Anyone dreading Christmas?

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Does anyone dread Christmas because of the chaos on Christmas Day with being pushed to play games with your family? Having to take turns with presents and show respect to everyone? It’s exhausting! It’s like you have to pretend to be neurotypical in front of your own family.

Anyone relate to this?

Many years ago when I was very depressed and not medicated for it, I used to purposely avoid Christmas celebrations and disappear into my bedroom.

I only stopped dreading the holidays when I stopped participating in them. As soon as it became "just another day" Life has been much less stressful.

I treat holidays as just another day of the week. However, I avoid crowded places such as stores and special events.

One thing that is bothering me a little is going to my mother's side of the family the weekend after Christmas. It's always so awkward. I really only go to keep peace in the family but I kind of feel like I'm not " one of them". I have nothing in common with any of them. My 3 cousins are married with kids, I'm single as well gay (which they don't know). Plus my one Uncle and the 3 cousins at times, just ignore me. All they do is talk sports and I'm totally not interested in that. I'm relieved I don't have to go to my dad's side anymore, that's a whole different story for another day.

Once Jan 2nd gets here, I'm always relieved.

No, I love christmas although not as much as when I was a kid. I will get a roast chicken ready meal and mince pies and lots of gin and tonic (liver permitting).

Yeah, I am. Which is odd because I normally really look forward to it. I like the music and the lights and the food and the sense that there's nothing else you should be doing. It's one of the few times I relax.

But I'm not ready for it I've got too much other stuff on my mind. And there's no money which isn't the point but makes it harder.

I gave up doing stuff with my parents and siblings a long time ago. That sucked. Now it's just me, my partner and my kid and my dogs and that's plenty.

I've always disliked the present giving part of Christmas though. The pressure to get gifts for people that they'll like and the pressure to act pleased at gifts I'm given.

I am the ultimate grinch. I don't like christmas and never look forward to it. It costs so much, it's all this chaos that overwhelms me and it always tears through like a freakin tornado, and I'm left trying to recover and then clean up the (both literal and metaphorical) mess it leaves behind. I could really do without it all, but I have kids (a grandson as well) and they enjoy it, so I try. It's something I have to brace and prepare for, then recover from. Not enjoyable at all.

I don't celebrate or recognize Christmas.

Anyone else celebrate Festivus?

This year? No!
After Christmas, I'm leaving my job.


I could care less about working over 12+ hours, 6 days a week, and with half the average salary; I can put up all of that just for that one thing I've been looking for.
And I just don't see what I've been looking for is there anymore. Not with those people, not with that place.


... Also my idea of yearly Christmas isn't the overstimulating crowds and hours long of holiday music imposed and expected by everyone; but just be somewhere alone, preferably if the crowd's noise is simply a distant thing, in a quiet, cool, drafty and dim room, with a hot beverage on a table doing whatever; eating pastries, reading or writing, or just nothing.


For now, I'd be attending a Christmas party where I'm leading, a Christmas party where I'm one of the employees while wearing a costume, and a Christmas party that I'm heck sure will be drunk before the afternoon ends.

I'm not dreading those events. They're all secondary to what I'm looking forward to.

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My dad died on Christmas Eve so it's always quite emotional. The year he died, my mother fell unconscious during Christmas dinner with my children present, and paramedics determined it was from grief. She still has a very difficult time every year and has been hospitalised a few times just prior to Christmas, with idiopathic illness and collapse.

I also have memories of shuttling my kids back and forth by court Order, at noon on Christmas day. They hated it, whether they were coming to my house or leaving for his. They could never relax and enjoy the day. My son developed a dislike toward Christmas because of this, and he still has PTSD reactions despite being nearly 30. He remembers the day being very stressful and himself feeling tremendous empathy for me, as well as my bereaved mother.

Then there's the fact I can't afford gifts, but I need to buy for three kids, my mum, my brother, his partner and her kids. The only person I'd really like to gift is my boyfriend but I can't afford that so we've agreed not to exchange. My mother is too old to buy for anyone so I need to do all her shopping for her, as well, and then sort out the amount owing. Oh, I also get to wrap all the gifts that she gives everyone including myself. Then I drive them all to her house because gift exchange always happens there.

My mother and daughter share a birthday at Christmas so that's yet another expense and headache, to be honest, in terms of making arrangements and getting-together when everyone is already at the end of their rope.

Despite this I love Christmas because it brings back nostalgia to a time when I was young, and when my dad was with us. We were all autistic so there was a lot of routine and repetition in our traditions and they continue to this day.

I was ready to become a massive Grinch between losing last year's Christmas to a massive snowstorm and Christmas 2020 to COVID, but the current El Niño going on means that the weather here in the Great Lakes (I live in Buffalo NY) will be milder than recent years so I'm very much looking forward to a more (relatively) normal holiday season

Personally it’s another day id not celebrate for myself. I know too well of the business side around these holidays.

-Insert sarcasm-

I love being forced to participate in a pseudo religious festival for a demi god and a make believe home invader I don't believe in, that was co-opted from another religion I don't believe in, being shamed for not demonstrating an appropriate level of 'spirit' while everyone around me mindlessly descends into to a meaningless capitalist romp; turning themselves into overstressed, frustrated, and miserable drones in the process, while places like shopping centres become ridiculously overstimulating and induce my gag reflex at the very thought of even approaching them until well after the New Year. And you're expected to lie to your children about the whole charade. And its stupidly hot and unbearably humid.

Mine became exponentially more emotional today, with the receipt of very bad news.
It could end up being the most depressing Christmas of my life.

I don't dread Christmas at all. I love Christmas. I love the giving, the music, the decor and the magic.