I have a love-hate relationship with Christmas, and have for over a decade now. Each yeah, I try and make the most of the holiday, but I'm always happy once Boxing Day rolls around.
I have a large family, so Christmas has always been split up into multiples each year. I have one family celebration the Sunday before Christmas (unless that falls too close in which case it's two weeks before), 2 on Christmas Eve, 2 on Christmas Day, and some years some extra ones tossed in for visiting relatives. I love celebrating and being with my family, great food, great fun. Now that I'm living abroad, this togetherness feels like it will be even more meaningful for me, since I now spend most of the year an ocean away from my relatives.
On the other hand, I hate the gift-giving aspect of Christmas, absolutely cannot stand it. I really wish that my family would just give it up, except for the kids, and make Christmas into a celebration of family and togetherness. I always used to love giving gifts, because I was able to be really unique and creative in thinking up good gifts for everyone, but now that we're all older and increasing digital, it's very difficult. What kind of gifts do you get for someone whose biggest hobbies now are watching recorded TV shows on DVR and playing Facebook games? For my generation of the family, we're all older and with jobs and money of our own, so we all have the tendency to buy the things that we want and need on our own. For the older generation, they already have houses full of things and traditional types of gifts have all been used before and feel stale. Add on top of that the fact that I've always been terrible about receiving gifts, even when I was a kid. There's just something that makes me uncomfortable about receiving things from others, even more so for the past decade that I've been an adult.
I will say, though, that not working retail anymore has done wonders for my ability to tolerate the holiday season. I was getting really tired of the constant holiday music starting in November/October, customers being offended by me saying "Happy Holidays," pushy people about sales and coupons, customers asking me for gift suggestions. The break from that is giving me more time to meditate on the good of the holiday season, and the distance from my family should make the celebrations all the sweeter. If only we could just forget about the stupid gifts thing, I'd be happy as a clam. And clams are really happy, in case you didn't know.
