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How do you feel about the holidays?
- Thread starter RemyZee
- Start date
Once upon a time holidays held joy; Now they don't.
I would be happy if I could actually get to do the things that matter to me, like spend the day in my home with my own family. I keep getting dragged out by my wife to visit her parents (now her parent, her dad passed) at the farm, which I hate. 3/4 of the last holidays have been blown up on me. I don't recall marrying her parents, but I have to spend every important occasion with them and it is pushing me to the edge of divorce.
I love celebrating them.
RemyZee
Well-Known Member
I see the cold as a challenge to be overcome. The holidays are just to be avoided if possible now.
JayLapointe
Active Member
Extreme cold is to be avoided, like today it's minus 35C with windchill which is just unreasonable.
Moderate cold isn't so bad if you dress right. Thermal underwear is your friend. Tops and bottoms. I used to hate winter/cold until I got into skiing and being adequately dressed. Now I don't mind it at all, as long as you've dressed properly Winter can be a lot of fun.
As for the Holidays, I don't really get into it but I also don't begrudge them either.
As I kid I enjoyed some of the decorating but always hated being forced into School Christmas concerts. They are all kind of one big blur of childhood stress and the only clear memory I have at this point of being violently ill backstage at one of them because I was feeling overwhelmed.
My teenage years/ early adulthood I will admit I was bitter and angry as a person in general and did my best to try and spoil the holidays by reminding folks of its pagan traditions.
Now as a, middle aged? adult. Sidenote, I have a hard time believing I'm a middle aged man but I guess mid 40's would put me there wouldn't it. Now I appreciate the time I get off from work and general society being in a more positive mood. I don't go to Christmas parties or other holiday celebrations but that's just because I don't generally enjoy gatherings. I do find the chaos of decorations to be a bit much, but if it will bring a smile to people I can tolerate it for a month or so, but I don't decorate myself.
I do really enjoy having a nice quiet holiday meal with my immediate family, my Mom & Dad, sometimes my Uncle. But that's about the extent of my holiday cheer. Same with New Years Eve, I'm usually in bed by 9:30-10:00pm. It's just another day on the calendar for me.
Man, that's a chance to feel alive. I'm salivating over having a day like that soon because I'm going to walk 25 km in it. True north strong and free, baby.
I used to adore the holidays as a kid, and when I could celebrate with other people, but doing it alone and doing blue collar work makes the holiday season seem tragic, expensive (you don't get paid for the full shift even if you get the days off, so December, the month you have the most expenses, you have the least pay) and isolating. I don't like driving to visit my parents. They're lovely but every time they bring up church or politics. Glad to be a grownup but I miss the innocence of childhood. I love the idea of Christmas though.
This will be my first Christmas since I found out something. I look different. My shirts don't fit anymore. My brother asked me why my hair was so much longer, and he knows damn well about the medication. It was never about being liked. When they like you if you're depressed and miserable and playing their role of suffering relative, they like you conditionally. Being healthy has been a slap in their collective faces.
I cannot love the inherent inauthenticity of spending the social, family, and religious side of the holiday trying to look as butch as possible to avoid Those Conversations. I have to be seen: "accoutred like young men. . . .
And wear my dagger with the braver grace,
And speak between the change of man and boy
With a reed voice, and turn two mincing steps
Into a manly stride, and speak of frays
Like a fine bragging youth, and tell quaint lies,"
that when Christmastide is over I shall have to lie in bed at night thinking of it as something that has happened to someone else, and hope 2026 is better, just like I've hoped for better results every Christmas since 2015.
You wake up early , pad barefoot on cold floor to the cramped parlor of your apartment, and put on the gramophone record of Adeste Fideles. Wake up your roommate, trip over the cat and go sprawling on the floor, singing half forgotten songs, cursing at the mirror through a mouthful of toothpaste foam with a shirt and a necktie and a sports bra fighting it out for the home stretch on your shoulders, cut yourself shaving, light the string of bulbs on the little tree you put up at the last minute, telephone everyone for the whole afternoon, hurry hurry hurry into your winter coat and go out and crank the car so we all go to midnight Mass and stand in a room full of people, some slightly intoxicated, and we'll all raise our voices in the same song of the angels to those midnight shepherds knowing damn well they'll spend the other 364 days of the year shunning you, speaking negatively behind you, refusing to hire you, actively voting for you to have less rights, standing up for institutions over experience, and if you end up dead by accident during the year, they'll have the decency to bury you under a name that is no longer your own. One remains acutely conscious of this especially if one, like me, is rather ugly and shy in public places.
I think I would rather sit somewhere with a cup of tea and one of the cats in my lap and rest til I think about nothing at all.
Childhood innocence and time to spend with people you love, with the idea that they actually do love you no matter what and you love them as well, is nice. Its absence leaves a vacuum.
This will be my first Christmas since I found out something. I look different. My shirts don't fit anymore. My brother asked me why my hair was so much longer, and he knows damn well about the medication. It was never about being liked. When they like you if you're depressed and miserable and playing their role of suffering relative, they like you conditionally. Being healthy has been a slap in their collective faces.
I cannot love the inherent inauthenticity of spending the social, family, and religious side of the holiday trying to look as butch as possible to avoid Those Conversations. I have to be seen: "accoutred like young men. . . .
And wear my dagger with the braver grace,
And speak between the change of man and boy
With a reed voice, and turn two mincing steps
Into a manly stride, and speak of frays
Like a fine bragging youth, and tell quaint lies,"
that when Christmastide is over I shall have to lie in bed at night thinking of it as something that has happened to someone else, and hope 2026 is better, just like I've hoped for better results every Christmas since 2015.
You wake up early , pad barefoot on cold floor to the cramped parlor of your apartment, and put on the gramophone record of Adeste Fideles. Wake up your roommate, trip over the cat and go sprawling on the floor, singing half forgotten songs, cursing at the mirror through a mouthful of toothpaste foam with a shirt and a necktie and a sports bra fighting it out for the home stretch on your shoulders, cut yourself shaving, light the string of bulbs on the little tree you put up at the last minute, telephone everyone for the whole afternoon, hurry hurry hurry into your winter coat and go out and crank the car so we all go to midnight Mass and stand in a room full of people, some slightly intoxicated, and we'll all raise our voices in the same song of the angels to those midnight shepherds knowing damn well they'll spend the other 364 days of the year shunning you, speaking negatively behind you, refusing to hire you, actively voting for you to have less rights, standing up for institutions over experience, and if you end up dead by accident during the year, they'll have the decency to bury you under a name that is no longer your own. One remains acutely conscious of this especially if one, like me, is rather ugly and shy in public places.
I think I would rather sit somewhere with a cup of tea and one of the cats in my lap and rest til I think about nothing at all.
Childhood innocence and time to spend with people you love, with the idea that they actually do love you no matter what and you love them as well, is nice. Its absence leaves a vacuum.
I love the treats. My spouse and her sister have been baking cookies all day today and I enjoy being the final taste test.
I believe most people around here are aware of my feelings on this matter.
I like aspects of the holidays: food, drinks, lights, decorations, festivities, etc. I am also generally in a better mood because it's darker this time of year so my insomnia goes away for a while.
I don't enjoy the crowds, the franticness, the greed, and the overwhelming capitalistic consumerism that pervades this time of year. So I do what I choose to do: I don't really get involved with gift giving or receiving and I just celebrate somewhat in a very low-key way.
I don't enjoy the crowds, the franticness, the greed, and the overwhelming capitalistic consumerism that pervades this time of year. So I do what I choose to do: I don't really get involved with gift giving or receiving and I just celebrate somewhat in a very low-key way.
Known_Issue
Well-Known Member
i hate giving/receiving gifts so much time and money
i also used to hate xmas in general, but with time i learned to to bond with other people (and to like the fact that people are somewhat in peace with each other at least for a bit)
also, when looking back i'm happy that i assisted to xmas celebrations it makes me feel less disconnected and even appreciated, i've been working on my misanthropy for long now
it's a nice season
(not a native speaker)
i also used to hate xmas in general, but with time i learned to to bond with other people (and to like the fact that people are somewhat in peace with each other at least for a bit)
also, when looking back i'm happy that i assisted to xmas celebrations it makes me feel less disconnected and even appreciated, i've been working on my misanthropy for long now
it's a nice season
(not a native speaker)
I need the joy of the holidays in order to be happy the rest of the year. My life is so difficult, and I am so trembly, I have to have it like medicine. It's food for my soul.
To see the twinkling lights in the windows. And happy people on the street. To hear the Christmas carols, and to bake traditional goodies. And then to come together as family and friends and celebrate our Savior and each other.
Christmas is the good in the world. It's humanity at our finest. Everyone is giving to charity and going to church and driving around as a family and looking at the holiday homes. It's wonderous. I wish we could be like this all year long.
To see the twinkling lights in the windows. And happy people on the street. To hear the Christmas carols, and to bake traditional goodies. And then to come together as family and friends and celebrate our Savior and each other.
Christmas is the good in the world. It's humanity at our finest. Everyone is giving to charity and going to church and driving around as a family and looking at the holiday homes. It's wonderous. I wish we could be like this all year long.
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Then be the joy. Volunteer or give even just a tiny bit. Be the joy in someone else's life. That's Christmas right there.
The best part of Christmas is seeing the joy and wonder in children's faces.
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