Bah Humbug, calmom.
I think this is true even if you’re an introvert. In a crowd, you don’t have to exert yourself as much socially as you do in a smaller group.
Calmom, wow. You are giving way too much attention to something you dislike so much.
You seem to have a hard time understanding the concept of “annoyance”.
If I had a neighbor who had a dog that barked all night, I’d be annoyed. It wouldn’t mean that I disliked dogs or even that I disliked that particular dog. But if the dog barked incessantly and consistently, I’d definitely be annoyed. (Same deal with whiny kids, though luckily I think my own kids learned very early with me that whining was counter-productive)
I’d note that I dearly love my own dogs but they start barking like crazy whenever anyone with another dog walks by our house, and it does annoy me.
No because it reminds me of cheap trees with no presents underneath because of my mother’s laziness.
I don’t think Calmom is expressing anything over the top. Heck, many of us who celebrate Xmas have said were sick of it lasting an entire month. I think it would be annoying to have it in your face everywhere you go if you don’t believe for such an extended period of time.
I LOVE Christmas, and always have.
Sure, we’ve had some rough ones. I had every single childhood disease on Christmas (Seriously: mumps, measles, passed out at Christmas Dinner as a kid because of Chicken Pox…) So dad carried me down to the couch, and I had a series of great Christmas experiences.
My father in law had open heart surgery one December 21, and he lost his brother that Christmas Eve. He couldn’t attend his brother’s funeral because he was still in the hospital.
The worst was 4 years ago, when we lost my mother in law Christmas Eve. That one still haunts my daughter, who was in tears last night missing her grandmother.
But as a whole?? I love Christmas. I come from a big family, and I love the noise, the preparation, the shopping, the wrapping, the movies the confusion, the food, the music, the being together. Things that happen at Christmas time happen-- they don’t effect my view of the holiday, they’re just an accident of timing.
I’m incredibly fortunate that my entire family lives within 45 minutes of the house I grew up with, that we all get along and that we genuinely love and like each other. Our spouses and kids get along. Mom is still with us at 85. There’s so much to celebrate.
“I see a pattern. The people make the difference. Those with large families and extroverted party parents/relatives seem to have had the most fun.”
Fun by extrovert standards, perhaps. We typically had a 6 person Christmas growing up (my immediate family plus one set grandparents). Nowadays, we have an 8 person Christmas (combining my sister’s family and mine). We have plenty of fun.
I’ve been exposed to 25, 30, 35 person holidays on my spouse’s side and I find it overwhelming. As an introvert, there’s invariably a point where I have to retreat into a bathroom or bedroom to just be by myself for 5 min and then rejoin. I dislike how extroverts’ definition of fun is supposed to be the definition of fun.
I love xmas. Decoration, festivity, anticipation, shopping for gifts thinking about recipients, the sell of greens and the cooking. What not to like? My grown up daughter is still excited about xmas.
I had no Santa’s gifts. I had at most one or two small cards from classmates. But I enjoyed going out on the streets on the Christmas Eves and the once-in-while midnight reveillons.
Yes, loved having all of my cousins at the house on Christmas Eve when I was small. I really missed that when they moved away in middle school.
I really appreciate that we have made our own traditions for Christmas Eve and Day both including family. I hope that my children will have fond memories of all of those traditions.
Here are some of my good memories of Christmas:
- Wearing black olives on the tips of my fingers because my grandmother always served them in sparkly glass trays for Christmas, and eating them one by one. Then going back for more. I still love black olives.
- Watching snow melt on the big C-9 bulbs that we would put on the tree out front. Sometimes you could hear the snow sizzle when it hit.
- Being fascinated with the other grandmother's Christmas tree because it was one of those kinds that had almost no needles and was very architectural looking and dripping with tinsel.
- Listening for Santa.
- The big family gatherings where I'd get to hang out with the cousins. On one side I was the oldest, on the other, the youngest. We're talking 50 people at my maternal grandmother's house, and at least 20 on my dad's side. It was a blast. I loved it!
Some bad memories:
- Lots of time in the car. We'd drive one hour to one grandparent's, then another hour to another grandparents, and then one hour home, all in the same day. I remember it always being very cold and very dark in the car.
- One year we were really poor, and my one gift was a stuffed animal. I still have him to remind me to be careful about spending money. What is funny to me about him-he's a little blue dog that frowns. He's always frowned, and it took me a while to figure out why I kept him.
- My grandfather died when I was 12 right before Christmas. My grandmother kind of declared war on Christmas after that and irrationally blamed the holiday for his death, and Christmas went away in her house after that.
So, like most things in life, Christmas was a mixed bag for me, but overall, I enjoy the holiday because I think I’m wired to get a kick out of things and make the best of things.
Halloween is my favorite holiday, though-almost as much sparkle, none of the drama.
When first married, I moved to the Midwest, far from family of origin. As there were others here in the same boat, we started having holidays together 25+ years ago. The tradition lives on, and there were 14 here for dinner yesterday, telling tales of when the kids were young. The point, that you can make your own family of intent, even if the blood family is sparse or far away.
This thread makes me think of one year, where we had thought it was going to be our worst Christmas, ever. Both me and my husband had been laid off with our jobs at an airline. Airline jobs are extremely tough to get, and take forever even to get the interview, and only one airline was hiring. I was fortunate enough to get an interview with that airline, and received the rejection letter just a little before Christmas. No jobs in sight, and I felt that I had failed my family by not getting that job. My husband was parking cars for $7/hr part time, and he felt lucky to even have that. We had a four year old and an eight month old. No money saved, living a minimalist lifestyle, spending almost nothing. No doctors visits, massive couponing, no coffee–you get the picture, none of the good stuff, and I can’t live without coffee! We were very despondent, with no hope in sight.
Didn’t think we could even afford a tree, but we found a little, cheap one. We were trying to figure out if we could afford just getting a few presents for the four year old. Our unbelievably kind neighbor figured out our situation, though I really hadn’t talked about it much, and got to work. Her husband was an international toy buyer, and she directed him to get us some toy samples. He came home with a massive amount of legos, games, boy stuff. It filled up the space underneath the tree, like no year we’d ever had. That was probably the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me, and I will never forget it. I would like to pay it forward one day, though with someone I know, not just a random family.
@busdriver11 – what a wonderful story!!!
I have a friend who lost most of her home in Superstorm Sandy… which hit, you may recall, just before Halloween, just 2 months before Christmas.
A bunch of us at school, who felt almost guilty to have lost so little, were given the opportunity to play Santa for our coworker’s 2 kids. We got her to give us their Christmas list, and had the time of our lives dividing up the requests. Every single person who responded got what was on the list, and then added a little more to it.
It was one of the most fulfilling things I’ve ever had the fortune to be part of.
Our friends had their entire street wiped out by wildfires. Only their home with its metal roof was spared, so she and her family threw a few parties, including one for Christmas for the entire street because she still had a kitchen and home that functioned. They were a very close street and were touched by her thoughtfulness. I bought her a 10-cup rice cooker to help in her efforts.
So many have been so thoughtful and touched by the kindness of others.
S likes to get Amazon bears at Christmas time and gift them to all his cousins and everyone who attends a huge Christmas party at my sister’s houes. He’s been doing it for 4 years now. One of the 3-year-od great nephews had a blast lying in the stuffed bears and burrowing in them.
What nice stories of generosity! You know, we all have opportunities to donate money, gifts and our time to charities, however, it means so much more when you’re helping someone you know who has been affected by hard times and disaster. It’s just that much more personal, and while I have heard that the volunteer/donor gets more out of it than the recipient, I think it’s a win/win situation. I wouldn’t prefer to get help from some sort of agency, but if it was from someone who knew me, it would be so much more meaningful.
Thank you, Pizzagirl. I agree, the extrovert definition of fun seems to be the only one an I hate it, although we introverts have been having something of a moment recently.
Someone I knew from childhood posted on FB that she was looking for some money to buy presents for teens who are going through hard time now. She is an art director at an agency where a lot of teens come through. She said most people give money for young children, and older kids are often forgotten. Every year she would use her own money to buy coloring pencils, paint, drafting papers for teens. This year she wanted to give to more kids. I usually like to give to some agencies around the holiday time, but I thought this was a lot more worthwhile and personal. This also struck home because growing up as a teen, I didn’t get too many nice to haves.
As a child, I just loved everything about Christmas. It was really magical for me. My mother went to a lot of trouble to make everything festive and perfect. I never realized how much work she did until it was my turn to take up the hostess mantle.
One thing my mother always had us do was buy gifts for patients at what was then the “state hospital” (now closed). You got a gender, and age, and a list of sizes, favorite colors and interests. We would go shopping for someone, wrap everything up, and deliver on Dec. 24. It was actually more fun to buy for this unknown person than for friends and family.