No. My mom has always worked holidays, and so have I (once I was old enough). We would celebrate around it, but pulled back as I got older. I’m at a job that’s just closed this holiday, and it’s just a day off for me. 🤷🏿‍♀️

No, I hate Christmas with a passion. Despite having pagan roots, the modern version is a BS Christo-capitalist holiday. All it does is remind me (and others like me) how much our families hate us and how much this country sucks. This year is especially bad, since we’re a month out from a fascist takeover that threatens to genocide us.

Fake Christmas cheer is sickening

Divorced parents. A latter childhood of “equal time” over the holidays. Hoopla so forced and weird, it was a caricature of itself.

No, I really avoid a lot of the hoopla I Christmas and everything else. And I like quiet celebrations at home. My best Christmas was my first year H1Bing in Jersey and my gf came to visit all the way from home. No money, with her tuition and schooling so high, we sat around and watched TV and journeyed over the PATH to see the sights. It was magical (because she is).

I don’t really enjoy the holidays. It’s too much stress, too many conflicting family obligations, too much effort dodging the religious aspects, too much forced cheer, and it all just makes me sad. Marginally I like putting up a tree, but after a couple of weeks I get tired of remembering to water it. I skip as much of the holidays as I can, and try to enjoy the small parts that don’t annoy me.

I think as far as holidays go, it’s pretty decent:

• I get some work free time.
• Its a distraction from the fact that there’s no fucking daylight which makes me miserable,
• I get some gifts and give some gifts. It’s not about their material worth but it’s cool that people actively try make someone else happy. We don’t do that everyday.
• There is a lot colorful lights. I love colorful lights.
• I get a lot of time to hyperfixate on some kind of programming / linuxing computer stuff. Maybe gaming.

I feel like a lot negatives of Christmas don’t affect me because: I don’t watch TV or ads, don’t go much to shops or any public places for that matter, I don’t really use social media outside of Lemmy. Also, I don’t have a big extended family.

I’m a Baha’i, so I just celebrate Ayyam I Ha. It’s at the end of Feb so I can take advantage of the after Christmas sales. The Ayyam I Ha Camel can apparently carry more loot than Santa’s Sleigh

I’m not religious so it’s just a cultural holiday. It used to be a time for family gatherings. Grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles, etc. Most times I felt it was a pain in the ass. Now they are all dead and gone. In retrospect I wish I had taken more time to enjoy those family get togethers.

I don’t like winter in general but Christmas is ok. I try not to put any demands on anyone, and only do what I can, but have worked at a place that closes for a week at Christmas, and that has made it a lot easier, getting an actual holiday for the holiday instead of scrambling to put it together.

You have not failed, you are alive, you are successful at living by definition. If someone at the holidays is making you feel unsuccessful, that’s mean. If it’s just you feeling it, though, they may not feel the same way. My kids LOVE unmarried aunts & uncles and I loved mine too. You are free to love them without responsibility, more like a friend and that is something kids can really use.

In the end, it’s just a holiday - most of us aren’t religious, it’s a get together time, some presents, a meal. When my kids were up northish, they said winter really was depressing because of the lack of sunlight, they had not realized that was a real phenomenon and were startled by how it made them feel. So be aware you may be feeling worse than usual just because of that, not seeing clearly or objectively.

Do not measure your life by the holidays, any of them. No one is a failure because a holiday is not perfect. And being alone is not always a bad thing. Be thankful that you are not in a toxic or violent relationship. And single people are not losers. Every individual gets to decide how, when and if they participate in social rituals, and holidays are one of them. It’s ok to hate them or love them. But it’s never ok to make others, or yourself, feel bad for having and making your own choices about social rituals. I personally left holidays in the past many years ago. I’m done, I’m full thanks. And I won’t feel bad because someone wants or expects me to participate. And I won’t make others feel bad because they don’t hold my views. We are all Human, and we all get to decide whats best for our self.

I work in education. Christmas time is so much better with kids. It feels empty without some 9-y-o bouncing off the walls and telling you all the things he wants for Christmas.

Stress.

But every now and then I get a little whiff of the magic dust that other people seem to love. Like watching my partner dress a tree while listening to Frank Sinatra.

I don’t have any of the nostalgia for the effects, but I can put on a jovial kind of tolerance.

I’m building a new nostalgia, so that in a couple decades maybe I’ll really feel it.

Sorry to hear, try doing something small and festive, like making egg nog every year as a tradition

A reason to have fun, just cuz

Fuck Christmas.

Stress.

Stress about all the money spent on a midnight feast that we’re too sleepy and tired to enjoy (our Christmas meal here is at 12mn, it cannot start earlier), the gifts and decorations, and the electricity of all the RGB lights strung around to make our family to be “with the community spirit”. Stress about not having the energy to be able to smile and be cheerful all the time, or else you’d be the subject of dinner conversations, how you’re not “making an effort to spread the holiday spirit”. And worst of all, the stress of not being able to sleep and rest due to all the merrymaking, singing, and overall noisemaking (fireworks tend to be fired at random here, and increasing in frequency as it draws closer to the end of December).

I used to look forward to the food, the seasonal food, and the feasting. But now that I’ve got to prepare all that food, taste it, make adjustments based on who is going to be coming for the Christmas dinner, it’s just draining.

What is supposed to be a season to be merry, to be hopeful, and all that good cheer, has become the very cause of all the sorry hopelessness and drear.