the weekend = no work.

It was very liberating when I opted out of all of the consumerist madness that is Christmas in the UK. I can leave the house, be faced with Christmas things everywhere, but ignore them because in my mind, they're meaningless. Trivial tat.

It really helps to get into the mindset of doing what suits you and to hell with what society expects.

Give it a try. You won't regret it!!

 

[Shamar]

I've always hated the entire season from Thanksgiving to the New Year. Everyone scuttering around mindlessly, the traffic, stores are crowded with loud pushy people, etc. And the family get-togethers... I haven't been to one in decades yet the memories are still fresh of everyone behaving fakely and talking about how great their lives are, how much money they make now, etc.

I will stay home today, by myself with the blinds down. My mom always calls to greet me, but I never take the call because I hate this time of the year so much. I know she feels bad because I won't answer, but answering will just make me feel worse. The entire month of December causes me to have deep depression because I hate being around people.

Anyone else feel the same? Or am I just really far into the spectrum.

I'm with you, for a slightly different reason. My flavor of autism includes an inability to bond or emotionally connect to other people, yet it is what I want most of all. I see the entire season as one of celebrating being together with family and friends. For this reason I find the entire season a mocking slap on the face. Christmas music causes me to become suicidal, and I cannot go into stores unless absolutely necessary due to the never-sufficiently-cursed music.

I also avoid driving on National Shopping Insanity Day (day after Thanksgiving) and National Gift Return Insanity Day (day after Christmas).

 

[Juliettaa]

I'm with you, for a slightly different reason. My flavor of autism includes an inability to bond or emotionally connect to other people, yet it is what I want most of all. I see the entire season as one of celebrating being together with family and friends. For this reason I find the entire season a mocking slap on the face. Christmas music causes me to become suicidal, and I cannot go into stores unless absolutely necessary due to the never-sufficiently-cursed music.

I'm really sorry to read this. It sounds as if it'd be extremely difficult to manage the aspects you've mentioned @Shamar

While I can and do choose to ignore the 'festive season', when you feel like you do, it sounds really challenging as there really is no way of completely avoiding it in the outside world.

 

[Kalinychta]

I feel the same way. I can’t stand this time of year either. Thanksgiving is especially painful. People getting together stuffing their faces with the bodies of turkeys who were tortured every minute of their lives...and talking about how “thankful” they are (first-world self-congratulatory greed and hypocrisy astonish me). And then comes buy, buy, buy, buy, buy... It makes me long for the Apocalypse.

 

[Streetwise]

I've always hated the entire season from Thanksgiving to the New Year. Everyone scuttering around mindlessly, the traffic, stores are crowded with loud pushy people, etc. And the family get-togethers... I haven't been to one in decades yet the memories are still fresh of everyone behaving fakely and talking about how great their lives are, how much money they make now, etc.

I will stay home today, by myself with the blinds down. My mom always calls to greet me, but I never take the call because I hate this time of the year so much. I know she feels bad because I won't answer, but answering will just make me feel worse. The entire month of December causes me to have deep depression because I hate being around people.

Anyone else feel the same? Or am I just really far into the spectrum.

Some of my family were neurodiverse so we didn’t celebrate the way Neurotypicals do but the rest were Neurotypical I like seeing a tree I like the quietness when it is quiet I like the music when I like it and because I attended a course about the Jewish roots of my Faith ,now I like to think that Christmas is well over before December, for me it is Hanukkah, Christmas for me now is in September /October that’s the time Jesus was born from the description in the Bible ,I always laugh when I think of Arabic Christian’s saying, there is no tree of Christmas in the Bible ,Looking inquiringly for the mention of a tree of Christmas.So December for me is donuts if you’re Jewish you have things that are deep-fried to celebrate the oil in the menorah lasting 8 days, couldn’t spin a dreidel if I tried.

 

[Misery]

Same.

Though, it can be hard to avoid.

Since this house is so bloody enormous, it's the place to go for Thanksgiving, as it can actually fit my stepmother's gigantic extended family. So... right now, they are all here. Too many. Just too many.

I have currently locked myself in my room. I'll need to at least go say hi to my grandparents soon enough though, but that's all they'll get me to do. I will say though, I'm really freaking glad I have my own bathroom. No way I'd want to go past everyone to a different one in another part of the house.

What always really gets me about stuff like this though is the effects of the label of "family".

While I know my grandparents well enough, for almost all of the others... I dont know them at all. I often even have trouble attaching names to faces... providing I can remember the names, which I usually cant. It's the same with my mom's equally huge family.

And the reaction is always "but they're family! Of course you know them!" and it's like... no, I dont. And I'm not going to pretend to. What's the point of doing that? It's fake and will absolutely sound that way. I dont get why people do that. As a kid, when I couldnt avoid this crap, it was always a stupid awkward "hi" and "I'm fine" in response to the usual opening statements. And... that's it. I pretty much never said anything else.

But also I see Thanksgiving as a stupid excuse for people to get fat. Bah. I just eat my usual meals, always simple things.

Christmas now... I'm fine with that, though I still avoid the parties. What I like about it is the more festive and usually pleasant atmosphere. People (at least around here) tend to just be more nice during this season and thusly, I'll have less anxiety about dealing with them. Also I just love all the lights and such. I can find it depressing though. It reminds me of childhood way, way too much, and I dont deal with nostalgia well at all. That part can be overwhelming and very unpleasant.

I dont care about the gifts too much. As a kid, OF COURSE I cared about it, but these days I can just buy whatever I feel like without restrictions, so... feh. I do go shopping for gifts for immediate family and friends though. Just to give them things that they may like and enjoy. A way to show affection and appreciation, really. But that's as far as my interest in that aspect goes.

 

[Jeremiah]

I don't know about Thanksgiving, as it's not a thing where I live,
but I do have similar feelings about february fourteenth.

 

[Pats]

I have to say, yesterday was the best Thanksgiving I've had in years. It was the perfect day - starting off with laughter, all my kids and grandkids together, all enjoying being together. Upstairs, downstairs, laughter everywhere, especially as each of us would walk downstairs to find the entire living room floor completely covered with little leggos and the kids were making leggo angels. The food was plentiful and great. I think I got a really good family picture (waiting for my grandson to do what he needs to do to get it out of raw format on his camera.) And, ya know, this was the first time I can remember not having that feeling like I did or didn't do something wrong. And I announced to the group that as Thanksgiving is for being thankful that they can all look around this room and see what I'm most thankful for.

 

[oregano]

I don't have very much family left, so I just eat the meal at my mom's house then go back to mine.

The worst part about Christmas is that it is an orgy of consumerism that has gotten to the extent that Yeshua (the historical Jesus) would be crazed with rage about how his preaching has been twisted to proclaim the exact opposite of what he likely really preached. Even worse, the only reason Christmas exists at all is because in the 3 century CE Christianity was fighting to survive against the rising cult of Mithras, the Persian sun god, whose birthday was celebrated on December 25. So the Church elders recognized Jesus's birthday on the same day.

However, for centuries Christmas was not celebrated, and our modern holiday was created after the American Civil War by big New York City department stores in order to boost sales. So "Christmas" as we know it has NEVER been about Jesus, it is all about shopping and consumerism and materialism with only a thin frosting of cheap nativity statues to make it look holy.

For me, this means that just getting routine items means fighting crazed crowds of shop-til-you-drop sheeple, just for a few things. Yesterday's newspaper was thick with ads for "Black Friday doorbuster sales".

This time of year is a big glaring example of just how socially corrupt America has become. The most horrible time of the year, indeed.

 

[SimplyWandering]

I wish Christmas and New Years weren’t so close together... it’s just too much!

@pat that photo looks like a death trap for adults! Lols