I know that the kind of sympathy I usually get is of the "there are people without homes and families this Christmas you know!" variety and if that's someone's response, kindly keep it to yourself. I have a right to be annoyed.
Christmas to me, every year, is the day in which I am obligated to buy presents for people I frankly don't know very well (my parents) and in which presents are bought for me which demonstrate a clear lack of knowledge or thought about me. They say "it's the thought that counts" but to me it isn't, because I'd rather get nothing than to be given meaningless useless junk.
This year, I made it clear I was only interested in being given money, because I'm in debt and money is useful to me whereas a pair of novelty socks is not. I hinted at the possibility that my now dearly departed mp3 headphones needed a successor (costing £5 at the local supermarket). I explicitly ordered my mother not to buy me any clothes, as I have nowhere to put them (I don't have a wardrobe so my existing clothes are hanging from my ceiling).
What I actually got included a christmas decoration with £1 and a rubber stamp, a glasses case I'll never use, a huge pink jumper and a pair of pyjamas that appeals to my mother but not so much to me, a pair of DJ stereo headphones that are so huge that I didn't even have anything that big in the '90s and I wouldn't be seen dead wearing them, and from my brother what looks like a leather bracelet, when I've been a vegan for seven years and I don't wear any jewellery. My brother has a track record of being rather single minded- he bought me a hideous shoulder bag before (I never use those), a bracelet made of shell, a bar of milk chocolate etc... I despise when my relatives buy me jewellery, because not only do I find jewellery an impersonal purchase (it's like chocolate... if you don't know what to buy, if the person has a certain anatomy, give them jewellery or make-up...) but also that the fact I have never used those things make it doubly so for me, and to have my own immediate family buy me this I find actually kinda offensive.
So once again, Christmas Day has ended with me sitting in my room feeling upset. Like every year, my family wasted their money on what amounts to rubbish and it all screams a mixture of "well, I was obligated to buy you SOMETHING!" with undertones of "You were supposed to be a normal girl who likes this stuff, but no, now I have to spend lots of money buying all this for your brother's girlfriend instead!" (the latter being something my mother did practically say recently. Thankfully she didn't buy me jewellery this year. I can practically smell her disappointment in me for not being interested in clothes/shoes/shopping/jewellery/make-up/boys and it seems that with every dumb purchase of this stuff it is like a flicker of hope that some day she'll give me a necklace and suddenly I'll be cured!)
Roll on New Year 
