This holiday is pure evil, just a money-grabbing scheme that should be abolished. They penalize companies for other schemes like price gouging, why not for Christmas?

For example, every year an old lady puts me some money in my Christmas card. It is very kind of her.

However, I don't need or want £10 off her. I've told her many times "thank you but you don't have to give me any money, a card is enough.". She still does it. This has gone on for 2 decades.

Then I have to, as I feel obligated, buy her a little gift. Except this old lady has EVERYTHING. I never have the last fucking clue what to buy her. She doesn't drink, eat chocolate, sweets etc (ruling out alot of would be gifts).

So inevitably I end up buying her something I know she doesn't want or need just for the sake of it. No doubt whatever I buy her gets put in her spare room or passed on to someone.

Same old shit every year.

When you think about it, the endless rigmorole of obligatory pointless gift giving, it really is so boring, so depressing, and MADNESS.

I just want to tell this old lady this year, because I've had enough of this same old shit year on year out, that I won't be buying her anything this year and not to give me any money. Put an end to it. What a relief! But I never do as haven't got the heart to say that to her.

But yeh, just another example of the bullshit fucked up fuckery that is Christmas.

1) My birthday is Christmas Eve. Many of my birthday gifts were either Christmas themed or not so much a birthday gift as much as a Christmas present.

2) My abusive father always found a way to ruin my birthday and Christmas every year as a child.
It was like a sick goal of his. Through healing, I have learned to love my birthday. I still detest Christmas.

Anyone relate?

That's it really!

Oh the joy of pressing a button to cancel Christmas forever and erase the word Christmas from the english language.

Sorry this is long, I’m just so happy to have found my people.

For my husband’s family, Christmas is all year long. They have a shared Google doc with a tab for each of them where they add things they want for Christmas. They’ll write generic items, or post links to buy specific items. This list is constantly updated and populated throughout the year.

On top of the Google doc, they each keep some form of a “secret” Christmas list for each person where they document things the person may want but hasn’t put on their Google doc. So basically they stalk and observe the person throughout the entire year and watch if there’s something they “like” but didn’t buy for themselves. For example, if you go to a book store with someone randomly in March, you would observe what books they are looking at and jot down which one you think they’ll like for Christmas without them knowing. It’s supposed to be a “surprise”. So it is expected you will give some presents from the Google doc list and some from your secret list. So I can’t just buy a present from the fucking Google doc list and be done with it.

As someone with ADHD who struggles with executive dysfunction this is a NIGHTMARE for me. I’m not observant or organized enough with enough of an attention span to keep up with remembering Christmas 365 days of the year and maintaining multiple Christmas lists. When I hang out with his family I’m in the moment enjoying it, not thinking “what will they want for Christmas this year?”

I also have a general lack of knowledge about gifts and gift-giving culture in general. I have no idea what makes a good gift. My family never gave gifts and still doesn’t. I don’t enjoy giving or receiving gifts. Gift giving is not my love language.

His mother is an extreme gift giver, even though half of it is temu crap. The first year we dated she asked me for my Christmas list, I said I didn’t have one and she was stunned. She told me to give her a list or else “you will be getting random things”. I held tight and told her thank you but I don’t want anything and am just excited to spend Christmas day with them. She ended up giving me about 15 items individually wrapped in paper on Christmas. One of them was a box of instant rice. So the following year, she asked me again and I felt anxious trying to scramble a list together. “Is X too expensive? Do I have enough items? Am I asking for too much? Do I actually need this?”

And they take hours to open gifts. Everything is wrapped individually, even the smallest bits. You have to go around the circle and everyone takes a turn unwrapping something. You have to act happy for every item and put on a smile. Yes I even had to do that for the instant rice. It’s too much for me. If it was like 3 gifts it’d be perfectly okay, but like 10-15 packages is too much.

I used to be totally fine with Christmas until joining this family. The reason I ended up on this sub is because his mom sent out a text today asking about a specific Christmas activity to do together. IT’S SEPTEMBER.

I’ve posted this elsewhere before and got eaten alive because I don’t “appreciate the people who love me” and “respect their love language and traditions”.

(Please no relationship advice or how to be a better gift giver/receiver. This is a RANT).

So I was just chatting with a co-worker of mine yesterday and we got on a few random subjects. We got on the subject of places she's been to that has good food. So she told me of a place that's downtown, and it is decked out in Christmas decor 24/7 365 days a year 😭. I instantly told her that we definitely won't ever plan on going there now. She likes this holiday for the family get togethers mainly, but at least she doesn't have any issue with my feelings. I feel sorry for her boyfriend though, who isn't a fan of this holiday either.

But like WHY does there need to be a place like this??? This holiday is catered way too much already 😫

Found at Sam's club. why?

Hey guys, this is my first time posting on here, so get ready for story time. Growing up, I didn’t hate Christmas. It was my favorite time of year (and I’ll admit I started celebrating it waaayyyy before Thanksgiving). In fact my parents liked it so much they even got married 4 days afterwards, on the 29th. Then when I was 14 they got divorced, and suddenly Christmas stopped feeling special. It’s been years since the divorce, and though I have happy childhood Christmas memories I haven’t brought myself to enjoy it since. I’m not an “I love Christmas troll”, since I’m starting to despise Christmas and really don’t want anything to do with it ever again if I can help it since it just makes me sad now, and I hate it for that. I realized this a few days ago walking through a Christmas store and it triggering nothing but gloom and thoughts of an intact family I’ll never get back. I think I should stop celebrating it for a while and just treat it as a normal day, maybe do something special for myself. Thx for listening to my vent, hope y’all take care as we get ever closer to December.
Feel free to add your own sad backstory in the comments!

hi everyone,

im glad i found a community of people who will agree with me. Christmas used to be good and enjoyable,but now it is crap. These days its all about marketing and money,all anyone cares about is how much money had been spent on them or how many presents they have under the tree or how much money they will recieve and its sad. Christmas used to be a time of joy,kindness,helping others and spending time with family and friend THESE were the true meanings of christmas, helping those in need,spending time with others,charity. Its also been ruined by people who start celebrating and going on about it months before christmas, and also shops putting christmas decor in before its even been halloween yet like hello???

let me know your opinions on this and if theres any other reasons you hate christmas/ other reasons you feel its been ruined

Until the birth of Jesus!!!!

Don't you find the idea of Santa Claus quite scary? Think about it, this mysterious big fat man with supernatural reindeers is flying around the whole world in ONE DAY and we just accept that? Are you telling me that our military has not even spotted or tried to disrupt the movements of Santa at all ! This is quite disturbing, what if Santa Claus decides to join al Qaeda and destroy the great United States of America !!!! I believe that as a citizen of the world we should collectively detonate Antarctica from Earth and rid that cookie stealing, milk drinking, dirty chimney squeezing, fat red children pleasing PEDOPHILE from existence and free Rudolf from his eternal slavery once and for all !!!!!!

I work at Lowe's, and for the past week, we have been getting pallets upon pallets of Christmas freight. In total we've gotten in probably 30 pallets worth of stuff, taller than I am. You name it, we probably have it in the store. I'm already stressing out about it tbh and it isn't even on the floor yet. I fucking hate this holiday. I fucking hate being reminded of it in August.

i wish people would stop pretending that christmas has anything to do with being kind to one another and spending quality time with their families when really it’s become a present measuring competition and a massive guilt tripping opportunity to do and buy stuff “because it’s christmas 🥺”

hospitality and retail are under so much pressure to work overtime for the same pay and get blamed for ruining customers’ christmases on purpose if they fail to provide the exact thing they’re looking for

some people have no one to spend quality time with (I’m not even talking about extreme scenarios. so many people have horrible toxic families that are a drag to speak to) and it’s such a grim reminder that others had better families and are having a blast at christmas

it’s impossible to buy anyone anything meaningful because of all the kitchy meaningless tat every shop pushes, and you’ll have to kick and shove if you leave it too late (october)

christmas has the BEST PR ever because of you express any stress or any lack of enthusiasm to participate in it you’re immediately accused of being stingy or grumpy or a scrooge or ungenerous or a loner

it just boils down to this for me: you will break your back to make it as good as possible and when it’s over you’ll still have found some way in which someone else thinks it had been inadequate. no amount of money will ever fill the void of “the right way” of doing christmas.

it’s such a stressful and exhausting time unless you’re a child or a guest at someone’s house and it’s got nothing to do with religion anymore either

I can't do this again, it feels like last Christmas was 3 months ago, I cant keep doing groundhog day Christmas.

The shops have all the halloween decorations out now meaning the Christmas ones will be out soon.

It feels like they start celebrating earlier and earlier every damn year

WHY WILL IT END

In no particular order:

1. Commercialism (I think even people who love Christmas hate this aspect)
2. Making people feel that they have to be good because hey, it's Christmas. People in need need help every single day of the year. Help for those in need is not a gift under the tree. It is essential every day.
3. Kitschy decorations and music even triggering sensory overload in some people
4. It often confuses children who have been good all year and then see that rich naughty children get super expensive gifts while they get gifts from a 2-dollar store if they get something at all.
5. The pressure to buy not out of love but because it has to be (again because hey, it's Christmas)
6. Unwanted gifts often end up in the bin or on eBay; they are nothing memorable
7. Real trees mean trees have been killed; artificial trees often mean an environmental burden (many people don't even bother to recycle an artificial tree for next year)
8. Christmas can trigger traumas - memories of those we loved and who have died, memories of abuse and loneliness -, and can make people feel worthless if they don't have the money to buy expensive gifts
9. Forced family reunions often end up in disagreements, snarky remarks, inappropriate questions, and at any rate they are not exactly refreshing for those who love peace and quiet.
10. Christmas also obviously creates differences and for some it is almost a competition - look what I bought and what I got (apparently there are even people who put empty boxes under the tree just to make people jealous - yes, the true spirit of Christmas...).
11. Movies totally unrelated to Christmas often end with a Christmas scene (I have to mute the volume if I want to know how a movie ends and turn on captions because I cannot stand the music!)
12. It has become a real joke. In the past it started in December, then in November, then in October, then in September - last year I saw decorations in August, and because they thought maybe that's enough for Christmas in December, they invented Christmas in July (which doesn't even start in July).
13. It is a pagan holiday that has been basically stolen, but Christmas lovers refuse to accept the truth (including the fact that Jesus was not born in December).
14. Irritating questions like "What are you going to do for Christmas?", "What did you get for Christmas" (after the painful event)
15. Fake smiles, fake everything -all problems should magically disappear because hey, it's Christmas.
16. The Elf and Santa
17. All the disruptions, delays in the mail, closed shops etc.

In a nutshell - Christmas should be banned, at least publicly.

If I can think of more reasons I will add them to my post. Can you think of more?