Mental Health Support

Nobody expects much Christmas from me anymore. I did cook breakfast for a house full of extended family. I also put up the Christmas lights.

Christmas is a difficult time for me in two ways.

First, I am anti-consumer. I don't like to buy "stuff" for myself or anyone else. So I don't. I pretty much boycott everything that I can't eat or wear. My car is salvage, my computers are salvage. The pants I'm wearing I found in a thrift store.

Second, and probably my deeper psychological problem, when I was a kid Christmas was often a time of family religious warfare and just plain Ezekiel-type crazy. My mom was a Jehovah's Witness until they kicked her out, and that's just the beginning of it. Too many people had a hotline to God, none of them making any sense. Christmas wasn't complete until someone left crying or bleeding. This is the practical reason people in my family are pacifists. The wars must end or people must flee before anyone gets killed. But all is forgiven later, even if it takes a month or a year or two..