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Thread: Holiday Stresses 2016

  1. #21
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    I could stand my parents house for a maximum of 2 days and really it was 2 hours. They had nowhere to sit, the Fox station was always blaring. For years, it was filthy and I did not even want to use the bathroom. Dad finally fixed that and remodeled the kitchen and bathroom. Mom used mothballs and they almost killed my brother. If they even cared we came, it was never evident. Enjoyed seeing my brothers more. (Kind of makes me seem a really bad daughter but there are years of history.)

    They lived across the country so we came, we saw them, and we went somewhere else for a vacation.

  2. #22
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    Quote Originally Posted by sweetana3 View Post
    They lived across the country so we came, we saw them, and we went somewhere else for a vacation.
    nothing wrong with this

  3. #23
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    Even now, one brother is in Alaska, one just moved to Florida and we are in Indiana. Thank heavens for Facebook since it keeps us in touch with each other.

  4. #24
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    Having worked in retail H E double sticks, my advice is just to say no.

    Save your money.

    Go to a religious or spiritual event.

    Stay home and bake cookies or make candy.

    Retailers force the whole spend money on gifts thing because NO ONE wants to shop when it is cold and snowing.

    No I am not Bah Hambug - the decorations are often pretty, it is a time to relax, you can worship anyway that you choose.

    But don't get involved in the endless shopping.

    Unfortunately, Halloween is turning into the same buy me garbage.

    And, then everyone must travel in inclement weather to visit someone.

    I don't get it.

    I don't decorate anymore - did when the kids were little but working in retail made me see how the whole shopping thing is shoved down our throats.

    My kids were always getting useless fish for the holidays- I think putting money in a college fund would have been a better choice - but no one would listen to me. All the junk went to landfills in a few years. Education is forever.

  5. #25
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    interestingly, my DD came to me and said she is agnostic and does not feel she should receive Christmas presents. I offered a small gift for the holiday season, she's open to that. She plans to give people small gifts (she has her first job), I told her the only gift I want is time with her.

    DS is agnostic as well, if he bothers to speak to me, I'm gonna ask his stance on this issue. His stance last year was to give everybody nothing because "you all know I don't believe" and accept his loot (he had given me a list of what he wanted) with glee. It was very embarrassing to watch him give his grandparents not a thing, not even a card, after all the thought my mother put into his gifts and all the things they've done for him.

  6. #26
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    Holidays used to be very important to me but times and family has changed. I still love to get together with family but not on the actual holiday. I host a family holiday get together on the first Saturday in December. Everybody comes because nobody is knee deep in other commitments. This will be the third year that DH and I go to the coast for four days of Thanksgiving week. We will come back and have a nice turkey dinner with DS on the Saturday after. I have a great sense of peace since I have stepped away from the madness that is the actual calendar day.
    The kids have grown and often have multiple obligations. My mom died four years ago and she was always the center of the celebration. I haven't felt like trying to recapture the magic. I work as an on-call volunteer and will sign up to work Christmas eve, Christmas, New Years eve and New Years so that others can have them off.

  7. #27
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    Quote Originally Posted by iris lilies View Post
    she said that they come to her parents because she thinks it is FUN! She likes giving her children the tradition of visiting both sets of grandparents (they all lived in the same small town) over the holidays, it was never an obligation.

    So we all have different expectations.
    That's interesting. Don't get me wrong, it is not that I don't want to see and visit my family. We meet several times during the year, quite often we do excursions with the kids and their grandparents. I really enjoy that, I just can't stand that one "must" do this during the stress of the holiday season...

  8. #28
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    I love my family, but I sometimes hate the holidays (for a variety of reasons). I've come to accept that the "magic" I experienced when I was a child isn't coming back. It's impossible. You can only be a child once. It's like "Toyland": "Once you pass its borders, you can ne'er return again." I'm 52 and I just figured this out.

    I try to get through the hols with a minimum of pain. I've cut down on making food and gift giving. I wish we could go away for a few days. I suppose we can afford it. My friend and her husband did that a couple years ago. Rented a cabin and took the dog and their three kids and numerous other family members were on their own (the kids are adults, of course!).

    But there's always this sense of obligation. One year we didn't go to Thanksgiving. We were both freaking exhausted. My mother went through the roof. I'm not kidding you. I called her a few days later and I got the cold shoulder. And my sister said, "I don't understand how you could be 'too tired' to come to my house and just eat and sit around."

    It's the stress of it that does me in. Every time I have a family gathering to attend, I become a complete wreck the day before. I don't want to go, even though the majority of times, everything is fine and I even have fun.

  9. #29
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    frugalone, I have the same anxiety. It' improved since my mother died....I stopped traveling 5 hours away for Christmas at age 40- Had been doing it for 17 years and just stopped. It did not go over well at all. I decided later on to not give or get presents...that didn't go well either. My little sister (10 years younger) decided when she had kids to only have Christmas at home. She started inviting us and she was only an hour away. So we still do that and enjoy it. No presents from us- donations to charity for the kids from us. this will probably end soon as the kids are 19,22 and 25. I have the Christmas I like, my husband enjoys it as well.

  10. #30
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    Holy crap...Thanksgiving is a week away and not a word from my family about dinner. My uncle did invite all of us to come to his place when we were visiting him last month, however.

    Usually my sister is the host, but she has not said anything, nor has my mother. As you may have seen in my "stressed out" thread, I'm seriously thinking about staying home and doing my own thing.

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