I get depressed anticipating being around my family and then afterwards I get into a big funk reliving the day. I'm thinking this year I am going to skip it altogether. But am wondering if there are others out there who feel as strongly about this as I do and how do you handle it.
Let me add that I do strongly believe in God and think sometimes that is why I hate Christmas so much cause it's so commercial and the ads on t.v. and the Christmas movies make me want to gag.
"And this too shall pass" It's a rough time of the year for ALOT of folks, so know you are not alone :)
"And this too shall pass" It's a rough time of the year for ALOT of folks, so know you are not alone :)
So, try not becoming the Scrooge and celebrate Christmas your own way by praying to Jesus. Remember, Christmas is to celebrate Jesus Christ... a lot of people forget about that!
That is why there is a very high rate of suicide around the Holidays. It is because of all the advertisements that show happy families.
Not all families are function. In fact most families are dysfunctional to some degree. It is the matter of degree that makes the difference between someone wanting to visit their family, and hating to visit them.
Do your parents lay guilt trips on you about visiting. Do they refuse to apologize for their mistakes, do they demand respect while failing to be respectful to you.
If that is the case, you will be justified in choosing not to visit because all the above behaviors are abusive.
Do you have family members that you do enjoy spending time with?
If so, contact them and try to spend time with them.
Do you have friends you enjoy being with. If so, spend time with them.
It takes an independent thinker to admit that Christmas is not all it's cracked up to be in the advertisements and commercials.
I am a Christian. But I don't celebrate xmas either because it's not Jesus birthday. It is rooted in tradition and not truth. The commercialism of it all manipulates many people into financial hardship and sometimes emotional distress. Where's the joy in that?
I love family time though and join them during the holidays no matter what our beliefs are. Is it always easy? No. But even if we are not like-minded we still strive to share our love.
For all those who have someone to help with caregiving...the post on volunteering in your community is a great idea to help get through the falala of it all!
Thanks to everyone for sharing your stories and input. It helps keep me going.
Our hearts are somehow blended together even in all our diversity of situations in a common bond as caregivers. I am so grateful for that and agingcare.com.
Try to meet your neighbors. This is hard to do too and I should take more of my own advice!
I don't have "friends" any longer once we moved to Ohio 20 years ago and now live in TX. I only go to bank events as my husband still works and has so many friends.
Me, I'm retired due to having fibromyalgia to the point that I'm in so much pain right now I don't even want to do my job. That is balancing checkbooks, excel sheets, filing and going thru Mom's papers. Mom may be in AZ, but my job is to take care of her, her property, finances etc.
My brother sent a text to his 3 sisters to tell us due to family issues they are having with their 2 sons, they will not be sending any gifts. WHO CARES?!
I told him that he already gave me his gift. He went back home about 2 weeks ago to visit with Mom at the assisted living facility. He has a very hard time seeing Mom like this and would rather remember Mom like she was. Mom has been in this facility since May and he finally went out to see her. My little sister hasn't seen Mom in the 9 months I had to place Mom in the facility. Step-siblings haven't seen their Father since Father's Day.
Even though you have never met any of us, you really have. You're telling us your most inner thoughts and feelings and vise versa.
We are your friends! Please do your best to have a Merry Christmas in any way you can to make YOU happy.
NOW they not only take theirs, but wipe out their ENTIRE family
You are under a GREAT DEAL of stress. Don't know your career area, but YOU need to decide what is best for you.
DON'T participant in the office party. I for one think it's dumb, just have lunch catered in the office. No gift exchange etc, that's for family.
Delagate office projects if possible. You cannot do everything on your own no matter your status in your office.
I was in banking and Christmas/New Year Eves, we got to choose which day we wanted so we got to leave early and worked with half staff.
People with children, we had our daughter, would always want Christmas Eve. They got to leave at 3:00. I always took New Year's Eve, especially if it fell on Friday, because we got to leave at noon!! Have any idea what New Year's Eve is like for tellers and when it lands on Friday?! So many never figured that one out. You guys work until the last customer as businesses MUST GET THEIR YEAR END banking done. This half staff wouldn't get done sometimes until 8:00-9:00 at night! Yep, go ahead and take Christmas Eve.
Now I feel for and always have and more so now, for people in careers who don't really get a choice. Daughter is an RN, guess what? She has to work Christmas Eve, on call Christmas Day and Friday. She will come up to Abilene from San Antonio to be with us for 1.5 days because she has to work that Monday. We wanted to make it easier on her and go to her house, but she doesn't like that we always work around her schedule. That's what parents do. When she lived back home in AZ, everything would be decided, she made sure everyone knew her schedule and then things would change. Gotta give the baby daddies their holiday time EVEN though they know what the family does each holiday. Daughter would not be able to be with family 99.9% of the time because everything would end up revolving around cousins who couldn't keep their legs together at the knee.
So what if you disappoint friends, co-workers. YOU AND YOUR FAMILY ARE THE IMPORTANT PEOPLE. DO THE PARTIES AT NEW YEAR.
Beven there, done that, have the t-shirt, hat and mug!!
When I would host Christmas Eve (Dad always said Christmas Day was for the family alone) I would work, bake, cook DAYS ahead; make sure that we would entertain as a family. ONLY Christmas music in the background, then it became "put your cellphones away and DO NOT ANSWER".
The rug rats get upset when they don't get what they wanted which cost several hundred dollars, so they cry and throw hissy fits. I learned later in life that our parents would start putting money aside in January with hope they could afford to provide each of us with 1 toy we asked Santa. We were so excited that if it was 1 we were told that Santa was so busy making toys for children around the world, he gave us what he had time to make with his elves. THAT is how I handled Christmas with our daughter (she loved that she had both Christmas/Hannaka). She even received a letter/lump of coal 1 yr, was really good the next year😁.
What happened to Thanksgiving?
Yes, I too become very depressed and don't care if we have "Christmas" presents or anything. We haven't decorated a tree in 10+ years and I love a decorated tree. We don't have any grandchildren so why decorate? Yes,, daughter gets what she wants because she is 42 and we no longer "know" what she wants Santa to bring like it was when she was a "kid" and I made sure she stayed a kid until she became of age to start morphing into a teen. There's a time to become an adult, but childhood is fleeting.
Our Christmas is the 3 of us as we live in TX, brother in TN and everybody else in AZ. Mom has Alzheimer's and in assisted living and she doesn't know (I think she does in some compartment within her mind) any of us. Mom made Christmas just like her Mother.
BAH HUM BUG! I pay forward now to strangers, military, border patrol and truckers who are eating all alone if we're out to eat at Christmas. THAT makes me feel good inside my heart.
Merry Christmas...
To those of you who don't know me on here and asked who I am caring for, sadly my dear Mother passed in 2014. It will be four years already in May 2019. It still feels like just yesterday to me sometimes. I've chosen to stay on here and lend support and advise where I can.
Thank-you and keep the responses coming.
I have holiday anxieties. Finally, I have stopped thinking about hurting everyone's feelings and do what I want to do. If I don't want to visit family I don't. I will do it some time between Christmas and New Year's. The aftermath depression of Christmas is tough. We spend so much time cooking, shopping, wrapping, attending events that when it is over and there is nothing to do - that's when it hits me. I have spend a few Christmas's alone and quiet. It gave me the opportunity to reflect on what Christmas is all about.
I hate having to buy gifts. I typically buy gifts for the kids who like practically everything, give money to the teens who are starting to have preferences, and buy gourmet food for the adults who have enough money to buy their own things and don't need more material objects in their houses.
I hate getting gifts that I have no use for. It's a waste of money. I have suggested not exchanging gifts. No one listens, so I usually end up donating stuff that I get from those relatives who are bad at picking out gifts.
Oh, yeah. I don't watch TV, so I don't see any of the Christmas ads.
Dinner is easy, since I'm on a blood type diet and all the food in my fridge is acceptable to my gut, it'll be broiled chicken and sweet potato with lots of green salad. And probably half a can of cranberry filled cranberry sauce. All prepped the day before and ready to heat up when the need arises. No phone. 1/2 bottle white wine. Lots of water to drink.
No gifts, since I'm a poor widow and not good at buying for most other people, anyway, and i no longer bake goodies that just make people wired or overweight. So, I have everything I need already, except a winter vacation some place warm.
At 55, I declared that is enough. The running nonstop on the hamster wheel was over. I now send Christmas cards but no longer attend large family functions. On Christmas day, we go to a movie, a park, take a walk, a bike ride, go to church service. We try to make the day as tranquil as possible.
Peace and Joy to you all.
Also--I have to do "all the things" alone b/c hubby inevitably has last second job related issues that MUST be dealt with, Most years he "forgets" to shop and he runs to Walgreens at 8:45 pm and is frantically scouring the shelves for ANYTHING. It's sad for me, as it says to me "You;re not important enough to PLAN for". This is MY problem and you'd think after 42 years together it wouldn't bother me. What I REALLY want is my family around me and for him to stay awake all day and engage with the family,
Mostly, I want it to be over with. We lost 2 lovely family members at Christmas and this does come to light, the memories, as they were sick and dying during the holidays. I know everyone probably has that to deal with, It just is what it is.
I just try to make the other 364 days of the year "Christlike"....and quit pretending that Dec. 25th has anything to do with out Savior's birth.
Works for me.
my mother died last year right before Christmas, which was very hard, but I’m determined to honor her memory at the holidays. It’s a time for a “new normal.”
So, I guess every year can be the start of something new- something that makes things feel right, and that can differ from year to year.
some years are just “alone” holidays and others can be “family mayhem and chaos” holidays... but they don’t all have to be the same! Do what makes you happy!
I used to have the seasonal depression around the holidays but they seem to be fading the more I let go of the stress.
I would suggest as other people have, to do something that makes YOU happy.
Hugs to you!!
I am an only child so my Christmas is spent with her eating in the dining room of her assisted living, They have a chef so the food is quite good, not that she would ever admit to that. They actually have 2 Chefs and she complains that the other one cooks Chinese food or whatnot.
So my Christmas basically sucks. I am in control of the finances so I could buy myself a Christmas gift, but I would not do that.
I feel your pain.
YOU BETTER NOT POUT
YOU BETTER NOT CRY
YOU BETTER NOT CRY ; I'M TELLING YOU WHY........
It's not cool -that's why:)
HO HO HO -give the gift of love, it is free and it is always needed.