Commercials tells us we should love the holidays. During the holidays, commercials tell us, we have fun parties to attend, glamorous clothes to wear, beautiful gifts to open.
It seems there is much to love about the holidays.
Except for those things we hate.
So, tell us what you feel bad telling anyone else: What do you hate about the holidays?
Inside Our Holiday Survival Guide
- Listen to Managing Your Holiday Stress teleclass (Before listening, a little homework for you: What do you dread about the holiday season? What’s one wish you have for yourself? One wish you have for your care recipient?)
My Holiday Hate List
• I hate that stores put Christmas items out a week earlier every year and start playing holiday music before Thanksgiving. Merchandise was in the stores the 2nd week of October this year, ugh.
• I hate that people are so desperate to recapture good holiday memories that they embrace Christmas in October and provide stores the reward for the greed to further commercialize a holy season.
• I hate that the greed, selfishness, insecurity and desperation that is now stretching the Christmas season out almost 3 months is making the entire holiday season less special by de-sensitizing us to it and diluting its importance.
• I hate that the real meaning and purpose for Christmas, at least, is getting lost in contemporary culture.
• I hate that even I fall prey to some of the madness that has become our holiday season, that I find myself a little down each year when the season fails to meet the unrealistic romantic expectations placed on it, and that unless reminded, we most often fail to be grateful for and satisfied with the most precious and important gifts in our lives – our loved ones who are here on a very limited engagement.
I hate that many people attach a $$ amount to the holidays. As if the amount of cash you spend is what’s important. I hate that we, as a society, have gotten too far away from the true message: that family is everything, that people are here to love one another. I hate that there is a great big build up and the excitement only lasts a few hours.
Can we not make it a habit to have Christmas and Thanksgiving and all other family holidays a part of every day? Please.
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I hate how a certain person in my family (who shall remain nameless) can never appreciate her gifts. Sigh. It’s very distressing. And, it taints the holiday for me in such a way that I dread it. Ugh! It becomes depressing, too. “It’s the thought that counts” is such great advice. I wish a certain person could really embrace this. If she did, I think she would enjoy the holidays so much more.
The holidays are very stressful for me. Iam feeling it already and it isn’t even Thanksgiving yet. The biggest issue is always that I don’t have money to give my boys the beautiful dinner I think they deserve. I don’t have an oven to cook a big turkey anyway. Something else that bothers me is that my family is so seperated that my siblings never come to visit my mom. And I guess the greatest dislike I have about the holidays is that I miss my granny and my daddy so very much during the holidays.
I wish I had a larger home to invite family here for the holidays. We always go to my inlaws for which I am enormously grateful as they open their homes to my Mom as well. I just remember the smells of Thanksgiving as a child. My sister Linda and I would lay in our bed and smell the celery and onions and sausage browning for the stuffing in all that butter…I did stay home a few Thanksgivings so my son could enjoy those smells but it was sad and lonely not being with the crowd. I try and make a small turkey dinner a week either before or after Thanksgiving but its not the same:) Also I hate that my sister and her family live so far away. I love being with my husbands family but I will admit I do wish at times I was celebrating with mine but we make do. We saw each other this Summer so I will just have to keep those memories with me. I wish it were like the folgers commercials when the family is all together but unfortunately it cannot be
I hate how one person (who shall remain nameless) can throw a wrench into any and all things functional. If we’re eating the holiday meal, this person will undoubtedly refuse to either: 1) eat with everyone else; 2)turn off the television during the meal; 3)be kind or at least civil and instead will make disparaging remarks about others who are present ; 4)help cook and/or prepare the meal or clean up afterwards (even though this person lives in the home where the meal is being served!). I also hate the guilt that undoubtedly comes along with the holidays – that guilt which pushes you to spend a miserable time with ‘family’ that you are neither close to nor on civil terms with. I hate the hope that comes along with holidays – the undying, yet chronically strained, hope that ‘things will be better this year’ but that same hope that lets you down and leads you to search out others on the Internet, the day of, no less, who understand what you are going through. And most of all, I hate that even after you suffer through the Thanksgiving holiday, the Christmas holiday is just around the corner, and you will, inevitably, have to turn around and do it all over again in some form or fashion in less than a month. Sigh…