Anyone TOTALLY opt out of the "holidays?"

[freestyler]

I find the holidays---the buying and consumerism and gimmies and stress---to be positively sickening. Does anyone else here TOTALLY opt out of celebrating Christmas and all other holidays? I find that with five kids, just having meaningful and low-key and nice birthday celebrations every year is enough. That's already SEVEN birthdays every year.

It's not even a money issue. These holidays are just so awful in the materialism they push.

I like having a nice family trip (by car) to someplace nature-based every New Years. A brand new year is a nice thing to make a nod to, even though one could argue that it is also a rather exaggerated holiday.

[philomom]

I was writing on another thread that I played along when the kids were babies but once they got a little older... I did not want them to be any part of the present bonanza that xmas has become. We traveled at xmas time for a few years to break the pattern and then we started our very own solstice tradition, no presents. A big Soup and Solstice party for the friends and neighbors and a tiny tree decorated with sun ornaments.

[freestyler]

Philomom---That rocks. You totally get what I mean. I really like your idea of a tree with sun ornaments. Yeh, this is the good stuff.

[Koalamom]

I think I don't care for "holidays" because my parents always made such a huge deal of them, and everything had to be prefect and they were the most stressful times of the year. After I moved out, I was so happy to do nothing for christmas, and years later I still prefer not to. If it weren't for my dh wanting to celebrate, I would just let the time pass. Sure I do believe in the nativity story, but I just remember in my heart and that seems good enough. I do like the christmasy time of year for doing extra service though. It feels nice, so I do it.

[PreggieUBA2C]

My dh works in social services for youth and has for 7 of our 8 years not been around during this time of the year, so we've celebrated in January when work slows down and we can relax about it. The plus side has been that we shop during all the sales, of course then not avoiding the madness, but at least we can buy items typically out of our budget and they end up being big purchases that we need or want for our whole family.

Anyway, since we've undergone a deconverstion from christianity in this last year and just really finalised it this month, we're not really sure what to do.

We haven't and will not be telling our believer friends and our children have not been involved in either much to do with religion or this thing dh and I have been going through. We have kept the whole thing very casual and haven't been regular church attendees for nearly 4 yrs, so the littles won't notice a dramatic change in much of anything.

Anyway, I'm not really sure what we'd be celebrating, so dh and I are going ahead with a family celebration with friends (who aren't religious- not to exclude anyone; it's just how it will work out) in January and we will give gifts because we haven't had time to sort through what we want and need. We've never had a huge pile of gifts at this time anyway, so there won't be much different this year.

Honestly, a huge pile is more stuff to clean, so we are mindful of keeping the toys under control and there is a simultaneous purging of toys alongside the new stuff.

I am inclined to celebrate all of the solstices and we typically have gift-giving as a normal part of our family life that isn't tied to special days, although we have celebrated those too.

I feel a little bit like I'm standing in the wake of a tornado in a trailer park. 'Feeling like, "Sooooooo... what should we do now?...".

I am very curious to read what others do all year, what you celebrate and how. I'm all eyes.

[meemee]

well sorta kinda yes and no.

i am a single coparenting mom. ex does the xmas santa thingy with dd. i do NOTHING.

however dd and i are v. social creatures and dd is a party animal (we both love people watching, but not in a casino kinda place. however we love the mall during this time and just watch people go buy, enjoy the music and the decorations). we dont celebrate xmas. but we make use of all that this season brings, like free library music and play events... i dont do xmas at all. i dont buy her any presents. HOWEVER she spends xmas eve and part of xmas day with her dad. he loved xmas and loves really doing it for dd. he really makes it magical for her. i do all the social events.

when she comes over to my place we go for a long walk in the city while we get a pumpkin soymilk drink. it is grey and cold and the streets are empty. we love just exploring and seeing the emptiness of the city. some years we go for a hike. this year we are going over to her bf's place and we WILL be doing a bit of an xmas celebration. dd said seh would like to do it.

dd turned 7 this year. i did not get her presents. in fact we didnt even have a party for her.

however i do gifts (no gift wrapping, just buying what she is REALLY into) right thru out the year. so that gifts does not become such a huge thing.

[Koalamom]

[QUOTE=meemee;14840347
however i do gifts (no gift wrapping, just buying what she is REALLY into) right thru out the year. so that gifts does not become such a huge thing.[/QUOTE]

Same here.

[meemee]

Originally Posted by PreggieUBA2C

I am very curious to read what others do all year, what you celebrate and how. I'm all eyes.

duh!!! i didnt see my favourite question.

first i am a single coparenting mom. i have just one child. and she is a totally social party animal. she is 7.

thru the years we have kinda figured out our celebrations. some are with other people, some are just her and me.

this is not a religious choice. this is just us.

we celebrate - birth - spring. we pick flowers off the ground and make an alter in the yard. this kinda has evolved for us. it feels more like new years for us during spring. specially living where i do and watching everything bloom. its kinda the time for 'new years resolution' typa thing. we dont do resolutions but we sit at a picnic in the park and contemplate what we want for the following year.

we also celebrate death - mainly during halloween. again make an altar for our dearly departed. and then dd and i hold a dinner feast for them. we set table settings for all our dearly departed, invite them for dinner, have an elabourate feast and spend hours over dinner telling stories about our departed - both laughing and crying at the same time. if its not too cold then we go for a picnic by the river. on old souls day we join the native american dancers at a cemetery. btw cemeteries are a favourite place for us and we loooove reading headstones.

dd has also decided she wants to get away from the birthday party idea. so this year we did not have her bday party. she hates what it has become. instead when spring comes around she is going to have a picnic potluck at the park with a tonne of people. with no presents but just bring a dish. no birthday will be mentioned but its an occasion she wants to express gratitude for all the people in her life. adults and children. i think we are gonna have about a hundred. however on her birthday we usually do a celebration of my birthing day. mainly its around food or first cuddle in teh morning telling her stories of her birth and when seh was a baby.

since dd was about 5 we both volunteer together wherever it is appropriate. so she gets the spirit of giving. its something we do throughout the year - at local nursery clean up days, tree foundation planting days, restoration projects, the local homeless shelter, retirement homes and sometimes the local children's hospital.

yes we do all the equinoxes and solstices too. and many a full moon night we join a drumming circle on the river. we also welcome the rain by either getting drenched in it and doing a dance in the rain, or if it is too cold - we have to at least jump into a puddle and get partially wet.

we also note the celebrations around us. we note all the different countries our families and friends are from and celebrate those events the best way we can. if there is a local community near us we join them. in the same vein we look at our own celebrations. for eg. for us TG is no longer a day of celebration. it is a day of mourning - for the past history of our country and the genocide towards the native americans that happened here. we do join ex's family members for dinner - as it is the only time dd gets to see some relatives (ex doesnt talk to his family). however she has been the one asking everyone to remember what happened historically and continues to happen when one generally says grace. she holds a time for silence for those who passed and are no longer on the dinner table. we have gotten very involved with the native american community out here and dd is very moved by what has happened and what continues to happen. it happened after i took a native american social studies class.

so in a way we celebrate a lot. and i try to get the essence of the spirit. i dont do any gifts at all. however as i was writing this i realised a lot of our celebration is around the dinner table.

however with you i dont know how much you can manage with all your children. good luck.

[jeminijad]

I was raised with no holidays- we were Jehovah's Witnesses- and so no matter how opposed I am to the consumerism, materialism and general selfishism that surrounds Christmas (and I am) I will be providing some sort of celebration at this time of year, that involves a new toy and new clothes/books.

It sucked so badly to go back to school wearing the same old poor quality, dowdy clothes that I wore before the holidays, when every other kid had new sneakers, new sweaters, etc... If 20 years later I still smart from that, I will be making certain to avoid it with Ruby!

We will somehow make a distinction between our celebration of the winter holiday (I like the Solstice notion, am becoming very interested in preChristian European religion) and the MEMEMEME BUYBUYBUY abomination that is xmas for many American families.

[number572]

I do for now. I'll make family & friends art or a print of a photo or something but, yeah, I hate the whole BUY and GIFT LIST mentality surrounding the holidays. I usually buy gifts for helping hand organizations b'c who knows what kind of homemade things would be helpful or used by someone I don't know.

I'm totally rambling. Yes, I feel like you do. That may change with kids, relatives will all send gifts, etc.

My favorite part of the holidays is just the quiet, magical feeling of walking around on the street on Christmas Eve (i don't practice any organized religion as an adult but i was raised as a christian, so christmas is kind of attached to the dec 24th/25th dates for me). Its a peaceful magic in the air. I also do alot of walking, sitting and other meditations over that few days, everything I'm grateful for, things about me that I want to work on in the new year, to be a kinder & gentler person. And my holiday time candles, I always have white candles & earthy incenses burning during this time of year.

There is SO much magic beyond the whole gift-giving theme. I think the gifting sometimes distracts from the magic, diluting it.

My 8 yr old self would ABsolutely disagree with no-gift christmases! I loved counting and sorting the packages for days before christmas, the tree, hanging lights, opening one gift on the eve and at least five on christmas morning. Having those great fun memories from childhood, its hard to say if I could have both worlds for my own kids. With and without gifty christmases. It'll be a delicate balance I'm sure, whenever those days come!

Happy Holidays, everyone!

[maryeb]

We don't do a traditional christmas at all. My parents and siblings/nieces/nephews all do, and we usually spend time together at this time of year, but a couple years pre kids dh and I decided not to do gifts. Instead we would travel, splurge on a nice hotel, etc. It took a few years for me to finally say no to the secret santa gifting with sibs too, it had become just gift cards and wasn't really fun/secret, etc. Plus I couldn't always be at their gift giving celebration. And my dh was forgotton a couple times even though his name was pulled! Since the kids were born, we've traveled a couple times to see family but still no gifts. We loove hanging with fam/friends but the stress of gifts and the expectation had worn me down. Anyway...we do celebrate solstice with a walk, candles, evergreen in the house. I looove the solstice/soup party, that is what I want to do when the kids are a little older and life is generally easier.

I can get down with celebrating winter. I cannot get down with santa, as much as I loved him when I was little. Our christmases were filled with tons of gifts, cinnamon rolls, a family friend even dressed up as santa and visited us x-mas eve but I remember lots of disappointment over gifts and stuff that makes me cringe with shame now. Plus I was raised Catholic and am not practicing and I so don't understand x-mas as just santa, kwim?

This year we are putting our new house together and just moved so we have a big distraction. Got to run, but I'm grateful the thread was started, love reading what everyone does! Mary

[PreggieUBA2C]

Meemee,

Your celebrations seem wonderful! You are right that having that many would be too much for us. We've had a very hard time just keeping up with birthdays for the boys (we've never done me and dh), christmas, thanksgiving (well, we did it twice), and easter, which we've also only done twice. We've moved a lot and that makes it hard to do much else.

I think ideally, I would like to celebrate birthdays simply (like we've been doing, and similar to yours with the birth stories and tales of infancy), the changing of the seasons with attention to meaning, a mid-winter festival celebration (sort of like christmas was, but just as a friend/family party for the simple enjoyment of being together) and probably that's already too much for now.

Of course everything would likely end up at the table as well. We all have to eat, and it is nice to have a feast with friends and family, even if it is a lot of work. It would be wonderful if it were more communal though. Feasts usually mean me planning, shopping and spending two or more days in the kitchen by myself while also tending dc. That's probably a bigger reason than moving for why we don't do them more than once or twice per year. I just don't have the time or energy to do it alone. We are a lot of people to host, so dinners usually happen at our home.

We've been invited to a dinner next week though (they said that we -*I*-always cook for them, so this time they'll make something nice for us); I'm really looking forward to it. It's a we-love-to-be-friends-and-want-to-celebrate-that party.

My dh actually offered to do our January turkey dinner, because I refused and then relented because it would take more energy to tutor him through it than to do it myself. And he'd be crabby. It'll be our six plus another 8 or 9 people. I don't know if I can do it. Maybe some will cancel?... Ugh. I hate hoping for that, but I'm just one already over-worked person. I think I may suggest a potluck... YES! That's what I'll do!!!

Okay, grouchy panic over. Onto celebrating my love for our friends and our little family. That's better.

I guess weare sort of opting out then. Hm. It feels good.

[meemee]

oh lord preggie OF COURSE potluck is the way to go. not constant slaving over the stove - unless its the kind of thing you love like a friend of mine.

all our celebrations are casual things. not formal at all. so sometimes all i offer are sandwiches, or a one course meal. sometimes its potluck.

oooooooooh ohhhhh ohhhhhhhh!!! i am so excited i had to share this with you guys here on MDC. last minute we got invited to our friends hour for xmas dinner. the mom was concerned that dd would have just a few presents compared to tonnes everyone one else was getting. it was a huge party, many members - all getting 15 - 20 presents from so many members.

oh i was soo proud of my dd. she helped organise and line up all the presents according to who was receiving them and then handed them out. she was sooo excited to do that. she did get a couple of presents. but that didnt phase her. she just loved watching the others unwrap and ooohh and aaaaah over the presents. it didnt even enter her head that she didnt get that many. i was soooo happy to see that my dd could take part in the spirit of xmas without it being all about her.

[JL83]

It doesn't sound like you're opting out of the holidays at all... It sounds like you're choosing to celebrate different ones.

I think that's cool, and see nothing wrong with it. But it's a bit disingenuous to say that you're "opting out".

I grew up with parents always doing things differently than all the kids I was around. And it really sucked to never really have things in common with my "peers". It made them not my peers and made for a miserable time at school, brownies, soccer, summer camp. So it's not something we're choosing to do with DD.

[PreggieUBA2C]

JL83, I was writing about a desire to opt out, but not yet this year because we've just decided that we need to make a change.

Otherwise, I think that those who celebrate equinoxes and old souls day to the exclusion of the christmas/xmas/december 25th whatever-we're-calling-it 'holidays' are actually opting out.

I'm going to assume that many people who celebrate solstices and other uncommon (at least in north america and most of western europe) days/weeks/festivals might also not be inclined toward more typical or mainstream activities like school, soccer, summer camp and brownies, for instance, since in our family and my experience, those particular social circles don't exist and won't pose a problem for us when we're not doing the sitcom/tv/commercial 'holidays'. "Disingenuous" is a pretty harsh word for describing the intentions/motivations and practices of the posters here, imo.

Anyway, is this a support thread or are we here to be vulnerable about our concerns in order to be critisized or warned of how our dc may find themselves miserable and that their social experience as children 'sucked'? I hear enough of that everywhere, and what's worse is that I have HAD to be alone and not celebrating any of the regular holidays when everyone else was because of my dh's work. So, it seems I can count on being critisized either way...

The thread wasn't labeled as 'support-only', so I/we should have been more diplomatic or careful, I guess.

[PreggieUBA2C]

Meemee, yes, I am definitely doing the potluck!!! I cook traditional foods and while I don't enjoy cooking, I do this because it is necessary for us, so it just is what it is, a chore, like washing dishes or sweeping. It happens to be delicious too, but that's not enough to motivate me to spend all the time I do in food prep. So, POTLUCK!!!

[ananas]

Originally Posted by jeminijad

I was raised with no holidays- we were Jehovah's Witnesses- and so no matter how opposed I am to the consumerism, materialism and general selfishism that surrounds Christmas (and I am) I will be providing some sort of celebration at this time of year, that involves a new toy and new clothes/books.

It sucked so badly to go back to school wearing the same old poor quality, dowdy clothes that I wore before the holidays, when every other kid had new sneakers, new sweaters, etc... If 20 years later I still smart from that, I will be making certain to avoid it with Ruby!

Same here! It was horrible growing through that as a child and not understanding at ALL why you weren't allowed to have the fun, too. I'm an atheist now and Christmas has nothing to do with religion for me, it just has to do with having a great time to make up for all the years before!

Once I have children, regardless of religion, we will be celebrating. Traditions are good. Something to look forward to, something to expect, is good for anyone.

[meemee]

Originally Posted by ananas

Same here! It was horrible growing through that as a child and not understanding at ALL why you weren't allowed to have the fun, too. I'm an atheist now and Christmas has nothing to do with religion for me, it just has to do with having a great time to make up for all the years before!

Once I have children, regardless of religion, we will be celebrating. Traditions are good. Something to look forward to, something to expect, is good for anyone.

i am so sorry mama that that is your experience.

i know this one child in my dd's second grade class. his family comes from ethiopia. they have been here since he was a baby. i am not sure what the family does during holidays but their family take part in nothing. not halloween, nor christmas or easter or any of the other "holidays" we mention here. for that little boy - he doesnt feel like he didnt fit in. he just feels his family does different thing than others. that's just it.

i grew up doing the whole holiday thing. and i felt i had nothing in common with my peers. i did the same thing they did but my interests were different. we did the whole xmas present thing. but that did not interest me at all - even when i was 5. instead i welcomed the family and friends feel. i still remember being 5, not caring about presents - family wasnt nearby - but i loved, loved all our neighbours and parents friends having a ball.

i dont know if feeling part of the crowd involves doing anything with the crowd. i was always 'different'. my dd is too. at 3 she called herself an 'alien' meaning exactly that. someone who is different. today she is v popular, has many 'acquaintances' but only really has one good friend. she tells me she hangs out and does playgroups with her friends sometimes but none she really vibes with.

it has never bothered us to be different. i have no idea why we are comfortable in our skin. i dont know what i did or what my parents did so we feel comfortable. and we've both experienced both sides of being different. the 'looks' side as well as the 'cool' side.

dont get me wrong. we celebrate. we celebrate. a bit too much compared to others. but somehow its different. and just more meaningful for us. we dont give gifts during xmas but dd started the tradition that we give gifts when the first daffodil blooms.

[PreggieUBA2C]

Originally Posted by ananas

Same here! It was horrible growing through that as a child and not understanding at ALL why you weren't allowed to have the fun, too. I'm an atheist now and Christmas has nothing to do with religion for me, it just has to do with having a great time to make up for all the years before!

Once I have children, regardless of religion, we will be celebrating. Traditions are good. Something to look forward to, something to expect, is good for anyone.

I agree that traditions are important, that celebrating is an important part of sharing our lives together. I would just prefer to celebrate truly, and not act under the pretence of celebration, under the obligation of doing such-and-such because that's what's expected, or what everyone else is doing. No other part of my life conforms to that paradigm, so to have done so with the typical 'festive' days in order not to offend others is a symptom of being out of line with my own values. It's important for me to make sure that my life, as I live it, is congruent with my values.

I would not discourage anyone else from celebrating, and incidentally, we've been able to celebrate every holiday, but not participate in the commercial or, to me, undesirable aspects of them because we always have to celebrate at a different time, like this year when we'll be having our potluck dinner and gift-giving next week instead of December 24/25th.

Fwiw, my parents celebrated the typical stuff on the typical days and it wasn't fun, because it was obligatory and commercial and they didn't really care, so neither did we (my brother and I). This has affected my decisions surrounding traditions in a positive way though, I think. I want the celebrations, but without the obligation as impetus, and it is also very important to me that the celebration be wholistic- about everything that matters- the people firstly, the party and gifts, the feeling or atmosphere, any additional purposes, etc....

I don't see any reason why opting out of commercialized holidays is the same as not celebrating or eschewing traditions. There is a vast middle ground there that some people enjoy quite festively. I am leaning in that direction also, for the first time, really. Before I just hated the whole thing, but now I want it, but differently- not to be different, but to be honest.

[Kailey's mom]

I wish I could opt out!

I literally get sick from all the stress. Christmas is not fun anymore; it's all about making everyone happy and buying.. and being so broke that you barely make it through until Jan..then we are playing catch up. If I had my choice, on Christmas we would make a Jesus birthday cake, and just spend time with those we love!