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?
Was just talking about this with a coworker yesterday. They’d noticed that in their neighborhood, the amount of decorations out were even less than the year before. No one left the area, just not putting stuff up anymore.
This is something I’ve felt more and more every year for all the holidays in the areas of the US I frequent. Halloween, Xmas, Easter, etc.
The stores are all decorated earlier than ever, but neighborhoods are barren.
I understand money is tight for many, but Christmas lights are pretty cheap and most people have old sets, it’s not like they’re consumable and need to be replaced every year. I wonder if people are just over it, don’t have the time, lack the spirit, or what.
I say all this as someone who hasn’t decorated for any holidays lately myself.
Because what is the point? I only bother with decorations because I have kids. After they grow up I won’t bother. Also yeah I don’t particularly want to get into it because it feels like I am taking the Christian’s side. They are sitting there putting women in jail for having miscarriages maybe I don’t want to associate with them even slightly.
bunch of sad people in here it seems like, to me it’s as simple as needing to actually make things feel christmas-y, you can’t just sit around doing the same exact stuff you always do and expect an atmosphere to magically materialize from nothing.
decorate things to high hell, play christmas music, eat christmas-y food, go to christmas markets, spend time just chilling with people.
i don’t agree that christmas is consumerist, you can just… not make it consumerist? like it’s not rocket science.
I’m so incredibly lucky, covid showed me that I don’t have to work in a cube farm, I can do my job from anywhere. It crammed my whole family into each other’s business, now I know my kids better than I did before. I grew meals in a crappy suburban garden.
I lost a lot too, connections to extended family and friends. A lot of relationships died because I was afraid. People like me were dying and I didn’t trust that extended family to give enough of a shit about me to wear a shitty little mask from Amazon in public. (Which turned out to be right, they lied and ended up with covid) I lost some people who were very important to me, not even to COVID, just regular old cancer.
For me, the last few years have thrown what’s important into sharp relief.
I can’t control anything that’s going on outside my house, or even most things inside my house. But I can have Christmas trees up year round if I want to.
The trees and lights make the people I love happy too, which makes me happy.
My big dumb dogs make me happy.
That crunchy snow noise makes me happy.
The tip of my nose freezing in the wind while the rest of me is warm makes me happy.
There’s so much awful out in the world and I can’t really do anything about it. So I cling to all the things I’ve found that make me happy and I try to suck all the juice out of each and every one.
When you find the things that give you some warmth, grab them and hold on. Put your energy into the things that give you energy.
im not that into it. Im sorta a nod and smile and enjoy how other folks are into it. I do like leaving little gifts for my condo neighbors but its gotten skimpier and skimpier as prices have been higher to where now they just get a tin of butter cookies. I would love to get back to where I was changing things up with chocolate or inexpensive wine. sigh.
I hated Christmas when I worked in retail, and for several years after. I’ve only gotten back into it the past few years, and now my husband has gotten sentimental and wants to put up meaningful ornaments instead of just nice looking ones.
My family didn’t have a tradition of gifting ornaments every year so I’ve been building up a collection of personal ornaments the past few years to catch up with him, which is a cute and fun thing to do as a couple.
I’m sorry I don’t know how to help. Personally nothing beats the cosy feeling of hot chocolate in front of a fire, cuddling watching TV, basking in the glow of a lit tree. It feels like Christmas to me and I love it.
So it’s felt like this to me basically since I became an adult. For one, I work in an industry where the holidays mean nothing. And two, now I have adult shit to do, so there isn’t a ton of time to just sit around baking and watching Christmas specials and what not. Also can’t really stand the consumerist side of things and while I do like giving gifts as a thing, I don’t like the idea of “just buy some shit” or “whoever gets the most presents wins.”
Now all that said, when I think back to what used to make the holidays special for me, I realized that was adults deliberately making the holidays special. And the shitty thing about being an adult (unless your SO is like, from the Clause family) is that you kind of have to do that for yourself, and you’re probably going to have to do boring adult shit to make that happen. Like, you might literally be putting something like “Bake cookies/Watch ‘The Grinch’” into your calendar. There is a lot of little things you can do as well - play some music, get some scented candles, stick a bowl of decorative pinecones out, etc.
I think this also helps a lot with other people, or in my case, my kids. I don’t have a ton of friends (I’m very much a person with a small circle, but all people i know I can call if i need help moving if that makes sense) but we do some small get togethers. With my kids, I try to do more of the things that make things feel special for them. Lights on the house I could take or leave (back to being lazy) but I do my best and I put them up, even though it was just a few days ago because that was the first day that wasn’t pouring where I was at home when it was light out. I make it a point to watch some Christmas movies (and let the kids come to a consensus on which) and bake some cookies or whatever. We usually go every year to that neighborhood where every house has cool lights, even if that is an hour drive away. Lots of little things like that.
Anyway, I feel like the holidays are very much a “fake it til you make it” scenario. I tend to think about it like “what do I remember that I liked about holidays” when I was a kid, and then force myself to do those things. What I’ve generally found is that there are definitely times I’ve regretted not doing anything like that, but I never regret when I forced myself to do something like this, and I rarely remember the “forced” part.
I realized that was adults deliberately making the holidays special. And the shitty thing about being an adult (unless your SO is like, from the Clause family) is that you kind of have to do that for yourself, and you’re probably going to have to do boring adult shit to make that happen. Like, you might literally be putting something like “Bake cookies/Watch ‘The Grinch’” into your calendar. There is a lot of little things you can do as well - play some music, get some scented candles, stick a bowl of decorative pinecones out, etc.
This is the most real advice I’ve seen on Lemmy. It really fucking sucked realizing that no one was going to make things special for me (mostly because I hated the realization that I was expecting someone/something else to make my life more fun). Celebrating holidays and doing seasonal things that are special for the time of year REALLY help break up the monotony of the grind of everyday life (work, kids, bills, house work, ad nauseum). It would be nice to have someone else create that magic for me, but… that doesn’t really happen as an adult. You have to make things fun for yourself, and for others if you can.
After I parted ways with faith as a kid, the holidays have always seemed very… ‘adults who still believe in the tooth fairy’ sort of thing. I haven’t actually celebrated since I was very young, and tbh it’s either a faith-based thing (which I don’t believe in, obviously) or it’s a cash-grab for corporations to unload back stock while acting like they are actually ‘so excited for the holidays’.
While I didn’t see a decline or hesitation around my neighborhood generally the last few years, my folks have been less and less giddy as time goes on. A couple years ago they bought their tree on the 24th. It’s like the excitement has weaned and they are just doing it because ‘we have always done it’, which again imo is stupid because you are stressing yourself out (and physically hurting yourself) by decorating the house, buying a tree, etc for something that they are only doing because they feel obligated. I’d happily take an extra $100 as a gift and free up an afternoon by not having to buy, haul home, decorate, and 10 days later dispose of, a tree. Same with house decorations, the neighbors aren’t going to care if we don’t spend 2 days cursing under our breath, stapling our fingers and almost falling off the room.
I dunno, it’s just so foreign to me. Any other time if a fat man burglarized your house, ate your snacks and left mediocre gifts as compensation that you’d return the very next morning anyway, you’d be pissed. But apparently it’s totally normal because it’s cold outside now.
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.
My kids are getting to the point where they’re either past believing in Santa or on the cusp of realizing what’s going on (if they haven’t already), otherwise I don’t really do much Christmas stuff with adults outside of work. I haven’t felt anything for Christmas for years apart from getting gifts for kids. The only big benefit is time off from work.
This was actually a fairly stress-free year present-wise. I got all my shopping early and stuff wrapped except for one last-minute thing I need for my son due to delayed shipping.
I wonder if this is true for others but I’m just not close to my family. I think most people have smaller social circles today than they did 10 years ago.
Without close family, there’s a lot less to Christmas.
I guess "getting into Christmas" probably means something different to everyone. For me it's about reliving good memories of friends and family. Some of my favorite memories are decorating cookies with my kids, mixing batches fudge, sipping eggnog and coffee over pie and ice cream, or dancing with my kids to Christmas music.
So for Christmas I play Christmas music, setup a tree, make cookies and fudge, and send the treats and little mementos to friends and family around the country. This year I sent Christmas muffins, fudge, drawings my daughter made, little $1 bottles of peppermint schnapps with Cocoa packets, and other things like Santa socks that I divied up from a cheap multipack. That was the presents I sent out to all our friends and family.
But if I didn't have those memories or enjoy baking, I doubt I would do much for it. So I suppose, ask yourself what getting into Christmas means to you, or take the time to define what you want it to mean to you, and then do the thing. If it's taking a little bit of extra time to show family you are thinking of them, then a little home assembled Cocoa kit and a card might do it. You don't need to go crazy with decorations or buying presents to get into Christmas, unless that is what you want it to mean to you.
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