Do you feel like your winter holidays are usually great, or usually not so great?

Well…when we had money it was OK. Now it’s full of guilt because we have no money.

Usually, they’re a mix.

All the food that’s bad for me, I’m really glad not to be dealing with that. When I worked it was candy and cookies all month, and in recent years potluck parties.

I like seeing the decorations, I like the Nutcracker and some Christmas movies, I don’t like the gift giving. I don’t enjoy shopping for gifts for the holidays and I don’t like societally that anyone feels they should be spending money on gifts when maybe they don’t have the money.

The last few years I danced in the local Chanukah celebrations. That’s been nice. We are dancing this year too, we are just wearing masks and distancing. It’s outside. We usually perform at parties all year though, so it doesn’t have to be a holiday to get to do it. With covid we haven’t done anything all year, so this is the first time, and of course covid cases are going up higher than ever, so it might be stupid to be doing it.

Worst part is my husband loved it as a child and it’s always a let down for I’m I think as an adult. Makes me feel bad.

Mixed feelings. Weather wise, I’ve never been big on cold. The first week or two after it initially sets in, I’m good. A nice relief from the long, miserable, scorching hot Cen/Tex summers. After a few weeks of freezing my ass off, I’m like, ok screw this. As per the Holiday season per se, I think I have posted this before, but I also have mixed feelings. I have always enjoyed the lights, decorations, and spending time with family and friends, the occasional party. I’m kind of outgoing and talkative anyway. The spend spend spend, commercialization, and incessant Christmas music, that cranks up at Midnight on Thanksgiving Day and plays unceasingly thru New Year Day, I can do without. So Merry Christmas/ Happy Holidays to all, and to all a bah humbug. I guess that frames it all up for me.

Not so great. Since my Ex moved out around this time of year nine years ago and my kids and grandkids live far away, it’s not “the most wonderful time of the year” for me. I make do and some years have travelled to one or the other son’s but some years I’m on my own. I have my own little rituals but I can’t say I love it. And then there is the pressure of tipping and gifting, cards of which I only send to a few relatives, etc.

Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah to all I meant. Wasn’t sure how to spell that. And now I’m reverting back to Grinch mode. At least he has a jazzy theme song.

I find the pressure to get gifts to make Christmas extra rough. It’s not the money part, it’s thinking of something for people, most of whom have everything they want and if they don’t, they buy it themselves. Myself included. If I want something, or need it, I buy it. So what I get on Christmas will often be something I don’t need, like more clothes. I have to get something for my boss, who is also my friend, and she has a side job at a popular department store, so she buys stuff for herself all the time. My family, they are mostly rich and don’t need anything that I can afford. Costco has some good prices now on delivered individually wrapped cookie boxes, but nobody wants that as everyone watches what they eat. So the big dilemma of the year – what to buy people.

Yup ditto that. Even with kids it gets harder as they get older. Other than that, my wife, son, and daughter in law are all I worry about. My sisters get squat, they made out like the Frito Bandito with our inheritance when the parents passed. Anyway, one of them has kids and grandkids of her own, the other has boyfriends and suitors out the gazzoo. They are on their own. Sore subject for me anyway.