Published on 12, July, 2020
Does anyone else really struggle with Christmas or find it too overwhelming?
I love Christmas day with my family but I get very nervous about it in advance and can't stand the pressure of a day where I feel we all have to be happy. Also, I can't stand the build up. I hate all the endless Christmas songs in shops and the fact that everyone tells me I have to look forward to Christmas and it has to be this big amazing thing. I don't understand why, I mean it happens every year its not a novelty. I have always struggled with anything people tell me I have to enjoy, I automatically feel so much pressure then that I cant enjoy it and I can't cope. Christmas is that times 100, society and everyone telling me I have to enjoy it and be happy, i cant cope with the pressure.
Also I hate the greed of Christmas, everyone just out for what they can get. I hate the crowds and the people barging past you in shops to get more for themselves. I dont understand the point of giving cards to people you hardly speak to all year or giving presents that people dont really want just for the sake of it.
I really hate the commercialism and the endless adverts telling you you cant enjoy yourself unless you spend loads of money you dont have on stuff you dont need just to make these companies richer
I really struggle with the sensory overload of all the noise and decorations in shops and the fact that you cant escape it, whereever you go its just Christmas stuff everywhere in your face and it is such an overload for me.
Also, I cant tell anyone any of this or they just make me feel like a grinch. It feels like your not allowed to say you dont enjoy it
Im a Christian so i love the meaning of Christmas ( I realise that might not be the case for everyone) and I love spending time with my family but thats about it.
I always have a complete breakdown just before Christmas every year, regular as clockwork
Sorry if I sound like a party pooper but I just wondered if anyone else out there felt like me? Is this an autistic thing or is it just me
i relate to this so so much. i don't like christmas either. the present aspect too, i don't want to be bought stuff anymore lol bc like i never know what i want bc what i want is not something you can hold yanno.
i don't enjoy spending time much w family as i feel really uncomfortable bc i get shy & never know how to explain stuff etc.
& i completely get, when someone tells me to look forward for something i don't at all lol
The only part of Christmas I enjoy is getting drunk and spending time with family. Otherwise, it isn't worth celebrating.
half of that I can relate to you know
Us Christians get all that, plus a bit more.
From my perspective you are missing out on some of the good stuff.
I'm neither gloating, nor trying to sell you a bill of goods, but we are supposed to "share the joy" as much as possible, and some people are under the mistaken belief that Christianity somehow enslaves you, or loads you up with things you'd rather not do, whereas I've found it has freed me from a lot of false responsibilty and "induced misery".
And it gives us all a decent holiday, whether we believe or not, whether we are naughty or nice!
A better compromise which would suit those of you who really don't like the Christianity part of Christmas rather than trying to drown it in 3 months of commercialism would be to legislate all Christmas related commmerce and public activity down to one week across the board. The pagans would not get three months of reminders that we exist, and we Christians wouldn't get quite so bogged down in the "mammon" aspects of it all.
But however you do it, I hope that the god I believe in has planned a better Christmas for all of us.
Believers and non believers alike, have had it real rough at Christmas for many, many, years now, and it didn't always used to be that way.. I CLEARLY remember people used to do the most spohisticated preparations and really enjoy the process..
It's almost like there is some malign influence that has been growing in the world and runing a long term campaign to reduce the spiritually uplifting aspect of christmas (that I remember clearly and unambiguously as being very, very, prevalent until it had mostly died by the eighties) and replace it with miserable drudgery. Coincidentally that's exactly what the Satan that many beliefs as well as Christianity describe, would be doing of course...
Sadly for most of you, I know that is held to be nowadays as just a wild and very old discredited "conspiracy theory".
Happily, unlike "conspiracy theory" Christianity includes practical tools and methods of "pushing back" against the percieved oppressor/s and reduces one rage and anger rather than increasing it.
There are worse ways to live, I've tried some of them myself... I wasn't happy.