Learning to Like Christmas

Christmas, for many people, is a joyous holiday. It is a time of celebration, gift-giving, and family. For a lot of people, it is their favourite holiday of the year. People look forward to Christmas all year. They plan for it in great detail, months in advance. People love Christmas.

I remember a time when I used to love Christmas as well. I remember coming out of my bedroom in the morning on Christmas Day to see what Santa had brought me. I remember the excitement of cutting down a Christmas tree and decorating it. I remember how great it was to have everyone around for the holidays.

There was a time when Christmas was magical for me, and it wasn't growing up that took that magic away as it does with a lot of people. I didn't grow out of my love for Christmas. Trauma in life changed how I viewed Christmas.

Christmas was the last happy holiday I spent with my mother. It was the last holiday she was able to come home and stay with us before she went into a coma and eventually died. It is the last happy memory I have before a period of darkness in my life, and, needless to say, it puts a bit of a damper on the holidays.

It was several years before I found any sort of real joy in the holidays again. I would go through the stages for them. I would open presents. I would decorate the house. I would help to entertain family for dinner. I put on a smile and I did my best, but I never really looked forward to Christmas.

It wasn't until I reached my early 20s that I found some love for the holiday season again. It was through spending time with other people's families over the holidays that I rediscovered a love for Christmas. Whether it was a best friend's family or a boyfriend's family at the time, I found comfort in their traditions. And they made me remember the traditions that I had loved so much as a child.

And now that I have a house of my own, I have begun to develop my own holiday traditions. I have recaptured the holiday and made something out of it that makes me happy. I have found a way to make the holiday my own.

I will never go into the holiday season without a little bit of sadness. I will never be able to think about Christmas without remembering that last happy Christmas with my mother. But I now have chances to make new happy memories. I have a chance to make memories to go alongside that one.

The holiday season is supposed to be a happy one. It is supposed to be about friends and family. It is supposed to be filled with celebration and gift giving and eating too much food. I am trying to get back to that and each year it gets a little easier.

We are all recovering from something. We all have our own demons and our own darknesses. The holiday season is a chance to get together with the people who mean something to you in life and celebrate that connection. It's about that connection, that support, that family, and it was remembering that which made me fall in love with the holiday again.

I am not huge on the gift focus of the season but I have learned to bite the bullet on that. There is only so much arguing you can do with people who insist on buying you presents. You have to pick your battles.

I like to focus on getting the whole family together, cooking a nice, big meal, and just enjoying the company. I love having everyone together. I love catching up with everyone. And I love eating a nice big meal. That's what the holidays have really become for me. It's about that connection. It's about sharing a meal and talking. It's about stories and pictures and laughter.

I hope that anyone else struggling to find love for the season can focus on the connections that they have in their lives. A friend, a co-worker, a neighbour, a pet — it doesn't have to be family. Share your holiday with someone and enjoy that human connection.

Life is short. Life is fleeting. And we have to make our happiness. So make sure to find a way to be happy this holiday season. We all deserve that, at least.