It’s the Most Miserable Time of the Year: Why I Loathe Xmas

A week ago, I received in my mailbox a toy Xmas catalog. I haven’t looked at one since… oh, I was in high school. And while something like that should make me feel all nostalgic and happy, it doesn’t. I was angry, hurt, and it brought a flood of just out and out bad feelings in me.

For some reason, everyone says that this time of year is supposed to be magical or something. Frankly, that’s not something I put much stock in. I mean, how can I when this time of year has largely been pretty shitty. As long as I can remember, this year has always been rough.

Of course, for me, it starts with my birthday. It’s always around Thanksgiving. That means that my family generally always took the easy way out. The only planned celebration of my birthday was Thanksgiving dinner. Everyone else in my family would get separate birthdays. Mine was the only one lumped into a holiday. So, of course, that means that my “birthday cake” was pumpkin pie… something which I vehemently hate now. That may sound hyperbolic, but when your only choices for a birthday dessert is either pumpkin or pecan pie… you start to wonder why, since Thanksgiving dinner is effectively your family birthday gathering, you start to wonder how come can’t have your own dessert choice. This was enforced until I was 16 years old.

Another issue that would come up would be anytime I have a birthday party. I would always invite a lot of people who I thought were friends. Most wouldn’t show up. Meaning that I would almost always feel like most people just didn’t care or like me enough. I still struggle with it to this day. I’ll invite people and only like 5 or 6 will show up, at best. I had a birthday party where literally 2 people showed up.

Now, well, I don’t really do Thanksgiving dinner… thanks to Celiac. I’m not gonna do a full Thanksgiving meal for two people and spend hours making everything from scratch since most Thanksgiving foods don’t have a gluten-free, easy to pick up option. So, maybe, some day, I can make an actual Thanksgiving dinner for people.

And then there’s the shitshow of Xmas itself.

Oh… where do I even begin?

How about where I started this tale, the toy catalog.

I remember loving looking that the JC Penney toy catalog when I was a kid. There were so many things that I really wanted. So many fun things to play with. So, every year I would scour the catalog, partially for clothing (because I was never allowed to just ask for toys), and then for toys. Every year I would look in glee for toys that I really wanted. After all, wasn’t Xmas the time of year where you ask for the things that you really wanted?

And every year, I was let down. Not that I wasn’t grateful for what I did get… but it wasn’t what I wanted. It was rarely what I put on my Xmas list. And, for many years when I was a kid, I was poor… so I couldn’t afford the latest Nintendo system, or something high-tech like that. I can accept that, even if it didn’t feel fair when I was a kid. It took me over 20 years to get something that I put on my list when I was a kid. Every year I would ask for a set of art supplies. I never got any… not until my 20s and well after I had been buying them for myself. It gets to a point where you just stop expecting anything.

And then there’s the end-of-the-year spate of bad luck, working retail for far too many years where I was forced to listen to Xmas music… And it’s not just the music. While it drones on and on for over a month, mostly. It’s not nearly as bad as people shopping for gifts for Xmas. I have been torn apart by multiple customers

Yeah, I just fucking hate this time of year.

It always starts with my birthday when everything starts to go sideways.

I know, it’s all first world problems. If I could, I’d live in a country like Japan where Xmas isn’t some huge holiday. I would much rather randomly give thoughtful gifts throughout the year instead of waiting until one time of year to do it. I don’t have to listen to songs that have been performed to death, and maybe, just maybe people would stop being shitty to retail workers because they can’t find the perfect Xmas gift that they wanted to buy. I have endured so much abuse because someone couldn’t find the shirt they wanted or over a DVD that was on sale and they wanted to get as a gift that I swear that every retail employee should get combat pay. This is supposed to be a time of cheer and goodwill, yet people are so incredibly shitty to others. Over the many years that I’ve been the butt-end of someone’s atrocious behavior, that I try to avoid all retail centers this time of year.

I can always hope that some day I won’t have to feel my heart pounding in my chest as it gets to November. Maybe some day It can just be another unimportant day in the year.

One can only hope.