Happy stressmuch!

Reluctant Christmas Tree in Scrooged (1988)

Its here again already. Another Christmas day and the endless round of overeating, gifts and snow-based films on the television. As the song tells us “its the most wonderful time of the year”. But is it?

I quite like Christmas. I love the lights, and the colour that fills the otherwise grey streets of winter – when those disappear in January everything will seem so dull by comparison. I’m partial to a mulled wine or two. And I enjoy the excuse to see loved ones. But if that was all it was (plus you know the bit about the birth of the Christ child, but let’s keep this post non-denominational), it would indeed be a wonderful time. But its not. And increasingly I find Christmas itself a bit of a strain, and I’m sure I’m not alone.

For me, I think a lot of it has to be with the fact that I’m now rapidly creeping up on 40 and am still alone. Essentially its 6 years since my last long-term relationship ended, and I don’t recall the last time I actually had a girlfriend to see me through the winter months. When we get together as a family now, the numbers are increasing. My siblings join my parents and grandparents, and with them come their partners and offspring. I love them all – I’m blessed with adorable nieces and nephews – but seeing them all together, I feel like I’m looking in on a snowglobe of activity with me connected but on the outside.

I’m okay not having a family. I’d rather be alone than have kids with someone I don’t gel with. But being up close and personal to other families is hard.  At current count, I have two nephews, three nieces, and two godchildren. Adorable the lot of them. But for someone who thought he’d have a family young, who was the first to marry (and divorce) out of the lot of us, something is amiss. One of those silly things that isn’t really an issue, until it is. Occasionally the parents will talk about their kids and what they get up to, but as soon as more than one parenting couple gets together I’m sort of ignored in the conversation. A lot of adult conversation takes second place to talk of schools, nappies, first words and temper tantrums. Don’t misinterpret me – I’m not complaining about them at all, I’m just aware. Self-aware. Conscious of not quite fitting in. A hint of being left behind.

Last year my solution was to go away, something I fully intended to do again this year. On Christmas Eve I made the trek to Dublin and stayed with a friend for a week, who was also on her own. It wasn’t my conventional Christmas, the routine and setting was utterly different, but I also felt completely free of stress. No bickering, no fall outs, no pressure. Maybe a little stress when I dropped some of the edible goodies in Tesco, but that was soon rectified. I’m trying something closer to our traditional Christmas this year, but simply not feeling it at all. I think that’s me done with them and I’ll hit the road again next year.

So much of Christmas is focused on gifts, on presents, that it becomes a huge mental strain for many of us.

For all the talk about how Christmas is for the kids, the present-buying seems to encompass everyone. When I’m financially affluent, I like to indulge, but there are years when things are tighter – when I haven’t had the work, or am facing imminent expenditure where it isn’t possible. Even being told that one should just purchase something little for someone else “because” isn’t helpful. The guilt one feels when one isn’t able, or when you have to choose between buying for one person or another because that’s all you can afford to do is tough. I don’t subscribe to this notion that you should just get a little token gift, because people don’t always want or need such trinkets. Whether I’ve bought you anything doesn’t change how I feel emotionally about you.

There’s an awful tendency on social media for people to post endlessly about the gifts they’ve received or given, the stuff their children have. Don’t you realise how damaging this can be? Its like showing off. Bragging about one’s wealth. A sort of one-upmanship. And you have no idea what your friends are going through to try and match this.

Last week I was responding to letters to Santa (Santa needs help with this – I’ve been helping him out for years) and everyone should have to do this once in their life. You really get to see the variance in expectation from kids. Those who would be happy with a book, some sweeties, a doll, or just for their parents to be happy (yup…), and those who want everything they can find in the Argos catalogue. We don’t have a standard agreement when it comes to things like Santa, and its bringing up a generation of spoiled little children who want everything and care for nothing.

I always remember watching Santa Claus the Movie, and the simple wooden toys that were being offered. A sort of “here’s your one present” attitude that leaves other things open. As kids, there was always one thing we would emphasise on our lists to Santa, and anything else was a bonus. Lists indeed!

What social media doesn’t teach us, is that its okay if we can’t afford much. Less is more. And you know, if you can’t afford anything, that’s okay too. It doesn’t make you any less of a person.

There was a post on Twitter I saw earlier that suggested its good to give to charities or the homeless at Christmas, but if you film yourself doing so, you aren’t being charitable at all, you’re self-serving. And that I think is at the heart of all these damn facebook and instagram posts of gift giving. Has nobody come across A Christmas Carol? Kindness and compassion are more important than all the gifts in the world.

Give me the company of friends and family. Some decent conversation. A damn good cuddle. That’s all I want. The rest of it is unimportant commercial window dressing designed to guilt us into financial destitution as we throw our every penny at pointless gifts and toys and objects dressed up as proof of affection. An affectation that masks real interactions. A pathway that prompts us to panic that we haven’t done enough. Forget it all. Pick up the phone, send that text, hug that friend. You are enough.