I just like it.

Edit: I tried to post a pic of my tiny year round tree but I could not manage the process...you'll just have to imagine...

Those identifying as 'Christians' are adjured to emulate the Person, showing lovingkindness & generosity towards all and to humble themselves. (Their 'sorry selves'--my words.)

I was stuck with a malignant narcissist (yes, that’s how I recognized the orange shitgibbon early on…) His birthday was March 30. For years, we had to have xmas decorations up from just after Thanksgiving until *after* his bday… Yes, FOUR months every year!

One year, my mum came to visit for the holidays. New Year’s was looming and as we were sitting around one afternoon, she suggested it was a good time to clear the clutter and start the new year fresh. Yes!

He came home from work that day and just exploded. Everything had to be put back up and collect dust for another three months.

Took me 23 years to figure out how to be able to support myself (a secret loan from my mum got me through a medical transcription course online) and when I had the opportunity, I bailed. Still lots of self esteem (still haven’t even considered dating…) and poverty issues even 20-some years later, but the biggest lingering thing is Christmas. The kids agreed we don’t need the pressure of gifting, and decorating is out completely—except for the year son won a Charlie Brown xmas tree at work, which was somehow very us.

Not burdened with religion (my family was catholic and ex became a holy roller thanks to a lunatic boss at his job), so we’re fine doing doing more nature-related stuff and otherwise ignoring the glitz and pretense.

Circa 1987, husband's parents came to visit from CT. I did want to minimally decorate. Went to local tree lot. There it be. A Charlie Brown yew! Sales fella and I had a lovely exchange having a shared laugh. It was "beshert", meant to be!

I am deeply sorry for what you have experienced. We never know what the person next to us is going thru.

Your kiddos are wise regarding a less fussy holiday❣️ "Out of the mouths of babes."

May I say: "A peace-filled and blessed Christmas Day be unto you and yours."

I grabbed my 2 cats and literally ran away. Christmas can come and go without me and I’ll be just fine. Less stress, the better. I’m still trying to figure out a few things, too, but it sounds like you have a good support system with your kids and are able to navigate through the tuff times. Best wishes 🌺

Does help to know we’re not alone in this.

because I enjoy the ambience and the feelings of it.

Having kids (which happened when I was 46) just made it feel more purposeful.

......and large extended family goes completely over the top with everything. I must check out for my mental health.

So, I've pretty much thrown in the towel on Christmas. I have no tree or decorations, but I will spend some time and have a meal with some family. I haven't bought a single gift for two years now, and I don't miss it.

That page since my early 30s. It's not MY holiday, I'm not a xtian so I don't feel I need to celebrate it. I do like the little lights and put them up in my home but I don't take them down, I like the dim light as I have light sensitivity, can't handle overhead lights for more than a minute or two.

I'm fine with looking at others' decorations but I don't need to go through all the hoopla of a holiday that became a capitalist hellhole for most people, enforced by guilt and shaming.

As for my friends and relatives, they were a little off-put at first but the last couple decades we enjoy the season a lot more by just calling each other and sharing ourselves in that way. Once in a while a gift or two will be sent but not meant to arrive by the 25th of Dec. They show up when they do at any time during the year with a card that says, "Happy Birthmas!"

I really don't care about this holiday, doesn't mean anything to me other than to avoid shopping when the crazies are at it. I might enjoy a few after holiday sales but I really am all in with this lady who gets it.

Little birch trees with lights now. I used to go all out. Tired of it. I’m also tired of family expecting me to come spend Christmas with them. I’m the one that has to buy airline tickets and travel to them. Tired of doing it. My mother and my MIL just expect it. No one considers what it costs me to fly, to rent a car, to hire pet sitters, etc. Pisses me off. Sometimes I just want to take a trip somewhere and not go visit family. Which seems selfish. So, I don’t do it. Sometimes I’m resentful.

really including all holidays and *rituals* (ceremonies of all types). I do a couple of the Meals per year, without the connotations. I prepare for the stretch from Halloween through New Years. Hah - about 20 years ago for some reason the *noise* and hullabaloo were even extra extra with the t.v. and events stirring up the populace to a frenzy, and in my neighborhood there were some very elderly people living about two blocks from me, and in the last couple of weeks there were *ambulances* wailing and whizzing past me to them.

Other non-participants have said that the holiday craze is weeks of feeling alienated. For me, it's peaceful. I do keep watch on the calendar for when the lack of mail and there being extra customers in the stores and kids out of school going on. I used to like New Years more than the other ones, but at my old age now I'm surprised to have made it another year and how fast it went.

Somewhere there was an item about the Romans, that as the government institutions became more intrusive and entrenched, they started adding on more and more holidays to the calendar. Here's a list, don't know how formal/mandatory/work-free they were: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_festivals

As far as rituals go, the 2 or 3 times I've made an appearance for a funeral or such - meaning a Catholic Mass - I've been so out of touch with the kneeling and mumbling. I saw one of my cousins smirking, stifling her giggling at my imbalance to genuflect. Rituals. I've realized that, like with all show performances, *rehearsal* is key - like how there are "rehearsal dinners" for weddings? I say that "reincarnation" is something like having *rehearsals* for a stage show or a movie!

purchasing one meaningful gift per person, then donating the amount they would've eventually blown per person.

Some neighbors wherever we've resided, decorate their exterior with lights and displays we would say resemble a pizza parlor. 🤭 "Oh, you mean that pizza parlor house?"

If only they DID have apizza to sell as well. 😄

I can do dat.
But sometimes during a service, a prostration is done.
I don't do dat one. 😇

Of course I agree with her 100%. I have always hated holidays because they come with expectations in our culture which for years made me feel like there was something wrong with me. But like her, at mid-life I had a huge reckoning with myself and realized that most of what I had done in the past for the holidays I did because I thought it was unfair to my childen and then husband to deprive them just because I could care less about Christmas. My ex was brought up with a lot of material things but no love and I was brought up in a nonreligious household, so there was no going to church or talking about the baby Jesus. We were poor and there were a lot of us, so we got one or two small gifts if that, maybe pj's or knee socks, and by the time you turned 12 you no longer got gifts. It's just how it was. The tree and the lights and shiny bulbs and candy canes on it were the most exciting thing for me.

Coincidentally, today I made a trip to Salvation Army and dropped off a small box of ornaments and a mixing bowl with Santas on it that someone gave me for a gift and I've never used. I mostly like to celebrate the winter solstice and my decorating is minimal and winter/nature themed. There are evergreen branches and red candles on my mantle and a prelit fake birch tree. I will not be buying a single present since my family of origin all live out of state and all of us are old and nonmaterialistic, and my two adult children are middle aged. Only one lives nearby and she can't be bothered to visit me because "we're so busy" (the disease of their generation).

I consider myself at the tail end of my life and all the things she talks about are so true. However, the deep conversations are hard to come by these days since, at least in my experience it's hard to find people who want to have deep conversations. Everyone seems so superficial these days. A quote that I read in the past that has stayed with me is "stop the glorification of busyness". Ever run into someone and say to them, "Gee, i haven't heard from you in awhile. How are you?" and their answer is "Oh, I've been soooo busy." They aren't introspective enough to even delve into trying to understand what they want their life to look like.

Thanks for the video. I'll have to look for more from her. Seems like she's a kindred spirit.

Making a life here, they still never craved material things in excess.
Then their children 'advanced' in the materialism dept. Not overly, but still & all.

Now their kiddos, of which I am one...raised in a blue collar family, living in my paternal grandmother's 3 family house. We didn't even need a vehicle. Maternal grandfather drove us places or we took the bus.

I married into a family who were beautiful people, but were advancing in the 'American way of life'. If you catch what I mean. Hospitality, food, holidays, everything....in excess. I wasn't critical. Was just different than I experienced.

One Christmas Eve. the 'giirls' asked the husbands how they felt about having just nice hors d'oeuvre, beverages and dessert in lieu of the Swedish Smorgasbord (groaning table I called it). They said yah! It was a big hit! We ate & there was no tons of food leftover that was sent home with us. The minimalist in me was pleased to see this. It can happen! 😄

Seems there are a whole lot more of us out there that are deciding to opt out of the holiday madness. It is nice to know that not everyone in this country is falling for the conspicuous consumption that is promoted at this time of year. Thank you for your kind words.

you are telling the truth! I love you for THAT!

My four grandparents couldn't agree how, when, or if Christmas should be celebrated.

I had one grandmother who believed in the traditional U.S.A. Christmas celebration and she usually won, but only because she did 90% of the work and gift buying. I remember three Christmases not celebrated at her house as disasters, and one at my parent's house that was a huge fight because my parents hadn't bought a Christmas tree. My grandfather went out on Christmas Eve and found a tree abandoned at a lot. We decorated the tree with handmade ornaments and popcorn strings while my mom and her parents sulked at first, but it actually turned out sort of magical.

After my Christmas-loving grandma passed away, Christmas became less formal. Once me and my siblings were out of the house and on our own my parent's had a big piece of driftwood in their house that they'd hang Christmas cards on and that was pretty much the extent of their Christmas celebration.

I'm not big on Christmas but my wife is and it's always been a source of friction in our marriage. I have one brother who has made it his family's annual Christmas tradition to be out of the country lounging on a tropical beach somewhere. I'm a little bit jealous.