so here is why!
- I am an orphan-- Now obviously, I am have not always been an orphan so this cannot be the real reason, but there it is--I am orphaned and I have been for more than a decade. When my parents were alive, our relationships were strained at best, horrid at the worst--especially with my mother. It doesnt change the hollow feeling that you get when you hear stories about peoples celebrations that span 3 and 4 generations. I have no extended family nearby and the ones that I have are few and far between. My sister is in British Columbia, cousins scattered from Newfoundland, New York and Montreal, which makes for great roadtrips during the year but not so great during the holidays. I have two "children" which are grown men with lives of their own, who also are not big on the holidays, making the spirit that much harder to attain, and as of yet, we have no grandchildren so it is always a very "adult" (translation boring) day. but mostly, the holidays just amplifies the holes in my heart, after all there must have been some good memories. right?
- I have no good memories of Christmas to draw on.--My father frequently called me "the grinch" but as a child, he never bothered to maybe try to find out why, when everyone was supposed to be happy, I was not. I would have been happy to share my reasons, even as a child: Christmas for us (when I was young) did not look like the ones that you see on T.V. from the sixities.. I was never sure what my parent thought it was supposed to be, but I was pretty sure it was not supposed to be like ours! Putting up the tree was a trial. there was no trapsing into the woods. My mother would get it at a lot close by--always a scotch pine and never that big because our house was very small (think 800 sq feet) my parents (if my father was there) would fight over the lights. we might be able to put some decorations on, but my mother would move them to have the "perfect looking tree". there were no handmade ones that we did in school, mom didnt keep them. or ones that were "artsy" or crafty. (mom didnt do those either) I think there was probably alcohol involved. Christmas eve, the neighbors or us had an open house. if you have watched Mad Men, you know what this is. It is a bunch of adults getting together and drinking and smoking. Thus, Christmas day, meant hungover parents. We had to get up early, because my grandparents lived 3 streets away and we HAD to be there to visit them over there by breakfast. thus after we opened our gifts, which my mother always remarked that she thought she should have bought more, we went to my grandparents. had breakfast, opened gifts, were expected to behave perfectly, and then came home. My parents being exhausted and still hungover would nap. then we had to get dressed up, and go back over to the grandparents for dinner. at this point every one was exhausted. One more thing, my father was a salesman so the only time that he could ever be off work, was the break between christmas and new years. He also had horrific knees and had 12 surgeries in his life--10 of which were at Christmas. therefore, christmas was also my father on crutches and in pain.....
- My birthday is New Years eve. Yes I suppose this should be a good thing but anyone with a christmasish birthday will tell you it sucks, and if it is after christmas, it sucks more. and if it is the worlds biggest party, you can count on it being forgotten by everyone including your parents. Apparently, one New Years eve, I said to my mother "why did you bother having children if you were always going to leave them?" She to the day she died, thought that this was a "funny" thing that I said, instead of seeing that perhaps they should be foùregoing their endless party cycle over the holidays.
- Both my husband, and my parents got divorced. Many people seem to be able to work this out better than we did. Since our children were the first in the families, there seemed to be a strange competition about the time and place we could see people. My father went from someone who would have preferred for the entire last week in december being torn off the calendar to a person trying to rival St. Nick. My mother, a highly competative woman, always had to be the most important, therefore, her saying was that "she only asked for one day" ( she didnt, she asked for most days) but as I pointed out, it was not like she was asking for April 9th, she wanted DECEMBER 25! I thought that I would be safe with my in-laws, since one year while we were dating, they even went away for Christmas--seemed reasonable--it was not! Thus, Christmas involved seeing 4 families (oh did I not mention that not everyone got along, nor wanted to share their grandchildren moments with anyone else) so, 4 sets of parents, complete with all the siblings, within the period of December 24-26th...no if ands or buts. no change, no compromise. and that pesky thing that I do--nursing, which means working holidays and shift---oh well! so I would be either working or exhausted trucking 2 kids, one in a wheelchair, (oops we will get to that on the next one) over 100's of Kilometers back and forth, to non-wheelchair accessible houses, in the time span of 48 hours to make sure that everyone else got their christmas. One year, our kids, who were getting sick, fell asleep in the car between my fathers and my father-in laws (a drive that is usually 15 minutes) and we drove around for 2 hours to let them sleep until we almost ran out of gas. some of the madness ended when my father passed and my sister got her own house (a bungalow, bless her heart) however, to this day their is very little movement on the "it has to be on christmas stuff days"
- We have a child in a wheelchair--if you have been kind enough to read my other posts, you will know this already and the story of my "step" mother- in-law telling me that this is not a big deal. ITS A BIG FUCKING DEAL! Connor is a large man now, but he was always a large child, he uses an electric chair that his overly large and weighs between 200 and 300lbs. we did not have a wheelchair van because we could not afford one, so Max lifted him in and out into the seat. None of the houses, (before my sister bought a bungalow) were accessible, although some more than others. yet, it was necessary to have us there, even if there was snow on the holiday. This was fairly universal, although for awhile my mother came to my house (that was worse). Despite how bright and wonderful he is, we were ignored. we would go hours without people saying a word to us, while talking all around us. This is not an exaggeration; one year in my Mother in laws very small house, Connor yelled at the top of his lungs "ROUGH PIRATE SEX" and no one even looked over at us. Connor requires assistance with eating, which makes my meal difficult. he has to use a straw, which means we would have to remember that. He uses a urinal, but there was no where we could comfortable take him for a pee. (One house was better but that relative never wanted to host) so, "family" Christmas involved going to an inaccessible house, that there was no where for our son to pee, so that we could be ignored for hours, just to soothe the idea that we are actually a family amongst the other family members.
- Oh and theres that nursing thing again. I cannot get EVERY december 25th off. Oh and there is that birthday thing again....I want to be off my birthday so I have to work christmas to do that...hard to do when everyone wants you off. It is not like it was not known that I was a nurse, I graduated when I was 20. My husband and I have been together since we were 18. But no one, not even my own parents were willing to change anything based on my working schedule. nothing makes you feel more invisible and unwanted then someone planning a "family event" and making it very clear that it does not matter if you are there or not.
- Christmas is a Christian holiday--its right there in the name. Now I know that I am all Charlie Brown Christmas here, but I know that it is not about the ridiculous consumerism that has taken hold of our christmas'. I cannot stand to hear all the advertisements for things like Pick up trucks as christmas presents. Back to the points above. I always thought that I would get to go to church on Christmas eve,. seemed reasonable. After all, it is "what Christmas is all about" however, going to church for services and carols does not always mesh so well with uber capitalist relatives that want you there for presents.(oh I expected my family to go with me too, and that went across as outrageous) I had one relative comment that she "did not feel the need to respect my beliefs about Christianity and Christmas if it was going to interfere with her christmas." SO, I do not think that Christmas should be all the shit it has become. I think that it is a time to reflect on what you want the world to be and to draw the people you really love together in a simple manner.
- Christmas is NOT a Christian holiday--yep, I know what I just said, but its the truth. Christmas is an invention to make Christianity more palatable to Romans. it is the combination of Christianity, Paganism (Winter Solstice) and Roman--feast of Saturn. If you are (un)fortunate enough to have a Religious scholar in the family that NEVER forgets anything he has read, you find out these things and have any illusions of the holiday destroyed for you. if you have any illusions left, your own education will do it for you. and if any of those hopes are really left the capitalism that has taken over the holiday will really knock it out of you!
- I am a socialist/libertarian/environmental warrior--Christmas is too wasteful! people are subjected to undaunting and unending capitalist propaganda about what Christmas should be. they overspend money that they do not have, buy for conveinence not appropriate and use up more plastic and waste than they need to. There is a myth in the belief that the artificial tree is more ?environmentally friendly?? than a real tree. then a greater amount of plastic is used. the fake tree will never decompose, whereas the real tree is a farm crop that feeds the environment with oxygen while it grows and decomposes on its own and feeds the farmers and their families with the earnings from the crop. the wrapping paper, especially the foil is not friendly, the sparkles are microplastics that end up in the ocean and pollute our oceans. beer has plastic rings, the pop is in plastic bottles. the food is wrapped in plastic and we go on and on. we eat too much while people starve and give little thought as to where it all comes from or where it goes. I know that all this makes me sound like a downer but then again all that I say is true. by following the "crowd" we are killing our world. and despite efforts to the contrary, my voice is always drowned out. while I have tried over the years to intergrate different types of presents or traditions they are disparaged and ridiculed.
- Christmas is for the rich.--this sort of goes back to the previous point but also in a global scale and on a personal one. Max an I made choices as our children were young to be more available to them and not take jobs or promotions that would involve being away from home too much. we both kept to all of our ethics and convictions, never forgetting who we really were and as a result never doing anything that would "cheat the system". As a result, we also did not make any great wads of cash, any time in our marriage. we learned early on that we could not go big at christmas. I must say that our kids were great about it. However, christmas can routinely add about $1000 (at least) to a family budget in a month. when you are living paycheck to paycheck, it is difficult to find another $1000. although I drew upon the experiences I had growing up with my amazing aunt who did arts and crafts and made many gifts, I didnt have the same success at it as she did--capitalism rears its ugly head.....people (my own mother was particularly bad with this concept) wanted exactly what they want not what you want to give them. but more importantly than our financial concerns.
- So grinch it might be, but i will continue to hate the farce that christmas has become and hold out for thanksgiving
- https://youtu.be/Ys8CMWtXiNg
