Sure, the first year (or two) of COVID were wretched, but most of those barriers have since cleared — yet I’m still struggling. I’ve noticed the same with a number of people within my family and neighbourhood.
How are others feeling? Are you struggling, yet succeeding? If so, how are you breaking through?
There is a TV special from 1965 that describes your plight:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Charlie_Brown_Christmas
I think there must be something wrong with me, Linus.
Christmas is coming, but I’m not happy.
I don’t feel the way I’m supposed to feel.
I just don’t understand Christmas I guess.
I like getting presents and sending Christmas cards…
…and decorating trees and all that, but I’m still not happy.
I always end up feeling depressed.
It was a favorite of mine as a kid. For me, all the nativity reminds me of the war in Gaza and the Christian Nationalist movement infecting the US government and stripping away civil rights.
Generally the high extinction risk from compound crises (climate, plastic, etc.) has dispelled any notion that what I do here or happens to me matters at a greater scale.
If I ceased to exist this moment, it might cause a small amount of local harm, but little wake. These days, I’m a practicing absurdist, mostly that means I’m aware of my grief and dispair in fine detail, a geographic manifold I’ve well explored.
Ignorance and Want are no longer child wretches hiding in the fold of the robes of a Christmas spirit, rather now have become massive kaiju thundering across the countryside ravaging the population with withering gaze and breath of biting hyperborean frost, leaving a path of toxic wasteland in their wake.
(Plug that into generative AI systems.)
So yeah, in a holding pattern until January 2nd.
I mean, the point of the special is to find meaning in the holidays regardless of the rampant consumerism, but the impact of the message is dampened a bit by Hallmark putting out new charlie brown Christmas tree ornaments every year.
That said, it’s also okay not to have holiday spirit if you don’t find anything about this time of year meaningful. For many who aren’t practicing Christians, it’s a time to be with family because most companies tend to give days off anyway, but for those of us who have cut ties and don’t see the significance of decorating and whatnot, it’s perfectly fine to enjoy the time off without feeling festive.
Just kick Lucy in the face with cleats on and you will never feel depressed again Charlie.
The holidays always sucked, you just didn’t notice. It’s just this mad dash to spend as much as possible on crap. That’s all it ever was.
It’s obnoxious from start (last week Oct) to finish (1st week Jan). Shit music, saturation marketing, shit social obligations, travel and/or houseguests, waste of money, house is cluttered, etc. it’s draining.
So it’s felt like this to me basically since I became an adult. For one, I work in an industry where the holidays mean nothing. And two, now I have adult shit to do, so there isn’t a ton of time to just sit around baking and watching Christmas specials and what not. Also can’t really stand the consumerist side of things and while I do like giving gifts as a thing, I don’t like the idea of “just buy some shit” or “whoever gets the most presents wins.”
Now all that said, when I think back to what used to make the holidays special for me, I realized that was adults deliberately making the holidays special. And the shitty thing about being an adult (unless your SO is like, from the Clause family) is that you kind of have to do that for yourself, and you’re probably going to have to do boring adult shit to make that happen. Like, you might literally be putting something like “Bake cookies/Watch ‘The Grinch’” into your calendar. There is a lot of little things you can do as well - play some music, get some scented candles, stick a bowl of decorative pinecones out, etc.
I think this also helps a lot with other people, or in my case, my kids. I don’t have a ton of friends (I’m very much a person with a small circle, but all people i know I can call if i need help moving if that makes sense) but we do some small get togethers. With my kids, I try to do more of the things that make things feel special for them. Lights on the house I could take or leave (back to being lazy) but I do my best and I put them up, even though it was just a few days ago because that was the first day that wasn’t pouring where I was at home when it was light out. I make it a point to watch some Christmas movies (and let the kids come to a consensus on which) and bake some cookies or whatever. We usually go every year to that neighborhood where every house has cool lights, even if that is an hour drive away. Lots of little things like that.
Anyway, I feel like the holidays are very much a “fake it til you make it” scenario. I tend to think about it like “what do I remember that I liked about holidays” when I was a kid, and then force myself to do those things. What I’ve generally found is that there are definitely times I’ve regretted not doing anything like that, but I never regret when I forced myself to do something like this, and I rarely remember the “forced” part.
I realized that was adults deliberately making the holidays special. And the shitty thing about being an adult (unless your SO is like, from the Clause family) is that you kind of have to do that for yourself, and you’re probably going to have to do boring adult shit to make that happen. Like, you might literally be putting something like “Bake cookies/Watch ‘The Grinch’” into your calendar. There is a lot of little things you can do as well - play some music, get some scented candles, stick a bowl of decorative pinecones out, etc.
This is the most real advice I’ve seen on Lemmy. It really fucking sucked realizing that no one was going to make things special for me (mostly because I hated the realization that I was expecting someone/something else to make my life more fun). Celebrating holidays and doing seasonal things that are special for the time of year REALLY help break up the monotony of the grind of everyday life (work, kids, bills, house work, ad nauseum). It would be nice to have someone else create that magic for me, but… that doesn’t really happen as an adult. You have to make things fun for yourself, and for others if you can.
Stop waiting for a single (or a couple) days of the year to put effort in for enjoyment, do it every damn day.
I’m guessing it has become more of a financial burden to be honest.
Choosing the right gifts, decorations, food. Etc.
Was just talking about this with a coworker yesterday. They’d noticed that in their neighborhood, the amount of decorations out were even less than the year before. No one left the area, just not putting stuff up anymore.
This is something I’ve felt more and more every year for all the holidays in the areas of the US I frequent. Halloween, Xmas, Easter, etc.
The stores are all decorated earlier than ever, but neighborhoods are barren.
I understand money is tight for many, but Christmas lights are pretty cheap and most people have old sets, it’s not like they’re consumable and need to be replaced every year. I wonder if people are just over it, don’t have the time, lack the spirit, or what.
I say all this as someone who hasn’t decorated for any holidays lately myself.
Because what is the point? I only bother with decorations because I have kids. After they grow up I won’t bother. Also yeah I don’t particularly want to get into it because it feels like I am taking the Christian’s side. They are sitting there putting women in jail for having miscarriages maybe I don’t want to associate with them even slightly.
Looks like it will be a BROWN Christmas here this year. Which is a grim fucking reminder that we’ve fucked the planet and it is only going to get worse.
So. There’s that.
It’s not just brown here, which is super rare, it’s so warm that I can’t even take my daughter skating at the outdoor rink.
I live in SASKATCHEWAN
For me it’s definitely the weather. When i see Christmas lights and shit, but i walk around in shorts i just feel dreadful.
It will be a standing water Christmas for me
there are a lot of factors for me but i feel it, and i think a big part is climate change. i live in new england and it was 60 degreees and raining the other day, pretty hard to get into the holiday spirit when it’s spring outside.
Also, before the goblinos start, yes there are many places where christmas happens in summer, summer type weather, etc, but that is not how it was for me growing up and most of my adult life.
I wonder if this is true for others but I’m just not close to my family. I think most people have smaller social circles today than they did 10 years ago.
Without close family, there’s a lot less to Christmas.
im not that into it. Im sorta a nod and smile and enjoy how other folks are into it. I do like leaving little gifts for my condo neighbors but its gotten skimpier and skimpier as prices have been higher to where now they just get a tin of butter cookies. I would love to get back to where I was changing things up with chocolate or inexpensive wine. sigh.
Maybe you’re just getting older.
If it wasn’t for my kids, I wouldn’t even bother with the tree.
After I parted ways with faith as a kid, the holidays have always seemed very… ‘adults who still believe in the tooth fairy’ sort of thing. I haven’t actually celebrated since I was very young, and tbh it’s either a faith-based thing (which I don’t believe in, obviously) or it’s a cash-grab for corporations to unload back stock while acting like they are actually ‘so excited for the holidays’.
While I didn’t see a decline or hesitation around my neighborhood generally the last few years, my folks have been less and less giddy as time goes on. A couple years ago they bought their tree on the 24th. It’s like the excitement has weaned and they are just doing it because ‘we have always done it’, which again imo is stupid because you are stressing yourself out (and physically hurting yourself) by decorating the house, buying a tree, etc for something that they are only doing because they feel obligated. I’d happily take an extra $100 as a gift and free up an afternoon by not having to buy, haul home, decorate, and 10 days later dispose of, a tree. Same with house decorations, the neighbors aren’t going to care if we don’t spend 2 days cursing under our breath, stapling our fingers and almost falling off the room.
I dunno, it’s just so foreign to me. Any other time if a fat man burglarized your house, ate your snacks and left mediocre gifts as compensation that you’d return the very next morning anyway, you’d be pissed. But apparently it’s totally normal because it’s cold outside now.
shrug
I lost my dad to cancer about two week before last Christmas. And my birthday is a few days after Christmas as well. I’ll be damned if I ever feel like celebrating Christmas or my birthday ever again
I lost my sister suddenly 2 days before Christmas in 2008. The joy came back — after a fair amount of therapy and contemplation — and over time, life grew around the gaping hole.
A couple of quotes that I keep near me:
Yet, in a bizarre, backwards way, death is the light by which the shadow of all of life’s meaning is measured. Without death, everything would feel inconsequential, all experience arbitrary, all metrics and values suddenly zero.
Mark Manson
When you dull pain and hide it from yourself, you dull your joys as well.
Robin Hobb, Fool’s Fate (Tawny Man #3)
All the best for this holiday season, and all the ones that follow.
Overused but a favorite of mine:
Gotta have opposites, light and dark and dark and light, in painting. It’s like in life. Gotta have a little sadness once in awhile so you know when the good times come. I’m waiting on the good times now.
- Bob Ross
My mother passed at the same time last year. It’s been a tough year and Christmas things are just making me sad this year.
You’re not alone in this and I’ve been told it gets better.
It could be just down to getting older.
It used to feel like MONTHS of winter before Christmas was here, now, it feels like Halloween was two weeks ago.
Maybe you’re focusing on the wrong things? Christmas, for me, is a time to show my family that I care for them. Yes, through gifts, but also through time spent with them. It’s a chance to speak others’ love language. For me, doing things for others is how I really feel better about myself.
Love language like when I mutter happy holidays to someone they aggressively scream back Merry Christmas
