Seriously, why the hell are holidays so hard? One could arrange the difficulty of holidays into a few different categories: financial, family dynamics and mental health. I’m sure there are other categories, or I could name them differently, but for me, those are the ones that stand out. And guess what? You lucky duckies get to read my thoughts on all the categories.

Let’s start with the financial. Every year the holidays come. We know this, we anticipate it and like clockwork (or calendar work), they show up out of the blue. I’m not one of those people that uses credit cards, so I attempt to be a saver every year for the expense that the holidays bring. If we don’t have the cash, we don’t get it. Period. Some years are way better than others but no matter what, we do our best. I’m also not one of those people that always give gifts–which is a high contradiction to who I am as a person, considering one of my love languages is gifting. If I see something, anywhere or anytime, and it triggers a feeling for someone I know, I will buy it for them. Every. Single. Time. I then give them that gift and I get so much joy out of giving it to them, remembering the feeling I got when I saw it. That is how I work. The holidays are a contradiction of that for me.

Why do we HAVE to give a gift to someone? I’m truly asking this…WHY? When did this start? Why did this start? I fucking hate it. It puts stress on me to force the feeling of someone to buy the gift. Add onto the fact that when you have “required” people to buy for, your budget for those gifts can vary from $25-$100 per person. Its mind blowing to me. I have never, ever asked my kids for a Xmas list and in turn, when my kids are asked, “What do you want for Xmas?” they usually have blank stares. I’m the same way. If you ask me what I want, I will usually hesitate and then go to my default, coffee or Bath & Body Works. But how fucking dumb is that? Anyway, the financial aspect of the holidays, relating to gifts, is hard for me. TRULY FUCKING HARD. It stresses me the fuck out.

Family dynamics–what the fuck is this shit? Why the hell does this always have to sprout during the holidays? If you don’t get along with your family or there are underlying issues that have never been dealt with…they always, ALWAYS pop up during the holidays. Why can’t the holidays be the bickering free month? The true spirit of the holidays, and I’m including the month from Thanksgiving to Xmas, this should be a time where you just be. Just be with each other. Just hang out, put the emotions on hold–all the fucking emotions. Let’s not show our true colors because we are forced to be with each other in rooms for the holidays. Let’s be respectful of EVERYONE and try to make everything work together, seamlessly.

I know, it’s not an ideal situation and it never happens. I’m living proof of that and every fucking year, the anxiety kicks up 1000% leading up to the holidays–because I know what the fuck is going to happen. It starts with confirmation–are you going to be there? Yes, yes I’m going to be there. Yes, my family will be there at your house. Ok, so this is the time we are going to eat. It is set in stone–because you are the one who is going to be cooking, you are the boss. We don’t take into account anything else, it is my way or the highway. It’s almost like a challenge, “go ahead, say you don’t like the fact that we are eating at 7pm because your brother has to go to another dinner before this one”. If you do dare to challenge the time, it is WWIII. (Enter feeling like you aren’t important, what you have going on isn’t important, your brother’s 2nd dinner is more important than your 1st and only dinner, doesn’t matter that your kid has to work at 4AM for Black Friday). You see where I’m getting at? The feelings of not being important, feeling worthless, not loved…yeah, they are on full display. But because it is Thanksgiving, you are EXPECTED to put all those feelings aside, for the sake of the holiday and the FAMILY. You don’t want to be cast as the asshole. Fucking family dynamics.

Or, and this is the best one, “hey, come on down and spend the holiday with us”. For those of you that have a split family, and by split, I mean that there are different halves…like a married and combined family, one side living further away in a different city or state, divorced parents, this always tends to rear its ugly head. If you are invited to come spend time with one other side during the holiday, there is ALWAYS the other side that will be fucking pissed off. It doesn’t matter that the other 10 holidays before, you’ve spent with them, the fact that you CHOSE to do something different, you are the asshole. You are the one that chose to do what you wanted to do, for the other side that always seems to make concessions with not seeing you–but you are the asshole. Without fail. And the guilt trip that comes along with that, boy, it’s fucking nasty. How dare you? It is either a direct guilt trip or the perfected passive aggressive guilt trip. The passive aggressive is my ultimate favorite. What are we, 5? I prefer a temper tantrum and yelling over the passive aggressive bullshit.

Which leads me to the mental health. Let me tell you, there is a reason that mental health in many people take a nasty decline during the holidays. Most of the reasons, I am sure, are ones that I have indicated above.

Mine, this year, my mental health, is absolutely fucked. Everything that has been escalating with my family over the year, the stuff that hasn’t been dealt with, has been amplified. To such a high degree, that I don’t think I can explain it with numbers typed up. I’m at the point where I want to yell from a hill, “I am putting myself first”. This is shaping up to be the worst holiday since my Mom passed away. That is saying something. Losing my Mom fucked with my mental health, and I don’t shy away from that. But what is going on now, with my family, has amplified it. The reason you may ask? Losing my Mom, that was “life”. She got sick and she passed. No one had a choice in this. At all. What is going on now with my family, it is ALL A CHOICE. IT IS A CHOICE. THIS MEANS IT CAN CHANGE. But it isn’t.

I have family that is choosing to:

-Not deal with the passing of their wife. I know, firsthand, that losing someone who you love with your whole heart, will destroy you. But you have to deal with the grief. You have to work through it. If you don’t, you will find ways to distract yourself, so you don’t have to deal with the loss. Guess what? Eventually you will run out of things to distract yourself with and then what?

-If you don’t deal with the grief and you don’t move on, you tend to avoid people that remind you of what you lost. When you do this, for an extended period of time, those people or things that you avoided, are being hurt, being left alone and are trying to cope with YOUR loss from their life. They are MOURNING YOU. When your grandchildren spend their own money, to come to visit you and spend time with you, and you ignore them for 4 days, this is absolutely fucked. When your child and grandchild travel halfway across the world, to spend 2 weeks with YOU, and you ignore them, it is beyond fucked. When you tell your child that they remind you of your wife and it’s hard to be around them, that is the ultimate knife to the heart.

-If you ignore the things, what you do is you just give those things away, you put them in a closet, in a box or just let them rot. Those things, could be things that help you or someone else remember a time, bring back feelings, memories or could have been something that your wife wanted one of her children to have. What this does is it enables you to continue down the ignoring path but absolutely eviscerates the children of your wife. I know deep down that this isn’t the conscious decisions of the person I know that you are, but your decisions are real.

I know, this was a heavy post. I’m not sorry. I’m needing to get this shit out of my head, so it doesn’t destroy me. I need it to be said. This is going to be a hard one for me. I’m going to do my best to not lash out, not avoid and not turn to other things to avoid feelings. I do not want to be that person. But I’m also so tired of being expected to be that person. Wish me luck