Christmas - happy or depressing???

Question

I love christmas especially for the kids.....but
what is it like for you, is it a happy time or do you find it stressful and depressing???

Is it fair on people who dont have much money ie. advertising / pressure etc

Unique - I am from West derby

Answer 1

Utterly depressing, you start preparing for Christmas about 2 months before the date, you buy more food than an army could eat and end up throwing a lot of it away. People also buy strange crap that they never normally go near - who buys dates other than at Christmas - if they were that good people would eat them all the time. You spend a fortune buying presents for people in your family that you hardly ever see, you get visited by people you hardly ever see - i sometimes look at people at Christmas and think 'are you actually a member of my extended family or just a serial Christmas gate crasher' You get cards from hundreds of people, most of whom you barely know and of course have to send one back, the shopping centres and towns have their Christmas decorations up earlier every year. Its now early October, it wont be long until the carols are playing in the shops and you cant move in town centres for the idiots selling novelty light up santa hats.

Do away with the lot of it, no-one clebrates Christmas for what it supposedly is anymore, its just one huge great big commerical event designed to extract as much cash from us as possible. Lest of course we forget about the carol singers that stand on your doorstep begging for cash because they wail some incomprehensible crap at your front door, its times like that that im glad i live in the middle of nowhere.

All Christmas is these days is a whole heap of hassle and a few weeks off work where we drink and eat too much a waste vast amounts of money.

BAH HUMBUG!

Answer 2

Generally happy because it's a chance for my family to get together. My extended family comes together the weekend before Christmas and we all get on pretty well. We've never had much money, and Dad trained us to ignore advertising from an early age so there's never been the over-priced "must have" toy to get. We were brought up to help in the kitchen with the preparations, so Mum isn't lumbered with all the work.

But the build up is really depressing, tacky tasteless decorations start to go up as soon as the shops are finished with Halloween. The expectation that everyone is happy at Christmas is the most depressing thing imaginable, you pretend to be happy, so you don't spoil it for the kids while all the time you want it finished already. After the day, you just want to rest, and possibly sleep until the new year.

Like many Christians, I find the rampant commercialism revolting, it's supposed to be about celebrating the birth of Jesus, not "robo-raptor". It's not fair on the poor or lonely people, who feel even more left out than usual, it's also unfair on the parents and shop assistants with all the extra work they have to put in.

Answer 3

It's so boring when people think it's just for the kids. I love christmas. It is the best time of year, everything is so nice and pretty then. Frosty mornings, you get to snuggle up inside have the heat on, fire. Then eating these christmas sweets and soda they only sell at christmas here. Julebrus, hehe.

Then the shopping, it is never stressful, and in my family we don't spend so much on the not so closely related ones. I enjoy the shopping, I go several times just to look, I never get stressed. It might be hard on other people, and that's a shame, when they are bitter throughout the whole holiday. That sucks!

I feel better at christmas, I love wrapping the gifts myself, make christmas cards, bake cookies, listen to christmas songs, decorate, finding a christmas tree. We find one in the woods here some years. The cartoons in the morning, the traditional films we always see. On 24th we always watch the old Czech movie, every year, "trí orisky pro popelku".

We usually get snow here for christmas as well. It is to me, the happiest time of year.

Answer 4

Christams was supposed to be a time of joy and present sharing. Now, however, it's over commercialised and there's a law against saying Merry christmas you have to say Happy festive season or something stupid along those lines because it may offend people from other religions. I don't enjoy Christmas as I did when I was younger. I'm only 15 and I find it to be one of the worst holidays of the year because of all the stupid rules and stuff like the prices of presents and gifts. Aside from that we have Christmas tress go up in our local town centre before Halloween has come to pass! So it's not my favourite holiday and probably won't be ever again.

Answer 5

I think, if people take christmas for what it truely was ment to be it would be a happy time for everyone, well most everyone.

Christmas, I think, should NOT in any way be linked to money, comersialism, or bad times. christmas was intended to be a time to share, and give. Saddly what became the highlighted aspect is the receaving, and corperations are now all over christmas. I could have a great christmas without any lights, preasents, or sales. All I need for a good christmas, is distant friends and family getting together, as they do in my family, once a year to hang out, spend time together, catch up, and whatnot.

It's often times hard to look past all the comersialism, corperations trying to tell you it isn't christmas unless you get 50+ gifts, but you need to, yourself, push the commersialism out of your live and just enjoy the holliday.

Answer 6

Christmas is lovely nothing better than seeing your child's face Christmas Morin when opening there presents and they have what they want bless but yeah i love it too but it can become stressful with cooking running around after the kids picking up all the mess they leave all over the place etc,also there's always the worry of not being able to buy what they want which is loads of pressure and that's when most off us find it stressful..like on the TV when they see a toy etc that they would like you get it for them and they don't like it cause to them its different.bless all i can say is thank god it only comes around once a year ...lol........

Answer 7

I absolutely love Christmas. The lights, trees, decorations etc. Don't matter how old I get. The depressing thing is is when its over and the decorations have to come down. Christmas isn't about money of how much you spend it's about spending time with your loved ones!

Answer 8

Happy. It's such a miserable time of the year. All those lights, carols and decorations are wonderful. And because of my religion, I've only started celebrating it for the last 10 years. And I love every minute of it. But I have started cutting down on the pressies - told my kids we can't afford OTT presents. They've been fine about it.

Answer 9

Christmas is a time to celebrate the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. When my children were little we used this holiday to have a birthday party for Jesus. Jesus received 3 gifts when he was born and our children gave us a list the day after Thanksgiving with a list of things they would like for Christmas.
According to you budget you can pick three things to purchase for each of your children... They were always very excited come Christmas morning to find their 3 gifts under the tree. We bought several family presents, board games, movies etc
I always made a birthday cake and we would celebrate and share a nice meal together... As a family we would take a small gift to each of our neighbors. A candle, a loaf nut bread,cookies whatever our budget allowed..... We gave these out on Christmas Eve after we got home from church. That is one of my children's favorite memories of Christmas....

Answer 10

It's expensive! It's easy for me to no longer get depressed nor go broke during x-mas time. I no longer celebrate. In fact, may here where I work no longer celebrate it either although it's encouraged by their religion. They simply just can't afford it. The pressures and the stress really brings them down. It's so sad!