Honestly, I really don't see Christmas as "the most wonderful time of the year" for more reasons than one -- and I'm sure there are other people who feel the same.
Every year when I groan about Christmas music, I get people who ask me, "How can you not like Christmas?" or they accuse me of being a Jesus hater for not being appreciative of the celebration of His birth. My answer is this:
Christmas isn't about having the nicest stuff; it's about Jesus. But the problem is that we have created an expectation for our society which says that we are defined by how much we get or give for Christmas. For people with major financial issues, it can be really stressful in a sense that those families get reminded, once again, that they are less because they have less. Some people struggle to make ends meet on a daily basis, so when it comes down to it, how should they be expected to splurge this one time of the year when they can barely afford to put food on the table anyway?
If Christmas were more about Jesus than competitive commercialism, I really believe that it would be a much happier holiday. Ironically, Jesus taught more about sharing and caring rather than fighting to the top and seeing who can get the best gifts. It seems like Jesus has kind of been sucked out of His own birthday, which is sad. Because although several people know what Christmas signifies, they don't celebrate it for that reason.
There's a condition called SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) which makes people feel more depressed during a certain seasonal change, typically in the winter months. This means that while stores are blasting Christmas music about it being "the most wonderful time of the year" and having "a holly jolly Christmas," the people with SAD are only being dragged further into their pits of despair. What's worse than being depressed, is being depressed while seeing everyone else so happy. Christmas music makes it ten times worse.
Ah, yes, but Christmas is a time to get together with your families and have a good time -- unless you're one of those people who either doesn't have a family or doesn't have a "normal" family. With divorce rates being so high, there are likely a lot of kids out there who don't get to celebrate it with their families as a whole. Instead, they get the pleasure of living out of a suitcase on Christmas break, being reminded that they don't have one big happy family.
Realistically, death doesn't take a break on Christmas, either. There are a lot of families who have experienced the death of a loved one on or around Christmas. Heck, even if the death wasn't experienced on or near Christmas, people still grieve. There are parents who have lost children -- or even children who have lost parents. There are widows and widowers. You can bet that grieving people don't forget about their loved ones on Christmas, but are instead, reminded of their losses.
In my case, I lost a parent at age five on December 30 -- just five days after Christmas. The traumatic experience reenters my conscience every year around Christmas time. To me, Christmas isn't a cheery time and, personally, I wish people would respect that, rather than putting me on trial for not enjoying the holiday season. This isn't to say that everyone else should stop being happy during the holidays to please people who don't like Christmas. This is a simple inquiry to be more compassionate to the people who struggle throughout the holiday season.
