| Product: |
My Perfect Christmas |
| Date: |
10/11/00 (110 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: You get presents...
Disadvantages: ... but they're usually not what you want
I hate Christmas, it's my second least favourite day of the year after New Year's Eve.
There are a million reasons why, the commercialism, the hypocrisy of a non-religious person celebrating a religious holiday, annoying songs, bad christmas comedy specials etc etc... But there are two main reasons why I hate this time of year.
Firstly, feeling forced to buy presents for people.
Now don't get me wrong, I'm a nice, generous, giving person who loves to take time choosing a personal and meaningful present for the special people in my life. But I like to give presents when I feel like it, not when a random holiday says I have to and christmas pressures me into buying presents when I don't particularly want to and often for people I wouldn't normally buy presents for, eg grandparents. But I do it anyway or people would say I was selfish. So out I go to do my christmas shopping, only to find all the nice, normal things I might want to buy for people have been replaced with special 'christmas gifts', you know those awful gift set things that say 'I had to buy you something as it's christmas and no thought or love went into this choice whatsoever'. I hate those things!! I would rather never receive a present again in my life than get another body shop basket of smellies!
Secondly, the pressure to have fun and enjoy yourself, this is also the reason why I hate New Years Eve.
'Smile, have fun, it's christmas!!'
I feel under such pressure to enjoy myself in the pub on christmas eve and have a great day with the family on christmas day that I can't relax and enjoy myself! I always have a bad time and end up feeling really disappointed with myself, which is stupid, I wouldn't feel bad about not having a great day or night out any other day of the year, but this time of year I feel I have to!!
My perfect Christmas was in 1998 on a tiny island off the coast of Lombok in Ind
onesia, called Gili Trawangan. I was there with a group of friends I worked with in Java at the time. It's a muslim island, they don't celebrate christmas and I could completely ignore the fact that it was christmas day and have a good time. I ate pancakes for my 'christmas' dinner, lay on the beach all day, snorkeled in the beautiful, warm, blue sea and had a great night of cold beers, a good film and out to a bar till the early hours. No tree, no tacky decorations, no presents or cards, no bad songs or TV specials. There's only one public phone on the island and it wasn't working so I couldn't phone any family or friends in England which was great as I really didn't want to!
I had a completely stress-free christmas because I pretended it wasn't christmas and have done it every year since.
If you're like me and you don't like christmas, I highly recommend getting to a non-christian, referably hot and sunny country and just relaxing...
This Christmas will be my first in England since then and my first as a mother which changes things slightly as I think it's a nice time for children but my baby will be less than 3 months old so will hardly notice.
The shops are already full of all those crap gift sets and I'm already starting to feel stressed....
Summary:
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Last comments:
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- 13/12/00 Yes, I'd love to do away with the whole present-buying business too. Not only is it a complete pain traipsing around the shops with everybody else in the whole world to buy absolute rubbish that the recipient won't even want, but receiving presents is just as bad - all that "Oh. Great. Just what I've always wanted."
Probabl y why it's now twelve days 'til Christmas and I haven't bought a single thing yet. |
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- 16/11/00 I dread New Years Eve, since all my friends are elsewhere or living abroad, we spend it down my boyfriends old local with all his moronic mates (I have been pregnant for 2 of the last 3 years) and it is no fun staying sober, being ill and tired AND having to put up with his mates!!! |
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- 13/11/00 I agree with a lot of your points, I'm from a huge family and during our younger days they were brilliant, but we've all got our own families and have drifted apart. We went to Holland a couple of years ago and it was great, no stress and no pretence. We made a few decorations for the children to put up around the holiday home and lit the fire and had a basic dinner and I can honestly say it was the best one in years. I feel obilged to do the visits during the few days that my husband isn't working and rush from one house to another. If I had my way we would go away every year but it's other members of my family that make me feel awful about it. |
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