Do I Really Hate Christmas

“I hate Christmas”

Of all the holidays Christmas is the one I could easily pretend doesn’t exist. I don’t hide my ugh for anything related especially when it comes to work doing anything such as cubicle decorating or gingerbread houses.

This year, whether some people believe it or not, I tried to get into it. I did decorate my cubicle – probably decorated it more than I’ve ever decorated anything – though I was happy to tear it all down before I went home for break.

This year I tried to figure out why Christmas out of all the holidays is the hardest for me. Aside from the obvious my family is gone and I miss them. Almost every time I tried to think about Christmas I cried or was close to it. This year but especially this season I have felt the death of everyone more than usual. The thing is yes I miss them a lot of the time, but also their being gone has become my normal.

I learned or solidified that it does go down to my mom. Christmas was never the same after I lost her for many reasons. I never really celebrated Christmas truly after she died. All of my childhood Christmas ornaments and all of the decorations, in general, got thrown away by someone as we were in the process of moving out of the house I grew up in. Everything I looked forward to each year no longer existed. There were boxes and boxes full of decorations. I could only dream now to have that much. One of my favorites was a life-size Santa Claus that sang and danced. I had my embroidered stocking with my name on it. All of my dog ornaments that I got to pick out at different places. One place was the Pennsylvania Dutch Market where we went to often. I had a 101 Dalmatians ornament with a picture of me (and I think my mom).

After all of that essentially got thrown away, I was then across the country with no tree or anything. As a child, we got a real Christmas tree each year and then after my mom, we transitioned to a fake tree. That didn’t bother me too much. I was solely raised by my aunt after my mom. My aunt wasn’t too big on decorating (and maybe because of all of our stuff being gone). I was only eleven so I still wanted to decorate and had “Christmas cheer.” My aunt never decorated or wanted to help me when I did. It started to be every other year that I decorated. For one, it wasn’t fun to decorate alone but even more to tear down. I did eventually start to only decorate my room but when we later sold the house we were in I gave up the little decorations I had. I was also either in a dorm room or didn’t have a room/home so decorations weren’t a priority and took up space.

Time went on and less Christmas things happened. For a while, I jumped from house to house. No traditions really. The only tradition I’ve kept or made for myself is the Christmas popcorn tins. I love me a good tin and I have kept most of them since high school. However, as years go on there are fewer and fewer ones with golden retrievers or dogs in general. If you can’t tell I love dogs.

Christmas in general is such a family-oriented holiday. It is the one I miss my mom the most. Most of the time my chosen family helps fill the holes. There are moments I still crave the feeling only blood family can make me feel. One of those times is Christmas. I have some blood family in the same state but also a lot of them are across the country. A few years back I distanced myself from my blood family that are in the same state. I still visit them for birthdays and such but I have started doing holidays solely with my chosen family. Especially, since it was hard for me to go back and forth or try to do multiple Thanksgiving or Christmas’ in one day. Mentally, there is also a higher chance I’m going to be okay with my chosen family.

There is some good in a fresh slate and new traditions. When I am with my cousins I do think I am reminded more of my past. The good but especially the bad. I sometimes revert back to a place I used to be when I was in the heart of the trauma. I think my cousins understand that too.

Even with the new some of the old comes through. I’ve been noticing more and more parallels lately. As we were driving to see one side of the grandparents (which in general is new for me since mine were dead before I was born) one of the boys was playing Mario Go Kart on the Nintendo Switch in a Honda Odyssey. It reminded me of when I was younger playing Mario Go Kart on my Nintendo DS in a Honda Odyssey (my baby may it RIP). I also thought about how I could never play that game these days while in a moving vehicle. Gotta love getting older.

It’s been interesting seeing what parts of my “old” life have continued through into my present life. I’m trying to embrace it all. The new and the old. I’ll probably go into further detail about it in my annual New Year post in the next few days.

The little girl who loved Christmas and tried to keep it going in a household that didn’t is still somewhere inside me. I used to love watching all the cheesy Hallmark movies. Now, I can only handle some. I have a couple of Christmas movies I try to watch each year such as “The Holiday” though apparently it wasn’t supposed to be considered a Christmas movie. I watched “White Christmas” for the very first time a couple of days ago. I thought about how you never would have gotten me to sit down to watch it just a few years ago. Will I ever watch it on my own? Probably not. Now I can say I watched a classic.

One of the things I try to heavily work on in my healing is the attachment to things or having a set picture in my head. Some of that is just me needing routine and a shift in that routine can mess me up. Which, I think is the part of work events that mess me up more than the actual reason they are happening. My Christmas will never feel or look like it did when my mom was alive. It also won’t look like what it did when my aunt was still alive or the years after she died when I was moving every few months.

One of my favorite memories with my mom was listening to Jennifer Lopez’s This is Me…Then while sitting on her lap. Now, I am sitting writing this while listening to her newest album This is Me…Now on the vinyl I got for Christmas this year with my chosen family. I get to feel seen and loved and supported. For most of my life, I haven’t been able to truly show or share my favorite things with people let alone them wholeheartedly embrace it with me.

I have also been texting with a friend, today, from work about a K-pop album I can’t wait to show her when we get back into the office. Last year, my office had us decorate ornaments (the ones in the picture I chose for this post). My friend and I weren’t too close at that time. We had just discovered we both loved K-pop, especially BTS. Forward to this year when people from the office decorated the tree with all the ornaments people decorated last year. Our ornaments randomly got hung up next to each other. Neither of us was a part of the tree decorating. I found that so cute and symbolic. I’ve been seeing random things as symbolic as well these days. If you know me at all, work is hard for me, and my trust in people there is low. But somehow a random group of Korean men brought us together and now I talk with her more than most people.

I have hope for a day that I will be able to embrace Christmas in ways I once did but also in new ways with new traditions and people. It’s okay and normal that this time of year is hard for many. I had someone tell me “I know you don’t have good memories with Christmas but you can make new ones.” It is easier said than done. I appreciate what this person said. They aren’t wrong but also those new memories won’t happen overnight.

That’s the thing with healing, it takes a long time. A lifetime. Change happens. Healing happens.

As difficult as this season has been for me this year I’m still in a better place than I was six years ago. It is okay to miss things and moments and people. It’s also okay to let yourself enjoy the present. Something I am terrible at.

I hope this season hasn’t been too rough on you and if it has at least we are almost done with the holiday season.