Does anyone else find the holidays depressing?

When i was a teenager, I did not like spending Christmas with my family. At that time, I liked staying with my friends more rather than spending time with my family. But now, I live far from my family and I keep thinking about them. Christmas makes me kind of sad.

 

Not always.

But this one has sucked, yeah.

 

It was my first Xmas after breakup that i spent completely alone,wothout visiting family this time or friends (because I believe Xmas is considered a family celebration here,anyway,i didnt get any invitation either.hehe).so,Xmas Eve was absolutely sad but after all i managed to prepare some traditional meals for myself,had a couple of coctails while watching Lalalaland for the first time on TV.and then probably the peace of Christ landed over me and i have got some relieve.so i am reading,watching good old movies,smoking cigars and enjoying myself.i have not been spoken to anyone for 5 days,I believe,but still didnt go nuts so I hope you will be able to copy with holidays too,bro

 

Christmas is my favorite holiday and I've always looked forward to it. This one was tough for me though as I was alone. So it's kind of a bittersweet time. Sad because I miss my family. Happy because of all the good memories associated with it.

 

I loved Christmas until my mid twenties. All the family traditions stopped, grandparents died....then I got married to a woman, I'm a guy. Having kids meant we couldn't go out and party and so on.....
This year was even worse, I left my wife and moved out in November. Spent all 2018 coming out. I cooked my own Christmas dinner at age 43 and ate it alone, yeah I had an offer to go out but wanted to do it my way.....
The saving grace..........
December 20th was my Christmas. I belong to a LGBT group. We do bring and share each month . But this month we held it in the church!! We moved the pews, made comfy cosy areas to chat and eat hot food also. We sang Carol's, did a quiz, bit of acting, someone played the piano. The lights were dimmed and multicolored tie lights everywhere to represent the LGBT community. It was so empowering, these people feel like my family, I felt warmth and humbled.....I'm not religious but feel closer to something now..
So it's this event that carried me through.....

 

I only celebrate anything for my Mom. She loves the holidays. I don’t really enjoy them much anymore.

Singing carols brings back good memories from my childhood, but it’s bitter sweet for me.

 

Normally I love the Christmas season. Yet since I came out to my wife for weeks prior, it was a depressing affair. We had to pretend to family and friends how happy we were, but all the parties and get togethers left us dejected and sad. I can only hope that next Christmas will be an improvement.

 

I get a bit listless during the Christmas-NY period but it's manageable. I remember it being unbearable during school, when the break was so long and I didn't really have work.

I find lots of exercise and digital detoxing is a good way to make the most of the break - and the long days and heat do a lot of good for me in forcing me to relax.

 

I have a hard time with holidays, especially since my parents passed. My mom passed 6 years ago and my dad 2 years. The holidays were so important to them. I lived with my Dad and my mom would either come over or we would go over there.

My Dad loved to cook big meals, when I lived with him, at one point we had 2 stoves, so 9 burners, 2 ovens and 2 broilers. It was so much fun to cook those meals. Now that he is gone, they don't mean as much. Every new years we would stay up and have ribs and kielbasa and sauerkraut and fire the guns off at midnight.

 

I absolutely love Christmas -- it's easily my favorite time of the year. More so Christmas Eve and the lead-up than the day itself, but all are great. I enjoy trying to find awesome gifts for the people I care about (even though I think my efforts kind of flopped this year), work is pretty relaxed, I like the start of winter, and I enjoy Christmas music and the general vibe.

New Years, on the other hand, is incredibly depressing for me. I always feel extremely isolated, worthless, and pessimistic. For whatever reason, I tend to view it more as the end of the previous year and another year of stagnation and loneliness than a clean slate and the start of new opportunities. It doesn't help that in the past few years I've randomly had some bad things happen between Christmas and the end of the first week of January. Also, after tomorrow my company doesn't have any holidays off until Memorial Day which is a pretty rough stretch, especially after all the vacation days I've had lately.

 

Yes. I do. The holiday season drags on and it's a big deal for children and for offices to throw a party. I find projects to keep myself busy and entertained. I have invitations - sometimes I willingly go, sometimes I go but don't want to be there, and sometimes I make an excuse for why I can't be there. One more day to go.

My Thanksgiving was quite good, though.

 

I like Christmas itself, and seeing people I don't get to see that often. What I don't like is shopping for gifts, and the pressure (especially on a very tight budget). I also don't like that Christmas comes at the end of December. No matter what, November and December are some of my least favorite times of year, as the weather gets colder, the days are shorter, and there is very little sunshine.

As a kid, Christmas was a double-edged sword. I loved getting gifts and seeing people, but it almost always involved my parents arguing on the drive home. Plus, while I don't think my dad was every too drunk to drive he did always have a couple of drinks, and sometimes Christmas was held at my aunt and uncle's house, which was a 45 minute drive and was in a rural area down some roads that were gravel, winding, and pitch black.

 

I took two weeks off work, though some of this was bank holidays, a couple days, office closed and a couple days not rotored to work.....but it was also my first Christmas in my flat, alone.....I will never take two weeks at Christmas again, way too long.....(I did go out alot), but after christmas I get down and low...so I have upped my running which has helped balanced me.

 

Not really. I was worried this was going to be a bad one because I was sick most of December but recovered just in time. The only really bad holidays I've had were 2 years ago because I knew it would be the last time I'd see my grandpa.

 

Yes. Yes, I do.
I'm certainly glad that they're over and life can go back to relative normalcy.

 

I don't mind the holidays, but now I find it awkward since my family expects me to be the same person I used to be and they're constantly misgendering me and they buy me clothes that I'd never wear in a million years, but my dad's family is Catholic, so I'm scared to come out to them.

 

I normally love Christmas but this year I just wanted it to be over with. This year for some reason I was even more depressed and lonely than usual. I spent most of the afternoon and evening crying. Due to my depression I had no interest in watching any of the usual Christmas movies I normally love to watch. The holidays are incredibly stressful but when you're depressed it's 10 times worse.

 

This year it really has been. Plus I'm doing a gap year starting february soo I'm terrified of how thats going to be, because it won't be the constant being around people like in high school which at least gets you out a bit...