Is it just my circle, or has it been a challenge getting into the Christmas/holiday spirit the last couple of years?
Sure, the first year (or two) of COVID were wretched, but most of those barriers have since cleared — yet I’m still struggling. I’ve noticed the same with a number of people within my family and neighbourhood.
How are others feeling? Are you struggling, yet succeeding? If so, how are you breaking through?
Money is time. When you spend all of your time and energy focusing on working, eating, and sleeping because you’re too broke to do anything else, it doesn’t leave you with much time or energy to care about christmas.
Looks like it will be a BROWN Christmas here this year. Which is a grim fucking reminder that we've fucked the planet and it is only going to get worse.
Xmas 2020 with all the "shortages", at the Target and WalMarts near me the holiday aisles was very scant, and practically completely picked over by the week before. I had genuinely hoped that could have been an eye opener for America.
They have actually found way of making some of them so that they ether don’t leave needles around or if they do that needles are soft. Super nice, it has been our tree type of choice for a few years now.
My cousins have upped this game. They have toddlers. Starting in Feb, they begin stealing back the least popular toys and hiding them in the attic. Then they regift them back to the kids next Christmas. They only buy a couple new items every year.
It reduces clutter in the house and will probably work until around 6, when they plan to shift from regifting to donating.
I assume most do. No I am not going to spend hours trying to remember some cheap plastic thing I bought a decade ago from the dollar store but if it’s fine sure I put it away for next year
This year has been bad in my area. The cost of living crisis, lots of illness sweeping through, general stress, it’s all meant that no one has really had the Christmas spirit this year. And I’m not talking gifts or anything like that. I’m talking about having hot chocolate, wearing pjs, admiring other people’s decorations.
We’ve all commented that we haven’t been feeling it, and no one can pinpoint why exactly, but I think there’s just too many bad/stressful things going on for people to have the emotional resources left to be positive
I’ve never been much of a Christmas person. But 2020-2022 were the most Christmasy I’ve ever felt (probably because we were at home and decided to embrace with a tree and roast dinner etc it rather than our usual travelling holiday).
Now that we’re fully back to our old lifestyle, I don’t even notice that it’s Christmas/end of year until someone brings it up.
Well for me yeah for years and I felt guilty not being happy and enjoying the holidays with my family. Covid unrelated. Antidepressants helped me enjoy it atleast a bit.
there are a lot of factors for me but i feel it, and i think a big part is climate change. i live in new england and it was 60 degreees and raining the other day, pretty hard to get into the holiday spirit when it’s spring outside.
Also, before the goblinos start, yes there are many places where christmas happens in summer, summer type weather, etc, but that is not how it was for me growing up and most of my adult life.
It was a favorite of mine as a kid. For me, all the nativity reminds me of the war in Gaza and the Christian Nationalist movement infecting the US government and stripping away civil rights.
Generally the high extinction risk from compound crises (climate, plastic, etc.) has dispelled any notion that what I do here or happens to me matters at a greater scale.
If I ceased to exist this moment, it might cause a small amount of local harm, but little wake. These days, I’m a practicing absurdist, mostly that means I’m aware of my grief and dispair in fine detail, a geographic manifold I’ve well explored.
Ignorance and Want are no longer child wretches hiding in the fold of the robes of a Christmas spirit, rather now have become massive kaiju thundering across the countryside ravaging the population with withering gaze and breath of biting hyperborean frost, leaving a path of toxic wasteland in their wake.
I mean, the point of the special is to find meaning in the holidays regardless of the rampant consumerism, but the impact of the message is dampened a bit by Hallmark putting out new charlie brown Christmas tree ornaments every year.
That said, it’s also okay not to have holiday spirit if you don’t find anything about this time of year meaningful. For many who aren’t practicing Christians, it’s a time to be with family because most companies tend to give days off anyway, but for those of us who have cut ties and don’t see the significance of decorating and whatnot, it’s perfectly fine to enjoy the time off without feeling festive.
Maybe you’re focusing on the wrong things? Christmas, for me, is a time to show my family that I care for them. Yes, through gifts, but also through time spent with them. It’s a chance to speak others’ love language. For me, doing things for others is how I really feel better about myself.
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