Letters to the Editor
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Rave about it, but don't protest too much
I've been spending holidays alone for the past few years, and I've found the way to avoid the pity police is to mention when it comes up that you had such a lovely, relaxing, stress-free day and you're looking forward to doing it again next year.
The only thing is, you don't want to overdo it, or people will think you doth protest too much and redouble their efforts. To get the right tone, imagine it was an ordinary weekend and you spent the weekend staying in with champagne and movies and having a blissful time. Then someone asks you how your weekend was. What do you say? Take that tone, and apply it when you talk about your xmas.
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Okay, But Maybe They Want To See You?
Do you have nice family members or friends who really want to see you on Christmas? Maybe they never see you anymore, and for good reasons, they want to see you again?
I am very lucky. My family and my wife's family are pretty nice people. And they want to see us on Christmas. So we go. We put up with traveling, and sometimes we eat food that is not as good as we would make, but everything turns out pretty well.
Do they want to see you? If so, maybe you should go, and maybe you would make a good connection with a neice or a new sister-in-law, or somebody? Just asking.
Merry Christmas, either way!
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Suicide rate spike
I was the one who said the rate spiked. I used to work for the Australian crisis helpline called 'Lifeline'. All the volunteers were rostered on for extra shifts due to the rise in calls, and we were told that emergency care workers also are readied for calls on their skills to help suicides. Children's calls to 'Kidsline' - the emergency specialised children's crisis call centre - also spiked at this time.
Oh - and another thing - domestic violence goes up at this time also. No wonder.
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Hurrah!
I'm glad this letter was posted...and that so many have written to suupport you and each other. It is quite difficult to convince the extroverts (which our society definitely enourages) that solitude is quite different from lonliness. I, too, enjoy being alone. And, to be honest, even though I love my family dearly, I'm a bit jealous that you will be spending the day alone.
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I'll be alone this year, but not merrily
I am an introvert, and I usually prefer solilitude. But there are a handful of people whose company I can never have too much of. It's almost as if I'm alone WITH them. They satisfy both my need for solitude and my need for company simultaneously. Unfortunately, for various reasons, they won't be around on Christmas Day.
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Sorry, but suicide rate spike is most DEFINITELY a myth
Anonymous, your anecdotal evidence is interesting, but the suicide rate spike during the holidays has been proven to be a myth. I, too, used to work at a suicide/crisis hotline here in the Bay Area, and there weren't any more calls during the holidays than at other times. In fact, suicides DROP during this time.
Here's backup:
http://psychologytoday.com/articles/pto-20040105-000026.html
Google it, you'll find many more credible sources exposing this myth.
It was one of the first things they told me during my training.
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thank you!
thanks so much LW for writing in. after a tumultuous childhood filled with soul-crushing family holidays, nothing feels better - and actually redemptive - than spending holidays alone. here here!
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yo tambien
I've been feeling guilty all week about looking forward to being alone on Christmas. My family, including my child, is all going out of town to be with extended family. I was going to be at home with my girlfriend, but we broke up just last week and so now I will be by myself. I bought a nice bottle of champagne to celebrate with, I'll read, watch some boob tube, eat whatever I want, knit, and it will be fabulous. I can't wait.
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Dreaming of a quiet Christmas
I actually enjoy spending holidays with my family. It's not always perfect and sometimes conflicts come up but it can be nice.
That being said, I have had to spend a couple of Christmasses by myself and it was sort of awesome. Both times I was in the midst of an important freelance assignment where I had to be present both the day before and the day after Christmas so it just didn't make sense to get on a bus and head to my hometown for a mere twenty-four hours. I was dating someone but the relationship wasn't established enough to where I'd spend Christmas with him or meet his family. The ten-unit apartment building I live in was empty -- all the other tenants had fled the city -- so, as they say, not a creature was stiring, not even a mouse. It was a chance to briefly live out my (sick!) childhood fantasy of being the only survivor of a nuclear holocaust and have the whole world to myself...except I could still watch TV and order Chinese food!
And it's nice when you live in a city because there are always plenty of people who are stuck in the same situation as you. I spent the day alone and just as night fell and I started feeling a touch of cabin fever, I went to a couple of parties I was invited to and wrapped up the evening at my neighborhood bar.
Frankly, LW, I think you're mother is jealous. She's stuck in this claustrophobic situation with this new family she can't stand so she either wants you to come out and share some of the misery, or she forces herself to "pity" you in order to justify her own discomfort. "Well at least I'm not alone...." I think she'd like to be alone...or maybe alone with you.
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Why I hate Christmas..
O.K. I don't really hate it, but it is just that the memory of those Christmases with the whole family at home and my Dad lording it over the unwrapping of the gifts, and the excess food, the drink, the smell of turkey, the huge lunch, the unbearable TV shows, the crying younger sisters, the toys that are already broken by lunchtime, the long distance phone calls that make me feel nauseous every time I hear the X word.
I would rather spend Christmas in prison, and in fact I have spent Christmas in a top security prison, though not in the capacity of an inmate.
I have often been working at Christmas, which is great. You get extra money and you have people feeling sorry for you and praising you for your dedication.
But funnily enough, though I am quite pagan these days, I enjoy the religious aspect of Christmas, the singing of carols, the thought that the sun is now on his way back from vacation in the southern hemisphere and that now the days will get a little longer every week.
Even Richard Dawkins, that modern-day Scrooge, enjoys a good carol sing, according to the BBC Web site today, as long as they are not fundamentalist carols. I don't know how he feels about:
Silent night, holy night,
All is calm, all is bright
Round yon virgin mother and child
but I guess he sucks it up and sings along with the program.
I love the way the balls on the Christmas trees symbolize fertility in the middle of winter, even though the trees where I live really do have real golden and yellow balls at Christmas. We call them oranges and grapefruit down here.
Christmas is like hitting rock bottom. You can only go up from there.
LW, if you want to spend Christmas drinking champagne with the cats and watching TV, then you do just that.
Personally I will be pouring concrete on a new walkway, and then I will bake a meatloaf, play some online poker, and listen to some Maria Callas, but that is how we creative types are. Can't take the day off, just because it is Christmas.
Life is too short.