This is going to be an unpopular post. Some of you may not understand. More of you will judge me. But I know this will resonate with others.
I hate Christmas. The End.
Just Kidding.
Disclaimer: if you LOVE Christmas, if the Holidays is your time to shine, if you play Christmas music all December, I need you to know I admire you. Parts of me wish I could be more like you and fully embrace the season (other parts of me find that really hard). I LOVE your passion and if you know me, and my coaching, you know that I will always, always, love to hear about what makes you light up inside.
There are many parts of Christmas and the Christmas season that I really dislike, and even more parts of it that I simple don’t understand. Over the years I have felt extremely judged for my feelings. But I think I LET it hurt. This year, I allowed the judgement knocking on the door to be a platform for me to explore my own feelings on Christmas and get in touch with why this time of year feels so…weird.
But first – I want to start with acknowledging what I do like about this time of year. I like the smell of Christmas Trees. I love that people are thinking of thoughtful gifts for each other. Families get together. I love seeing friends happy kids on Christmas morning. I really love that my kid says “Santa Santa Ho Ho Ho.” Christmas lights are cool. The NYC Christmas Tree is so pretty. People (I guess) are cheerful? Jury is still out on that one…People are off of work. Streets are empty (MY FAVORITE!) Things get super super busy, but then they calm down…
Christmas time is always a time for me to reflect and think about what I want out of this time of year – but I always feel pressured to be like everyone else.
To get a tree. To wrap presents. To buy presents. To say “Merry Christmas.” To be excited. To be happy. To be one with the Holiday spirit.
But on a fundamental level – I just don’t get it. I really do not understand why people decorate their homes with Christmas decorations. But really -why take all that out to clutter things up and then put it away? I don’t understand the rush to get gifts at this time of year only. I don’t understand why people take a tree from outside to bring it inside and put things on it. And yes, I did do this as a chid and I am sure I found it amazing, but now – I just don’t see the magic. I see it as work. I see unrealistic expectations. I see little pines on the floor. I see too much stress at a time that everyone is claiming to love so much. Let’s not even get into the religious aspects that I don’t understand…
And wait, where did this whole Santa Claus idea EVEN come from? Before you go down your own Google rabbit hole…click here.
I am not proud of feeling this way and I do not think I am right. I just think these are thoughts. These thoughts also kept me tightly wound up for my whole life and I am finally unraveling them.
I also don’t understand the Christmas judgement from others. Recently, someone (rightfully so) called me the Grinch (…and I accepted it.) But after, I said to them, “I know I am weird with this holiday, and I really don’t get it either, but I don’t think you really get that Christmas as a child was traumatic for me.” They quickly responded “yeah but now you can make new traditions.” That hit me hard in a way I can not really explain. I had to pause and hold myself together. It took me a few days to figure out why that stung so much…
Not only do I not have to be like you, but I really did not feel seen in that moment. I did not feel like I was even validating my own sentiments on the Holiday. I was feeling less-than, unequal, even stupid.
As I reflect back to my childhood, I remember having very few positive memories. I really loving decorating the tree with my Grandma. I also remember Christmas at her house where all the gifts would pile up under the tree. We would all sit at her table w/ the insert in the middle to make it larger. We’d eat a German feast. I remember moments feeling happy and like I belonged to something.
Around 8 years old is when that all changed for me. My mom remarried and my step dad, well, was an asshole (still is but they are divorced). From that point on, I do not have a Christmas memory that did not end in him hurting me emotionally or physically – causing me to retreat to my bedroom at Grandma’s. This is major for me. My Grandma’s was my safe space. My HOME. MY Grandmas. But because of him, and his anger, and inability to realize that I was a kid, I have more memories crying on that bed – wishing he would disappear – or that I would disappear – than warm, Christmas memories.
This continued until the day they Divorced 8 years later. From that point on, I really don’t have 1 good memory of Christmas or the holiday season. I never really got gifts – or gifts I wanted – and I would return to school from the Xmas break with nothing to brag about or even talk about. People had so many good memories and I had a collection of journal entries that I wrote in hiding.
It was so bad that I not only dreaded the Christmas Tree going up but I also could not look at pictures of myself from before he was around…FOR YEARS. It took me until my 20s to be able to look at photos of myself from before the age of 8. I could not see myself in a picture authentically smile. It killed me because it felt so far away from anyone elses reality. I just felt separate and different.
After they divorced, my relationship with my mom was so tarnished that I’d try to sleep through the day. I would pull myself together for my Grandma and brothers, but that large table I remembered as a child was now a smaller one, with less family, and especially the absence of my Grandpa.
My brothers were also too young to want to play anything other than video games and Christmas became a day where I just felt separate from the whole world. This was also at the time MySpace and Facebook were starting to emerge and people were posting their wonderful, loving Christmas with their wonderful, loving families…and there I was, in pajamas, had just gotten into another fight with my Mom about leaving a chair in the wrong spot.
As time went on, and my brothers grew up, we eventually let the Holidays slip more – especially after we lost my Grandma. Holidays were so hard without her because for a while, we only did them FOR her.
The last few years without her are honestly a blur but things started to shift a little when I had my daughter, Charlotte, in 2016. My soon to be ex-husband loved Christmas but I just couldn’t show up for him in the way I wished I could around the Holidays and it’s not for lack of trying. I really tried…but it just wasn’t me. He also came with a Holiday loving family and I was shell shocked.
Charlotte made me want to try to be different or at least, question my Christmas resistance. I started opening up to the idea of having a Christmas tree or acknowledging that Christmas exists but it still felt forced…and still does.
It took me until this year to finally acknowledge that I am not just a self proclaimed Scrooge, or Grinch, but there are real, traumatic feelings associated with Christmas and a very real loss I feel for losing my Grandma. This cannot just go away with “making new traditions,” or faking it. This needs to be moved through.
That also means that I can choose to not be judged anymore. And not being judged means I can enjoy the parts of this season I actually enjoy, and I can really, really, let go of the parts I don’t.
As a parent, I feel I do have a responsibility to fully show up for my kid in a way that I encourage her to think and feel for herself…and quite frankly, the kid really loved Christmas. She may only be 2, but she loves everything that she is able to understand at this age…including Christmas Trees that are the same size of her.
So this year I decided that I am going to allow her to guide the ship of new traditions. We got a Charlotte-sized tree. In target she gravitated toward a Minnie Mouse ornament, so we got the ornament. We read Christmas books year round because…YOLO. We took a visit to see Santa at the Mall and she was traumatized. We will open presents on Christmas Day because Charlotte loves presents. We’ll see my brothers and Mom and eat a meal that we choose to eat.. But most importantly, we will not feel pressured. We will not feel less than. We will allow this to be enough because it is enough for us.
I think the moral of the story here is that just because Christmas doesn’t resonate with you doesn’t mean you are a Scrooge or weird or any negative word that means you don’t care about Holidays. It also doesn’t mean you have to force yourself into an image that you are not during this time of year. You can be you and make it the best you can and begin to figure out what Christmas means to you – even if that is NOTHING at all. You can choose to ignore it, escape it, and create something special for yourself on a day when the United States is (mostly) off.
You get to choose how you handle the Holidays and how much judgement you allow yourself to feel. That is still a lesson settling with me – but it really is a choice – and I can execute my choice by ignoring, blocking, unfollowing, or simply, standing my ground and speaking my truth, or even, choosing not to.
If I was to wish you a wonderful Holiday season it would be off-brand, so I will wish you a (hopefully) few days off of work and time with your Families if that is what you are choosing to do.
For now, I am going to spend more time wondering why people clutter their homes with stuffed animal Santa’s <3
If this resonates for you, I’d love to hear from you…
