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Cat died on christmas.
But also christmas music and consumerism and religion and insincerity and various intersections thereof. And my phone automatically capitalizes christmas no matter how many times I tell it to not do that.
I can like christmas, but I experience an adverse reaction to "Christmas". Call me a kringlephobe idc
All fake ,and biggest scam still around in 2025
Christmas meant 'family coming together'.
If you don't agree with your family, then what's left?
The family you choose? Aka friends
If there was no religious connotations and the gift giving shit was done away with I wouldn't mind.
I do like how entire communities get together and do the same things like light up the streets with Christmas lights and all follow a nice theme.
But I prefer Halloween due to the lack of religion and the only expectations are to give out candy to children.
I haven't considered Christmas to be religious in 30 years or so. To me, it's just a time to take off work and exchange presents. Since my parents died, I don't even have to go visit anyone. My son and I take little trip in lieu of a Christmas dinner. He likes Christmas traditions (secular) but he gets that through his other grandparents.
the stupid outfits and people telling me i need to like it
I mean it's a good reminder that I'm not really part of my biological family anymore
I'm sorry your bio family aren't better people. I hope you've found better quality humans to call your family.
from 9-19 every holiday started off with my father and mother being passive-aggressive with each other. this usually continued until dad grew frustrated and began to yell or scream at me. why he targeted me I don't know. there were two other kids. probably because they were older and would throw his shit back at him.
one year in particular he screamed at me to go burn the trash (as one did in the rural days). it was fall and was very windy. I told him it would catch the yard on fire. "just do it!" fine...
I took it out and lit it. came back inside and went back to my room because I didn't want to get yelled at. keep in mind I was around 11 years old at the time. about 30 minutes later he's screaming for me. I come out and about an acre of our land is on fire. it was mostly tall (dry) grass. "what's wrong with you?! are you fucking stupid?!!" we spent the rest of the afternoon fighting the spread of the fire while he berated me. then had a disappointing dinner followed by gifts and "love" with messages like, "smile more!" and "is this not good enough for you?"
that was the day I lost all respect for my father. that was the day I stopped trusting adults.
I don't share this to gain sympathy. I fucking hate sympathy, frankly. I share this as a cautionary tale for adults today. don't mistreat your kids. when you're on your deathbed, these are the things that will haunt you, and you'll be alone to suffer without closure as your vision simply fades out to nothing.
Merry fucking Christmas.
That it's so incredibly hyped up. You start hearing music and seeing ads and decorations for it too early. Black Friday is a complete shitshow.
Holiday travel sucks, and the possibility of shitty weather is rather high. I avoid traveling for holidays, but I've had to travel around Christmas for work and it is a mess.
The expectation of gift giving. I'm big into anti-consumption and don't want to buy or receive a bunch of junk. While this expectation is more of an annoyance to me, it has actual negative impact on people who are struggling financially.
It's become so commercialized. I'm not religious at all, but it's become a farce.
i hate the ultra consumerist version and the jesus version for different reasons
I really don't like getting presents in company. I'm an Autist and don't react as people would expect, so masking sets in which is very stressful.
so masking sets in which is very stressful.
Pretending to be happy sucks. (...the energy right out of me.)
I'm (probably) not an autist, but same all around. Hate watching people open my gifts as well because I feel like I'm pressuring them to act a certain way. Exchanging gifts is miserable.
I give away a lot of my money. I give gifts to people I know all throughout the year, I let them use my resources whenever I can. I even hand it out to strangers when I can.
Why am I obligated to do so on this particular day of the year? I do it every other day already.
i hate having to come up with ideas on what to buy for people who already have everything. all just because we are brainwashed by capitalism
I mainly just focus on buying people nice edible treats. Biscuit boxes, chocolate, turkish delight, fancy coffees or teas.
Organized religion is a plague.
It's just a celebration of winter solstice. My family is as atheist as the day is long, but we still enjoy the trappings of Christmas.
I think that was the origins of it and can be celebrated that way.
However, I feel it has most certainly been hijacked by religion and capitalism since then in certain parts of the world.
I enjoy it due to having time off, so I'll take that :P
I'm kinda done with it taking up a third of the year. You start seeing Christmas decorations and shit hit store shelves before Halloween.
You're not alone in hating Christmas, though for me it's different: it's the stress of having to celebrate, be happy, and get people presents. I don't want to be forced to or pretend to be happy, I have nothing to celebrate, and if I want to give someone a present I don't need to wait for Christmas (and if I don't want to give a present, I shouldn't be required to).
Basically, Christmas is just another way to make people spent a lot of money with the pretense of it being "the happiest time of the year" (for someone else).
I had the right not to be happy, don't mandate that I should be happy during Christmas.
Christmas is fine in moderation. The problem I have with Christmas is that people try to stretch Christmas out to have it take over other parts of the year.
I also feel like Christmas is the holiday that requires the most work and I'm not a fan of holidays that require me to do a lot.
Any holiday which compartmentalizes a normal human behavior, I do not participate.
If you need a day set aside to ceremonially 'show' your partner that you love them, or you need a day to show your family that you want to spend time, none of it is real.
It's shameless corporate horse shit disguised as shameless religious horse shit.
I just hate the consumerism of it all. Gift giving shouldn't be or feel to be obligatory, it should just be something extra and unexpected.
I don't. I mean I don't believe, but I got no hate. Funny enough, a family member said something something about "too early for Valentine's Day" and I couldn't help but laugh.
I decided long ago that Christmas and birthdays just wasn't for me. Easy enough when I live alone.
I don't decorate, don't eat anything out of the ordinary, don't dress up. It's just a normal day, that passes without much ado. Hate is too strong a word, I just ignore it.
Same here. Xmas, birthday, new year : all just ordinary days for me. Back when my mom was still alive I visited her for Xmas (and many other times) to make her feel better, but other than that I've not celebrated it for decades, and my mom died half a decade ago.
All the individual small family units in my family have been married had kids, gotten divorced and most remarried with more kids. There are so many split families with kids that some years we end up having 6-8 family dinner get togethers just to make sure all the kids were included. And since it would be mortal sin to give a gift to one kid and not another even if you had given the other one the previous get together the kids get so much shit they actually get bored opening gifts. The whole thing is an over blown nightmare for everyone involved but the women in the family insist on it because Christmas is for the kids and we can't take a chance of a 4 year old feeling left out. I threw my hands up a few years ago and my wife handles it all. I just have to be her uber to all these events, watching bored over stimulated kids that want nothing more than to be home playing with their new stuff, being put on display as they open even more stuff.
My mom was the one who loved Christmas. She loved decorating and shopping and the music. She died in 2010 and it has never been the same. It might have been okay if we still had small children in our family but all her grandkids were grown up by the time she died. We didn't even have any kind of celebration the first few years after. So, Christmas died with her.
I don't hate Christmas, but it's a holiday that relies on tradition and I derive no joy from traditions. The whole "we're doing this because it's been done every previous year of our life" schtick just rubs me wrong. I recognise that for some people there is comfort in tradition. For me however it feels more like indoctrination.
It's a religious holiday, and I am an atheist. It means absolutely nothing to me, but people try to make me feel guilty about disliking it.
the same shitty Xmas playlist over and over all day.
This pretty much sums it up. Music is a big part of my life, and to hear it be so... corporate and someone-has-a-case-of-the-mondays vibed makes me sick.
Second post, sorry. But here's something you can enjoy. I didn't bother trying to find all of them, but as you can tell from the numbering, there are more than these if you look for them.
Christmas Music Sucks: Part 6, The Voicemail Episode
Courtesy of Your Favorite Band Sucks. If you listen to any of the primary eps, start with a band you don't like and realize that the schtick is that they know a ton about music and can turn their sites on any band. It doesn't mean they actually hate everything.
So I'm going to preface with the fact that I don't hate Christmas. I thought I did for a long time but forced to actually stop and consider it, that's not an accurate statement.
However, I do object to a lot of how Christmas is portrayed and celebrated now (UK if that make a difference)
it's a family affair: every TV program, every billboard, every commercial on the radio is telling you that this is a family occasion, a coming together. For those of us that are divorced or otherwise alone, it's a really fucking lonely time of year precisely because you're effectively being told from all angles that if you're not at the centre of a massive family celebration, you're a sad loser
too long: it's one day, maybe one week if you can extend it all. For this we have to have 3 months of build up? It's too much, builds all the stress and makes the actual day unlikely to live up to the hype
Music: saccharine Christmas music from November onwards. I have a playlist of music that I can stand and I listen to it occasionally (I'm listening to it now). So sorry to anyone working in retail who has to listen to it on repeat
competitive: did you have the most lights? Most people round? Fanciest meal? Tell us all about it. Please, call in to the radio because we really care
unchanging tradition: people who have to have it exactly as it was when they were young and force everyone else to conform to that singular vision
So over the last couple of years I've had time and space to focus on what do I want it to be and I've decided that for me Christmas is about: light and warmth and love.
I don't need anything else but pretty lights to look at, a warm house and the love of my family and friends. I now see Christmas cards as a little present, a bundle of love. I send them with a message because I'm saying that I love you with each one.
I've told my boys they don't need to buy me anything, just their presence is all I need to make me happy.
I make sure to focus on seeing my friends and making sure they know that I appreciate them.
This has all helped massively. I still get the lonely feeling - tonight I'll be by myself on Christmas Eve and that's hard, but I can concentrate on what it means to me and that helps loads.
Overplayed music. Everything revolving around spending money. Usually on things people don’t need or want. The food is great. And time off from work.
I don't trust merriment. I'll take the food, drink, and occasional gift, but I can't pretend to be jolly and ignore how the world is going.
Forcing each other to give gift we can't afford to people that doesn't need them and probably will end up in a landfill in 2 years time. PD: It would be really interesting to research Christmas impact on the environment.
Forcing each other to be appear to be happy when a lot of incredibly shitty shit is happening around the world. I'd rather call it Double blindfold holiday!
Telling a mandatory lie to kids, that is effectively their forced introduction to a society that values and encourages deception and the disconnection from reality.
Fuck Christmas!!!
The constant bombastic music is absolutely terrible. Jingle jingle jingle jazzy jazzy BELLS BELLS BELLS BELLS DING DANG DONG And remember, if you complain, it means you don't want any presents this year!!
Also it's MERRY CHRISTMAS not HAPPY HOLIDAYS even though there's advent, christmastide, St John's Day, St. Nicholas Day, all those funny South American holidays, all Christian holidays celebrated at this time that are not Christmas. But JESUS is the reason for the season.
Driving... I hate driving. Because I live somewhat far from where the family gathers I get volunteered to be the family taxi and go all over long island picking up people. Turns an hour+ drive into 3 and then back doing it all over. Bleh.
The quick downvote sells it.
I feel like this could've been better as an open-ended question. I don't hate Christmas but I don't like some aspects of it, although not all of them are specific to Christmas.
This was a tough year for us financially, so nearly everything for Christmas had to go on a credit card.
All through November and December, I had to choose between adding more to the debt or disappointing the kids. Logically, I know the right answer is "Don't spend more than you can afford" but I think any decent dad would agree that "Merry Christmas kids! Nobody gets anything they wanted because I'm a failure at providing for my family!" has to be pretty close to the bottom of acceptable options.
My wife always imagines a Norman Rockwell Christmas, and has big plans for what she'll cook and what games we'll play and how she'll decorate. She does a great job every time, but it's a lot. She stresses over being able to do it all, and any inevitable mishaps are catastrophic.
This year, I'm trying not to be a Scrooge, but it's a challenge.
It's all humbug!
I don’t necessarily hate Christmas but I truly don’t like all the forced obligations that come with it.
Personally, not really fond of socializing to be honest. I’m an introvert, it’s fine to socialize for an hour but an entire day of forced socializing is a disaster. Don’t like it.
Could write a day about this but, I suppose this sums it up.
My wife is determined to make it as stressful and chaotic as she can, and then spend the rest of the year complaining about how stressful and chaotic it was.
Because I lost my parents in traumatizing ways
