The Most Wonderful Time of the Year?
December 13, 2018
Every year I get the same looks of confusion and almost disgust as I tell people that I don’t enjoy the holidays.
“How could you not like Christmas?”
“Do you just not celebrate?”
“Do you hate holidays?”
Questions endlessly pour from people’s mouths as they are stupefied by my aversion to the holiday season.
I often try to brush off their questions with light-hearted jokes such as my “not wanting to feed a capitalistic system”, or I’ll respond vaguely with something about how I just don’t like holidays at all.
Sitting around the tree opening presents, laughter, small gushes of joy, and frequent “thank you”’s filling the air.
This is how most people remember their childhood Christmases.
The light-hearted memories of eating a festive dinner with your family that you don’t get to see very often, of opening gifts and joking around with your loved ones as you pick up all of the trash before storing your new treasures away in your room.
Those are memories that I don’t have.
My memories are clouded by the tears that were, without fail, shed every year.
I don’t get the fortune of being able to look back at past holidays and say things like, “Remember that time that Dad didn’t mash the potatoes enough but we ate them anyway because we didn’t want to hurt his feelings?”
Instead, I get the memories of hiding in my room out of fear.
I get to recall memories like, “Remember the time that Dad stood in front of me and yelled for so long that I cried until I couldn’t breathe?”
When I think of the holiday season I think about how every single holiday turned into a screaming match between my parents, or me and my one of my parents.
I can’t recall the happy memories of holiday cheer and family togetherness because there really weren’t any.
The holiday season isn’t always the most wonderful time of the year.
When I say that, I say it with the preface: don’t question me day in and out as to the why.
Respect my ideas.
Respect my hesitation.
Respect that not everyone is so fortunate to have the blessings of it all.
Positive patty • Dec 15, 2018 at 11:54 am
I, like you, have had a traumatic childhood. Christmas were horrible times where I was abused by my mother. I had the same outlook as you, I hated the holidays. But I worked on moving past those memories, gained a lot of support from friends, and family, and worked on my depression. Now that I’m an adult and out of the house, Christmas is a time to make new memories with friends, I’ve actually become really into it! I put up Kore decorations than anyone I know. No Christmas from here on out will be reminiscent of anything I had from childhood. I never got to decorate as a kid, and my mother never bought us gifts, so now Christmas has become about making that up, and celebrating. So I hope you can get to the same place. Don’t let your past memories ruin the holiday for you or others