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The holidays are fast approaching and yesterday I was thinking about Thanksgiving and Christmas and I had a panic attack!I am realizing that I really struggle emotionally around the holidays.I usually have an underlying depression around the holidays, it is just a sadness that haunts me. And in the past I have been able to mask that with a big production ,and I do mean big,one year I had 3 different themed trees!! and lots of spending.Almost as if I must control Christmas!I realize this year will be very different as I don't really feel very festive and I certainly won't be shopping a lot.I just don't have the money this year.Honestly my fantasy Christmas would be in a log cabin with a fireplace, a tree,lots of food and hot chocolate with Christmas music playing and not worrying about money!I think it is from my childhood, my parents would always fight and my dad would lose his temper especially over the tree,my mom would nag and complain that the tree wasn't right and my dad would just get mad and heave it out the door,I guess it is pretty traumatic for a child to see her tree out in the yard while her parents are fighting.I f you can't be happy at Christmas when can you be happy.I don't know how to be happy with Christmas.I feel like Jack the pumpkin king,from the movie,The nightmare Before Christmas.What is Christmas anyway!
Oh Mary, I understand. My AH hates the holidays and I've always tried to make them festive but as the years wore on, I got tired of putting in the effort and he never helped or cared to participate, etc. I have been very down over the past 3 years around Christmas and I usually just pray for them to be over now.
But, you know what, you can make new traditions for yourself this year. You can set up your place like a cabin. Make that hot chocolate and curl up with a blanket and a movie of your choice(doesn't have to be holiday related, either). You can be as totally untraditional as you want. I like to go hiking on Christmas day....yep, it's weird, but it's better than sitting around feeling resentful because my AH is taking yet another nap like every other holiday. Maybe you could find a place to volunteer? Hugs to you! This is a difficult time of year for many people.
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Never grow a wishbone where your backbone ought to be!
I would love to do something different this year.I will try and think of something,I have a teenage daughter and I think I feel bad that I won't be able to get her much this year.
one year I volunteered at the community thanksgiving dinner - that really helped me start down the path of making the holidays what I chose them to be. as each year comes, I find more solidity and peace having them my way.
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I am strong in the broken places. ~ Unknown
All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another! ~ Anatole France
Hugs Mary, this is a difficult time of the year as we try to live in others images of what the season " should" look like. As andromeda said, you can make new traditions. If I could go back in time, I would have loved to hear as a teenager how loved and special I was to my mom. A small thoughtful gift from her heart would have meant the world to me. I just had some insights as to what I will do for my adult children and the grandchildren for christmas, thank you!
Those are all great ideas,I have always felt so much pressure around the holidays to make everyone happy, and a lot of my family members are difficult people to deal with,that I lose sight of what it really is all about.
It's kind of fun to wrap gifts for neighbors and leave them on their porches, stick festive solar lights in folks' yards under the cover of night, show up after Christmas Eve Services and just hand out battery operated candle sticks that are purchased for cheap in bulk from on-line merchandizers or something else that might "light up" folks' life.
Non-profits usually get a ton of stuff at Thanksgiving and Christmas time and then come the hardest months of winter, everything drops off although people still need winter wear, food, utility help that can be donated to smaller non-profits that do good work in your area but are often un-noticed because they aren't national organizations. Sending a festive floral arrangement anonymously to a person you know is a shut in and letting them guess who might have sent it to them is another way to change your holidays and make them all brighter? Handing out heavy scarves, gloves(good ones - not magic gloves that don't protect the hands), hats to people hanging out around public places who aren't dressed warmly with a friend might be fun, too?
There are a ton of things that smell good that you can make for friends that are fragrant and fairly inexpensive like orange and clove pomanders hung with festive ribbons or applesauce and gingerbread ornaments that can be packaged in fun bags with sparkly twist ties or ribbons. Artists sell one of a kind gifts that are fun to buy for yourself, a friend or a special mentor while you support the work of the artist, too, or taking a special art class yourself in any creative endeavor to include cooking, lamp making, stain glass ornaments will also help you and help others.
Letters to family or friends detailing the ways they have made your life happier this year is a good way to cheer yourself up, too? Creating a treasure hunt for gifts for your sister in her home might be fun, too? You and your daughter could enjoy the holidays surprising others together that might make your holidays merrier?
-- Edited by grateful2be on Tuesday 18th of November 2014 12:08:40 PM
Hi Mary. I totally understand. I have many mixed emotions around the holidays. What I am trying to focus on is I get to do the holidays my way without worrying about AH being awake, being asleep or whatever he used to do. He would always complain that I always planned things...he wanted to have new traditions...but the ironic thing is he never planned anything. My work schedule makes holidays difficult, too. The commercials on TV bother me the most. But, I am focusing on fun things. My youngest asked for an Elf on the Shelf. I bought one. I am hoping it will be fun. She wants to believe in magical things, and I think it's ok especially considering what she's been through. My AH doesn't look at it like we do, but that's ok. He is free to think what he wants.
I am going to stay busy with church activities too.
I have an artificial tree in the attic of my house, but this year I will buy a small real tree and decorate it with some different ornaments.
I want to keep things easy.
I would love to do something different this year.I will try and think of something,I have a teenage daughter and I think I feel bad that I won't be able to get her much this year.
Mary, to me its just another day...kids are grown , out of the house, doing their own thing, Daughter #2 lives next door but usually goes out of town to visit the roudy cousins, etc., not what i want to do, i want quiet...
i have my gym and i probably will crockpot a rock cornish game hen stuffed w/my onion dressing and i will hang out at gym, pool and jacuzzi and chat w/the other folks......i , too, had horrendous holidays at the concentration camp.....SHE would be plastered by early after noon, HE would be hurling insults at her, walking/strutting around w/his stupid camera, trying to take pictures of the "happy family" when all of us are qualified as ballerinas from the tip toeing around, dancing on egg shells.....yea, he spent $$ on us so he could take pics of the presents under the tree and show off to the relatives....it was all SHOW...no love in that house, Love ran away a long time ago.....now i do the holidays simple.....its just another day to me.....i just wanted to tell you, i relate to you and totally get how ya feel.....sending support...
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Live and let live and do it with peace and goodwill to all!!!!
I can relate, I get a bit agitated around Christmas. I dont like the excess or it all, its like this fake expectation that we should all be happier but wait, only if we spend lots on the latest gadgets. Happiness means filling your fridge with food you never usually eat, buying expensive gifts for peolle that dont really like them much anyway, spending hundreds of pounds lining the pockets of multi national companies who pay their workers buttons.
I cant stand the way its all so over the top. The lights are nice but folk take it too far where its brash and desperate and it always makes me wonder about the mental state of some people. Never mind the energy they must be using and wasting. Its lost its meaning for me.
Theres more drink and drama and it makes me nervous. New year where I live has huge expectations, people stay up all night, party for days and your expected to admire them or think what interesting people they are, by then im just glad its done and over with. its all about the alcohol here. Its a time when alcoholics dont stand out too much.
To express these thoughts though is to be a strange alien person. I prefer to see myself as someone who has not had good memories of this time of year and it will take a bit of time to recover and I am recovering but in the meantime, bah humbug.
Well, gosh, elcee - you might as well come and stay with me on New Years. I have three couches in the livingroom. We can both wear our jammies, lie on the couch, flip channels until the ball drops or not, put in our earplugs and wait for the fireworks to stop that signals the new year. Sounds like we're both quiet welcomers of the new year. Silent woohoo.
I want to chirp in to say I really love Christmas... I see stressed people and I also see people that are kind and generous. It has become a quieter time for me as I watch, observe, spend less, decorate less, bake less and enjoy the heck out of my family. This is a no rock throwing zone, right? Give me that cute squishy faced cat...
LOL, elcee! Although I'm not a big advocate of New Year's Eve Celebrations here, I am a lover of Christmas celebrations. I even love it enough to love that cat in the hat. Made me laugh out loud. As a Christmas surprise gift, I bought my daughter a "Grumpy Cat" coloring book and markers just for the fun of it. I think delighting in Christmas and "Bahhumbing" Christmas are helpful in celebrating it.
-- Edited by grateful2be on Tuesday 18th of November 2014 04:10:39 PM
I think thats what I am aiming for spending less, cooking less, expecting less, decorating less. Sounds good. There are parts I like believe it or not. lol. I like being in the presence of children getting all excited, its the adults I cant really stand. lol
What has freed me up tremendously has been that I do not buy or give any presents. Not in a bah-humbug way, but in a standing still and enjoying the quiet wonder of the season way. I love Christmas!!! And, now, I am free to truly enjoy it! The present-buying was stress in EVERY way - financially, but also just in terms of buying presents for my family that doesn't have much holiday spirit and isn't fun to be around during the holidays--so buying gifts felt overwhelming and hard because it didn't come out of really know what gifts would be welcomed and appreciated/really knowing my family on that level. I no longer go to my family's for the holidays because it is emotionally hard because there isn't much cheer there.
I have found that the holidays are truly enjoyable if I rely on the events my community organizes for the holidays and just show up. So, typically, I find a Christmas Eve candlelight service to attend and an Alcathon (24 hours worth of AA meetings around the holidays). I also go to a holiday bazaar to look around for nostalgia reasons. This year I'll be going to Handel's Messiah and to my local college's Christmas concert. For New Years, I also find a church service. I celebrate advent, so I always get an Advent calendar. I put the tree up early, so I have a whole month to sit in quiet looking at the white lights on the Christmas tree. I also try to find something to give to--this year, I want to buy several subscriptions of the newspaper that supports Homeless men and women in my town.
Oh, and I get cheap holiday sheets for the season. Snowflakes and snowmen on the bed make me smile.
Growing up, more than anything I wanted happiness + a good, low-key time. Talk to your teen, maybe she has good ideas for what would be fun! I remember one woman in my Alanon meeting talking about the holidays (after a brutal divorce) as making new memories and I loved! that! idea. So, that gave me a new frame for how to celebrate.
the title of this post alone....hugs. I feel extremely nervous waiting for the disappointment to come. Doing my best to shake it off, recognise it for what it is and get on with the day. Paula cooks?! Grateful, I'm inviting me to this soiree also.
Mary I am so sorry that you have such painful childhood memories around the Holidays. .No child should witness her Christmas tree thrown out the door in anger but I do agree many of us have bad memories around the Holidays.
I too love the Holidays, now that I have changed the way I celebrate them as well as my expectations. . Alanon steps, especially 4 through 10 helped me to root out the painful memories of the past and let them go . When I did that I was able to be in the moment, set up new traditions (as has been suggested) and really enjoy the days.
Keeping it Simple is the key. Candlelight service at Church , donating to the Christmas tree gifts for the poor, volunteering at Church dinner for the poor ,buying simple token gifts for family and friends and increasing my meetings allows the joy that surfaces from within to surround me. This is really is a gift of this program and the season.
G2B one day we will all arrange to visit you and celebrate recovery :)
I love all the comments and I am going to give myself permission to just have a real simple holiday!My daughter is an angel and she totally understands our financial situation,we do talk a lot about things.I was thinking about the things I did like when I was a child,I used to go caroling and I loved the Christmas carols the most.I think it was because of all the joy that was in the songs!!I agree the commercial part of Christmas has gone too far,I personally don't think it should be so much about shopping but we have bought into that as a nation.One year when I was struggling I volunteered at the Salvation Army and I enjoyed that,too.
Years ago in my younger days I used to make thousands....yes thousands of cookies, breads and chocolate to give away as presents. Would take me days but I loved doing it and I knew Christmas was here. I haven't done it in very long time but I'm going to bake this year. Chocolate Chip cookies, Butter Balls, Fudge with nuts, Zucchini Bread and Poppyseed Kuchen's. Christmas morning I will have homemade Cinnamon Rolls with the best coffee I can find.
One way to have the feeling of Christmas for me.....
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Lord, put your arm around my shoulder and your hand over my mouth
Speak only when you feel that your words are better than your silence.
I like the decorating etc but memories of last xmas when my ah's alcholism esculated beyond belief is haunting me. At least we dont have to go to his family for turkey day. We came and were ignored...every year, i tried to cope. I tried to fake it and felt that i couldnt take that lie. some years i brought crafts/book so i could do something. some years i really tried to help in the kitchen but that is my complaing sis in laws territory... AH still doesnt have his drivers liscense back and or/a car to replace the one he destroyed drivng drunk mowing into 3 cars about 6mths ago. Im sad and lonely and feel defeated but thank god for my alon pals in person and online
Give me that cute squishy faced cat...