If you ask me what my favorite holiday is, I say Christmas in a heartbeat. No doubt Covid-19 has changed everything this year, but I had hope coming into this holiday season that it wouldn’t be as bad as everyone thought. Somehow happened, however, in this first half of December that has drastically changed my mind. Now, as I sit here during the latter half of December, I find myself with a foreign feeling: I am dreading Christmas.
I count myself to be beyond fortunate that I have been blessed with good health, a stable job, a roof over my head, and food in my belly this year. However, I woke up this morning feeling rather low. Doing what I usually do, I put on some Christmas music, turned on the Christmas lights, and watched some Vlogmas videos on YouTube dedicated to Christmas (holiday tags, decorating, etc.). For some reason, I ended up just feeling worse than before.
The craziest thing is that there is no reason why I should be feeling this way. I am taking 3 weeks to go home to California at the end of December, I get to stay home instead of trekking an hour to work, and I even get the luxury of being able to have Christmas presents.
In my habit of self-reflecting, I concluded that it was because this Christmas reminded me of many of the Christmases I spent as a child: being the only festive person in a household filled with miserable and gloomy people. If Christmas was meant to be jolly, merry, and bright, then my world, as a child, was gray, dark, and angry. The only solace I had found was when I spent time with my aunt Gloria and her family (my cousin Chelsea still remains my best friend to this day).
This year, for the first half of December, I spent most of this time alone, after a super festive birthday celebration for my friend Rachel Grim on her birthday on December 2. Rachel has on a much-needed vacation, Mikhail is in New Haven preparing for finals and focusing on his internship, and the thought of not seeing my cousin when I return home to California has put me in a depressing mood.
As I sat there watching Youtube videos this morning, I felt as though I was pulled back into the days when my father was the Grinch. Hearing stories of other people’s favorite Christmas gifts reminded me that I rarely got Christmas presents; usually, only my aunt gave me presents. Hearing stories of other people’s festive holiday season reminded me how my father hated to spend time with my mom’s side of the family and frequently caused conflict, ruining many holiday seasons for me. Hearing stories of other people decorating their Christmas trees with their family reminded me that I had been the only person who had even wanted to decorate a Christmas tree growing up.
Since moving away from home and getting to dictate the terms of my life, every single holiday season has been my favorite. When I lived in Utah, my aunt Gloria, my uncle Kenneth, my mom, and my sister came to visit me and Chelsea. The six of us had the time of our lives that year. When I moved to New York City, there were times when Chelsea would visit, or I would go home, and we would do all the usual Christmas things. Even last year, after my aunt passed, my small family would take comfort in each other’s company and reminisce on the good times we had with my aunt. Always, it felt like Christmas because my dad’s horrible personality didn’t drag us all down as it had before.
This year, being alone for the majority of December so far has brought unearthed some unpleasant feelings. I might always dismiss these feelings if I was able to travel around the city, relishing in other people’s Christmas spirits and doing the things around the city that I love. Covid-19, forcing away tourists and closing down businesses, has changed all that. I have no one else’s Christmas spirit to feed off of.
During these last few days, I have frequently thought of how easily I had dismissed, in the past, how other people dread Christmas. “How could they hate the best time of the year?” I’d ask myself. It wasn’t possible, but now, with much more wisdom and years of life experience, I am beginning to see how deep-rooted feelings of unhappiness takes a particular hold during the holiday season.
Truth be told, I would have loved ending this post with a story of something that happened that completely turned around this experience for me. With another half of the month to come, that certain may be the case. Who knows what is waiting for me during the second half of December? However, what I do know is this: I am no stranger to depression, and in my case, talking out my feelings has always helped. In some ways, writing this blog post has been a bit like therapy for me. It’s therapy in the sense that I feel validated now in my feelings. And so, if you are also struggling this year with the holiday season, this is what I will say:
Whatever your feelings are this year or any other year towards the holiday season, you completely validated. You do not have to feel a certain way, it is okay to miss memories of times that we cannot go back to, but you are not alone.
I may have posted a YouTube video talking about all the ways to not feel as alone this holiday season, but that doesn’t mean I was feeling super jolly throughout this whole month. Just because we see all these festive highlights on social media doesn’t mean anything. Each of us is struggling in our own ways, and you aren’t alone.
If you’d ever like to chat and just want someone to vent to, my DMs on Instagram is always open!
