Holiday hype=another reason to be childfree

High-stress times are when I'm especially glad I'm CF...tough economic times, really long work weeks, crowded airports, and of course the holidays. Apparently the holiday stress is starting already for parents. I can't help but wonder if some of this is self-inflicted. You don't HAVE to travel a zillion miles to see Nana every year, or host anyone at your house, or buy your kid every damn thing they ask for. However, I do know non-indulgent, non-materialist parents who STILL get the stress because the kid is still exposed to The Christmas Machine outside their house. Marketing is everywhere now. It seems that once you're a parent, you are required to participate in shit you hate, no matter what.

Friend of mine mentioned that Halloween is a month long when you have kids (why? why do you let it take over?). Then there's a couple weeks off before the Thanksgiving crap starts, and then it's hell until New Year's Day. Holy shit, when you add that up it's nearly three months of the year. Three months of hyped-up, marketing-infested misery. No thanks. Spouse and I will lay low, have some really nice dinners and celebrations with some select adult friends and family, and actually enjoy our holidays on our terms.

For us, the holiday season doesn't start until we decide it does. How about the rest of you?

As an atheist humanist who is childfree and doesn't care what my relatives think, on an ongoing basis, I pick and chose which holidays and traditions (or parts) that I chose to follow.
I make very few promises and commitments to other people, but instead have an ongoing re-evaluation about what gives me positive energy and real connection and let go of the rest of the society's expectations.

Right now, I am making plans to a low-key indulgent birthday for myself in about a week.

I am also having fun with outdoor Halloween graveyard decorations and making very unusual (good food, ecological and craft items) packages to give out to kids on Halloween night.

I also like doing outdoor winter seasonal decor (Nov to April) with nature (about ten types of evergreens, bows and branches) and bright lights to make things less dreary, but I do not do actual Christmas (religious, Santa, etc) decor, celebrations nor gift exchanges.

A Flying Spaghetti Monster statue and light display may be in my future, as I slowly gather items.

Friend does a haunted garage Halloween, so construction starts the weekend before Halloween. I work if Halloween is a workday and go in costume and scare people for the trick or treat period. Then my friend has a party for the volunteers that helped her out. She doesn't skimp on the scary and the post haunted garage party is explicitly brat free. The weekend after Halloween is tear down/salvage what we can for next year.

Thanksgiving we have an open invite to join a friend for dinner at her home, but we like football so it's turkey breast and football watching day for us.

We rent a house in the country the week between $mas and New Years with other couples. Lots of board games, booze, and hockey or football depending on the schedules.

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hana

Thanksgiving we have an open invite to join a friend for dinner at her home, but we like football so it's turkey breast and football watching day for us.

We rent a house in the country the week between $mas and New Years with other couples. Lots of board games, booze, and hockey or football depending on the schedules.

I applaud you. This is the way to do it.

Through the years we have been slowly getting away from the familial pressures and doing more of what we want to do during the holidays than what we're allegedly "obligated" to do. While we haven't (and won't) completely detach from every family event, we're not going to be browbeaten into spending every minute at an event.

We also have an issue with relocated members of our extended family coming home only a handful of times per year. We get the standard guilt trip: "You know, Aunt Ginny and the kydz only come up from Florida once per year, and they'll be really disappointed if you're not around..."

Uhhh... sorry, we're not planning our lives around the whims of Aunt Ginny. Clearly she didn't plan her life with the idea of seeing us regularly in mind. I'm not sure why she'd expect to have us at her beck and call when she's ignored us for the past 12 months.

I love Halloween, so I do lots of decorations and throw an epic party, but I don't do trick-or-treaters. Thanksgiving is a pot luck with friends, because I see the relatives I like regularly and see no need to be around the ones I can't stand. I attend a couple of Holiday parties and I don't do store-bought gifts.

The last months of the year are always really fun. Instead of getting elbowed in the face at a big box store, I will be spending Black Friday watching documentaries and knitting gifts.

I do look forward to the after-Christmas deals on Craigslist. Entitled teenagers sell electronics they got as gifts at ridiculously low prices. Last year I got a brand new iPod and a Kindle Paperwhite for a quarter of what their stupid parents paid for them.

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StudioFiftyFour

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hana

Thanksgiving we have an open invite to join a friend for dinner at her home, but we like football so it's turkey breast and football watching day for us.

We rent a house in the country the week between $mas and New Years with other couples. Lots of board games, booze, and hockey or football depending on the schedules.

I applaud you. This is the way to do it.

Through the years we have been slowly getting away from the familial pressures and doing more of what we want to do during the holidays than what we're allegedly "obligated" to do. While we haven't (and won't) completely detach from every family event, we're not going to be browbeaten into spending every minute at an event.

We also have an issue with relocated members of our extended family coming home only a handful of times per year. We get the standard guilt trip: "You know, Aunt Ginny and the kydz only come up from Florida once per year, and they'll be really disappointed if you're not around..."

Uhhh... sorry, we're not planning our lives around the whims of Aunt Ginny. Clearly she didn't plan her life with the idea of seeing us regularly in mind. I'm not sure why she'd expect to have us at her beck and call when she's ignored us for the past 12 months.

Exactly. Fucking famblee is everything bullshit. Let me guess, they expect you to sacrifice your time, even if its inconvenient for you, but never sacrifice any of their precious fucking special snowflake breeder time, if its inconvenient for them?

I do what I'm in the mood for. Often, I use the time off as an opportunity to travel. Other times I just stay at home and curl up with a good book and some tea. If I'm feeling social, I might make plans for dinner + board games with a group of friends. This is pretty much how I learned to do holidays with my parents. Holidays never had an obligatory element, and people whose company is not appreciated aren't invited.

Life's to short to spend my time satisfying or appeasing people when I get no pleasure from any interaction and they're not in the position to economically retaliate against me.

Life's to short to spend my time satisfying or appeasing people when I get no pleasure from any interaction and they're not in the position to economically retaliate against me.

THANK YOU! SO MUCH THIS! I have gotten flack for cutting out relatives, and it is a relief to see I'm not the only one.

I don't celebrate Christmas, I haven't since I was 17, because it's just a way for big business to make money from the misconception that it is either 1. A Christian holiday or 2. Something you have to do, because family.

I do really enjoy thanksgiving, because the food is nice and it leads to cyber Monday. I also had fun last Halloween, because I went to Howloscream with a group. Not sure if I'd go again, I nearly had a heart attack a few times, but it was fun, nonetheless.

Lock him up or put him down.
Stolen from Shiny.

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randomcfchick

For us, the holiday season doesn't start until we decide it does. How about the rest of you?

I don't do holidays, not sense the majority of my family died. I'm safe in my hole, Ad Block protects me and I'm a TV avoider.

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Passive Aggressive
Master Of Anti-brat
Excuses!

Working in an office with hens that just MUST play the local "soft office pop" and then the Monday after thanksgiving BAM! Six weeks of non stop Xmas music. I mean its a change from Katy Perry and unintelligible Adele offerings but still. I just want to eat a bullet when I end up hearing Dominick the Xmas Donkey for the 90th time.

Dh and I are atheist agnostic respectively. Why should we perpetuate this capitalism driven war on Christmas crap? However.... Dh's sister is Wicca and since xtians stole her holiday(s), I figure she SHOULD get a gift. Right?

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the noodler
Working in an office with hens that just MUST play the local "soft office pop" and then the Monday after thanksgiving BAM! Six weeks of non stop Xmas music. I mean its a change from Katy Perry and unintelligible Adele offerings but still. I just want to eat a bullet when I end up hearing Dominick the Xmas Donkey for the 90th time.

Dh and I are atheist agnostic respectively. Why should we perpetuate this capitalism driven war on Christmas crap? However.... Dh's sister is Wicca and since xtians stole her holiday(s), I figure she SHOULD get a gift. Right?

I'm pretty secular but I do the Christmas thing. I see it as a holiday that can be celebrated for its religious meaning, or for secular reasons.

I'm dragged kicking and screaming into traditional southern European holiday gatherings, merely out of obligation and so I don't have to hear about how I didn't attend/guilt trip for the rest of year.

Luckily working shift work in health care has a tendency to preclude me (mostly) from the worst parts of the gatherings, but I can't avoid it. Luckily the main instigators of these get together are elderly or just ageing, and won't be around for long, and I know everyone else attending out of obligation sure as shit won't be when they pass.

The rest of the time, I'm a complete antisocial and hedonistic, so entertaining only myself and the OH - whether at home or a lovely relaxing interstate/overseas holiday.

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StudioFiftyFour
Through the years we have been slowly getting away from the familial pressures and doing more of what we want to do during the holidays than what we're allegedly "obligated" to do. While we haven't (and won't) completely detach from every family event, we're not going to be browbeaten into spending every minute at an event.

It's a hard balancing act to weigh your personal needs with the desires of others, but it's part of being a socialized human, or so they tell us. We evolved from cave people partly by learning to cooperate, but I don't think civilization will crumble if I don't make it to family Thanksgiving this year.

You know breeders hate these parties too, but only put up with it to get presents (resources) for their shitty offspring and udder rubs for the moos. (Dads don't care about this garbage, nor are they societally-guilted into cooking and cleaning for these fetes; they sit in front if the TV until the party's over.)

I propose a new War on Christmas. Stop making companies rich, stop 8-hour marathons of forced interaction with people, and make it a day of service...with alcoholic beverages, if you choose.

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yurble
Life's to short to spend my time satisfying or appeasing people when I get no pleasure from any interaction and they're not in the position to economically retaliate against me.

I want to sew this on a sampler and hang it on my wall.

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"[GFG's pregnancy is] kind of like at the stables where that one dumb, ugly-ass mare broke out of her corral one day and got herself screwed by the equally fugly colt that was due to be gelded the same afternoon."- Shiny

I will be shinning my Festivus pole. I really enjoy Airing of Grievances.

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bookworm
I will be shinning my Festivus pole. I really enjoy Airing of Grievances.

The office hens were especially wary of my Seinfeld Festivus screenshot that I hung next to my Lenox Grinch at my desk. I still did the secret Santa BS but again... Whatever.

The holidays are what you make of them, for good or for bad. For whatever reason, to most people, the holidays means dragging screaming kids around shopping centers, or eating like a glutton, or camping in front of a Best Buy, or even blowing up things with fireworks because HOLIDAY (It doesn't even need to be July 4 or New Years anymore!).

I'm not sure why it NEEDS to be stressful. But people make it that way, for sure.

I always looked back on my childhood Christmases as fun. Maybe I didn't realize that the family didn't have much money, and we made do with a lot less than other families. I always thought 1 major present and a few minor presents were the norm, until I grew up and spent Christmas with other families. When I saw X-Boxes and bikes and major-ticket items being bandied about, and then people just shrugging and heading on to the next gift, holy shit. I didn't know what to think anymore. Is this what it was really about??

I do enjoy the holidays, but as an introvert and someone who panics in crowds, I have fun in the periphery. In the quiet moments, away from the stores and the fighting for big-ticket items.

It's all about what...pretty much every post in here is about, actually. People have a choice. They can choose madness, or they can choose to have a calmer life and detach from the 'expected'.

I was born Jewish but have been an atheist since I was 13 (40 years ago). I don't celebrate any religious-oriented holidays any more, and haven't done so since the 1990s (and only mildly, at best). It's easy to avoid the holiday crowds when you don't have to buy anything for anyone LOL!

As for Halloween, I haven't seen or had a trick-or treater in my apartment building (it's mostly older people; very few kids) in at least 20 years. I do prepare for the possibility, though, by buying some snacks in single-serving bags (i.e. potato chips) which I can eat if I don't hand out. I usually go on a car trip Thanksgiving so I take them along to nibble on so it fits in well.

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doomflower


I always looked back on my childhood Christmases as fun. Maybe I didn't realize that the family didn't have much money, and we made do with a lot less than other families. I always thought 1 major present and a few minor presents were the norm, until I grew up and spent Christmas with other families. When I saw X-Boxes and bikes and major-ticket items being bandied about, and then people just shrugging and heading on to the next gift, holy shit. I didn't know what to think anymore. Is this what it was really about??

...

It's all about what...pretty much every post in here is about, actually. People have a choice. They can choose madness, or they can choose to have a calmer life and detach from the 'expected'.

I grew up in a blue collar household, so I can relate to what you're communicating.

I also grew up in the 1980s and 90s. I am not ancient. While Christmas was always a commercialized bonanza, I look at the holiday now as being commercialism on steroids. When I speak to friends and colleagues, I am pretty shocked at the kinds of gifts that their kids ask for... and receive!

And sometimes they receive what is basically the same gift over and over and over again. By this I mean that two years ago the kid asks for (and receives...) an iPhone 5, last year he gets an iPhone 6, and this year he'll get an iPhone 7. Since they all basically do the same thing, this rinse-and-repeat procedure every holiday season doesn't make very much sense to me.

As an adult I enjoy the holiday season as much as ever before. I enjoy having the time off. I enjoy the celebration. I enjoy the food and beverages. Spending the season on a consumer treadmill would definitely stress me out.

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doomflower
The holidays are what you make of them, for good or for bad. For whatever reason, to most people, the holidays means dragging screaming kids around shopping centers, or eating like a glutton, or camping in front of a Best Buy, or even blowing up things with fireworks because HOLIDAY (It doesn't even need to be July 4 or New Years anymore!).

I'm not sure why it NEEDS to be stressful. But people make it that way, for sure.

I always looked back on my childhood Christmases as fun. Maybe I didn't realize that the family didn't have much money, and we made do with a lot less than other families. I always thought 1 major present and a few minor presents were the norm, until I grew up and spent Christmas with other families. When I saw X-Boxes and bikes and major-ticket items being bandied about, and then people just shrugging and heading on to the next gift, holy shit. I didn't know what to think anymore. Is this what it was really about??

I do enjoy the holidays, but as an introvert and someone who panics in crowds, I have fun in the periphery. In the quiet moments, away from the stores and the fighting for big-ticket items.

It's all about what...pretty much every post in here is about, actually. People have a choice. They can choose madness, or they can choose to have a calmer life and detach from the 'expected'.

With my family we had more fun than anything else. We bought gifts for the laugh factor, such as that stupid singing bass.

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Passive Aggressive
Master Of Anti-brat
Excuses!

I've always seen holidays as "woman's work".

For me, the holidays begin as soon as the heat breaks, the autumn leaves change color, and the night air becomes crisp and chilly. I love this time of year

We love carving creepy pumpkins and decorating the traditional way for Halloween. We like giving candy out to kids. Around here, the kids are polite, and say please and thank you at the door. All our neighbors have spawn, and Home Depot plastic decorations abound. We're the only house on the block that carves lots of pumpkins and candle lights them, that does things the old fashioned way. I like it like that, because it reminds me of when I was a kid (I'm getting ancient), and harkens back to simpler times, when we made our own costumes from what we already owned, and people who bought plasticy shit for Halloween were looked upon with derision.

Thanksgiving for us was always about family, and being grateful for what you had, as others had it much worse than we did. But now, with my parents dead, my married sibling and their spawn probably won't be coming here. For almost 30 years I had to drive my mother down to their house for every holiday, and go back late at night, even when I had to work early the next day, because I had no kids, and of course work is just work (so they said). Never mind the stress it put on me.... Sibling was always unemployed by choice. Anyways, now that they can't use their kids as excuses to avoid coming up here, they just back out and flat out say no, they don't want to drive. I guess family only works if it's the CF one doing the sacrificing. So, we'll be at home for the holiday, I'll roast a free range turkey with all the fixings, we'll open a good bottle of wine and just relax all day at the dining room table. I can think of worse things to do on Thanksgiving, like driving for several hours to get somewhere, eat rubber turkey, cold cranberry sauce, and $3 bottle wine...

I love Christmas. Not the commercialism, I can't stand that. I love what Christmas used to stand for: hope, renewal, the birth of Christ. I'm Catholic, and some things don't change for me, even if I haven't attended mass in quite awhile and raise the pro-choice flag loud and proud. I cannot deal with the tacky Christmas lights, the big blow-up Santas everywhere, plastic ornaments, Dominic the Christmas Donkey, etc...For us, Christmas decorations are a lovingly decorated Christmas tree, some candles in the windows, and a creative centerpiece of fresh pine boughs that I make, for the dining room table. I assume that we'll be alone for the holiday, because sibling refuses to drive anywhere on Christmas (but it's OK for us to do it). Frankly, I think it's better that way. My nieces and nephews will be loud, there will be people coming in and out of their house non-stop all day, and it will be a giant whirlwind of crazy.

You can keep the commercilisation of every holiday, I'll live in my little bubble, and we'll celebrate in quiet, peaceful ways that don't add to the plastic piles of garbage,and that don't give us big piles of debt to pay off in the months afterward.

This year we beat the dysfunctional in-laws and planned Thanksgiving with friends.

I prefer to avoid lengthy or committed things with the in-laws because if they're feeling bitchy toward one another they make things miserable. We left before dessert one Thanksgiving because their passive-aggressiveness and sniping at each other killed my appetite. My husband told them I wasn't feeling well and we left. When one of the in-laws called to follow up, he told them exactly why we left and that we wouldn't be staying around for any more of that when visiting. I think we walked one other time, and since then they've behaved better...but I don't like the tension of being around them. If we do stuff with them, it's something with a short or flexible timeframe.

So this year we have at least one or two friends coming over. We'll do board games all day, eat favorite Thanksgiving foods, and so on. Later on we're meeting up with 'family of choice' (been friends for over 24 years; siblings for all intents and purposes) for booze, dessert, etc.

THIS is how you do holidays.

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Passive Aggressive
Master Of Anti-brat
Excuses!

I found the holidays stressful as a kid. I was expected to raise the money to buy gifts for a bunch of relatives starting months ahead of time. Also for a bunch of birthdays of relatives which were around the holidays. And 6 year olds can barely plan a week in advance out, let alone be expected to plan out months in advance. If I could have I would have just forgone the entire holiday experience as a kid once I hit the age of 6 because the stress wasn't worth it. Luckily I had good memories of the carefree years prior to age 6, where I was allowed to be a kid. When I heard that other kids received money to buy gifts for family members I thought they must be completely spoiled and indulged. A couple of kids from broken homes received huge amounts of Christmas guilt gifts but most of us received a much more modest amount. And besides birthdays, that was it for gifts.
By the time I hit middle school I was so completely sick of the shit and pre-holiday stress that I started my own business. And I had to hear my peers whine that I had nice things and always had cash...yes, because I worked for it.

As an adult I do exactly what I want and if any people are assholes to me I avoid them. I always have great days off. I buy gifts for people I love without it being the holidays so I don't feel that much compulsion to spend for a specific day or at a certain time of year.

I'm spending Christmas at my CL aunt and uncle's house with my husband, and we're spending the night because they live an hour away and I don't want to restrict my husband from having a couple of glasses of eggnog on that night.

We are going to have a nice, quiet evening with good food (my aunt's a GREAT cook), a little booze and great conversation. On Boxing Day, we are meeting my sister for brunch in a nice hotel and then it's off to do some shopping.

I'm actually looking forward to this Christmas, because there's not a greedy sprog in sight.