Christmas

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Sometimes I do Ok with Christmas. I muddle through. I focus and get through all the gatherings that everyone around me takes for granted. All the smiles and questions. The appreciative gestures. We had to go for the Christmas luncheon today and stand in line with a hundred others all chatting away. Then at the food counter, it was time to interact with all the "Executives" who were serving our food for their Christmas charity. Hello and a smile to each of them. "Yes, some of that please". "No thank you". Then to a separate room to eat and play the "Dirty Santa" game. I didn't want to be there. I didn't want to eat with them. I didn't want to play their game. I hate that game.
Sometimes I do Ok and muddle through. Not today...

Sean

I never understood the Dirty Santa game. I just don't get the humour of it.

What’s the Dirty Santa game?

For me the Christmas season is just like every other season and everything else that comes and goes. I don't have to really participate in it so that makes it easier for me than others I'm sure.

I really want to like Christmas but it's full of sensory bombardment. I can't go to town during December because of the lights. My neighbour has strung fairy lights which stay on all night between our fences. People have lights and music on blast everywhere.
When it comes to presents, I get really nice ones from people I actually know and they really appreciate the ones I get them - I always try to think what I know about them, and what I share with them, when I'm shopping and tailor it specifically.
Then I get given sexist stuff from my step sister who never bothers to see us during the year and knows nothing about me. Last year, what she got me gave me an infection. It's brainless stuff which I'm meant to be grateful for. Mum says 'why not give her something back' but I know her about as well as she knows me which is to say I don't. I suggested getting her a crossword book because I'd want that and mum thought I was being purposefully obtuse. (Guys don't waste your money on buying presents for people you don't know it's really stupid and impossible to get right and that way you have more money for yourself/charity/the people you do know's presents). Mum gives me a lecture about how I'm 'not like other girls'. Last year she asked if I was trans or if she should tell people I am so that I get the gifts I want. No, I'm just a bisexual mostly lesbian aspie woman of the Hannah Gadsby mould. Anyway, my stepsister is so limited she's probably never met a man who was teetotal and would just go for whisky. My granddad has started getting me that along with my regular gift and buys all the blokes it - I don't get the pressure to drink.
A lot of pressure to drink happens at Christmas too. I'm not an alkie but surely people ought to be able to look at me and realise the 18 plus thing doesn't just refer to maturity but also alcohol in the bloodstream? I don't think it's safe for very short people to drink, regardless of age and maturity level. Esp if they're prone to meltdowns. I think I might take along lots of hot chocolate this year so when my auntie gets the champagne out at 11am I've already got a drink and got something non-alcoholic to offer people.
I have to break my routine and spend the whole day with my cousins watching TV and my auntie thinks light sensitivity is trivial and puts Britain's Got Talent and stuff on and my granddad has all the lights on. Or they go the other extreme and we unwrap presents in the dark. What's so wrong about just wanting curtains open and phones/devices/TV/Christmas lights off?
I really want to like Christmas. I love Christmas Carol and don't want to be Scrooge. I want to help my cousin cook (she won't let me). I loved Christmas as a little kid. But, the sensory stuff and social expectations turn me into Scrooge.

The social demands are the hardest part, maybe the only hard part. It's the social part that is the hardest of everything, trying to understand, trying not to offend and cause a ruckus. I am always pretty confident that I will do or say something that is "inappropriate". Then I will obsess over it trying to understand just why it was inappropriate and if everyone hates me now and what demands will be placed on me because of it and on and on...
At the Christmas party I went to last night, they separated the guests from the presents and each person, when their number came up, had to either take someone else's present or go to the front of the room, get a present, open it, show it to the room and then walk back to wherever they were before. I have learned how to do that without it causing too much turmoil, as long as nothing unusual happens. I am very fortunate with this group because they actually do love me, so it's not too painful. Doing this at work is another proposition altogether.
Oddly, I do enjoy Christmas, just like I enjoy Thanksgiving and, especially, Halloween.

Sean

When everyone is busy with friends and family, it is a lonely time for me. I stick some lights on the house for camo, set them on a timer, and hide out. Sometimes I can get projects finished. This year, I took a box of indoor decor over for a friend who has had to move a lot, but she already had far more. That's typical of my social forays. At least I got rid of the box of memories.

I don't know what the dirty Santa game is, but I do hate Christmas. Christmas Day is just an excuse for shops to close and people to be lazy; the rest of the month is just an excuse to get the proles to buy junk they don't need - often getting themselves into debt in the process. Human stupidity continues to astound me

I don't mind them being closed for a day. That happens almost monthly. I do mind the overcrowding and high prices of the season. As usual, commercial interest poisons something nice.
BTW, my father once saw a tree lit up with actual candles, as was done before electricity. You needed a fresh, green tree, and a couple of guys with buckets at the ready while the crowd enjoyed the sight.

I am on my own, so I don't really do much for the season.

My brother & his family is a different story! I went there one year on Christmas Eve. Never again. The ridiculous excesses they displayed with an amazing array of presents was astounding to me. I had to sit through their tearing open gift after gift. I do go there, but after the fact. They expect presents, so, I shop, never knowing what to get them. But that is getting too stressful for me now, especially when having to wrap them.

If I had it my way, I'd get no presents and just while away the time until it is the new year... Holidays are just another day to me. I imagine if I was ever with anyone, however unlikely that would be, it'd probably be a different scenario.

And I don't know of the "Dirty Santa" game. I don't think I want to know either!

http://www.dirtysantarules.com/
This actually looks like my kinda thing.
I was a tomboy who always used to sneak into the boys' box in Santa's grotto.
And for those wondering, it is safe for work.
I was fearing it would be like '4 minutes of heaven' which is a game that should never be mandatory.

The "Dirty Santa" game is excruciating for me, because I am so aware of the actual feelings of the people in the game. There is all this pretend gaiety and fun. I see some people gazing at what someone else has and hoping they will have the opportunity to take it. Those losing their presents laugh and say what fun, but I see it in their eyes. I have been in these when it got very dark by the end, not festive at all. Supporters like to say that it makes people let go and be selfless, but it doesn't at all. I see it encouraging selfishness and envy and justifying them being allowed to take things that they covet. Those who lose are then justified in taking from someone else. Oh the joy of Christmas taking!

Sean

Had to google it myself. Got an article by a couple who had complex rules for it.

Basically you go to a party with a gift wrapped inexpensive present and then everyone somehow exchanges presents, and then you open them. Then you can keep what you got, or swap with someone else. I think . Any way its a variation on something we had once at a party but under a different name.

We had a similar thing (a Chinese auction, or some goofy name like that) at Xmas some years ago. It was fun.

You bring something (usually some white elephant thing you are eager to get rid of anyway) gift wrapped. Everyone gets one random present from another person. And then you can keep your randomly assigned gift, or you can swap yours for someone else.

I brought an old VHS video I had (Pink Flamingos - and early John Waters movie- seeing it once is enough). And gave to one person, through lots, and then a second guest at the Xmas party eagerly "bought" it from that person by swapping it for the present he got.

Apparently...it really IS better to give than to receive. I was proud and happy that that guy was so eager to have my stupid video. But I dont even remember what present I took home that night. Lol!

At our workplace, we call it the White Elephant gift exchange. I always tried to get something imaginative or useful, but over half the people seemed to get something with a snowman motif. I got tired of the game quickly.

I have been through it a lot. It is very popular. I have never seen it where people "swapped". Each person goes in turn. When it is their turn they decide if they want to get an unopened present or take one from someone else. If they take one from somebody, then that person has to decide whether to take one from another person or get an unopened one and on and on. Sometimes the presents are goofy and sometimes they are very nice. It all depends.

Sean

Turning Toward the Wound: a Zen Buddhist Advent Meditation