Why I dislike the holidays

There are several reasons for which I dislike the November/December holidays.  On the surface, I dislike them because these are massively commercialized events focused on generating profit.  I also dislike how the population loses their damn minds – I think we see the worst side of people on the holidays; for example, yesterday some woman almost rammed her car into me as she was driving 20 mph in a parking lot to beat me to a parking space that I was not even interested in (I usually park far far away from the door to get some exercise).  I dislike the hypocrisy of the holidays, the fake love and caring that we display one another – We should be kind to one another year-round, not just in specific holidays. 

There is also a more deeper personal reason for why I dislike the holidays.  Perhaps there are a few reasons.  Number one:  Well, my mother passed away on Christmas day of 1998 from a heart attack while she was making our pozole for dinner that night.  I accepted my mother’s passing a long time ago, and it’s not that Christmas makes me sad because of her passing, but it does make it awkward for me to celebrate joyously.  I do not only think of my mother on Xmas day; I think of her  year round.  Second:  Most of my family is in Mexico.  Here in America there are only a handful of us and we are scattered over the West Coast.  For me, the holidays really outline my lack of a family structure – Yes, it’s true that I wholly believe in “Family is best loved from afar”, but at times when everyone else in the world is running home to a family gathering you find yourself looking around analyzing your support system, those are times when you question your environment.   Now, I want to be clear that I don’t feel lonely and I have many friends who each year are kind to offer to host me for the holidays and usually I decline and prefer to stay home and veg out.  Bottomline is that for me, the holidays make me force into perspective the family and culture that I exchanged for financial stability when we immigrated to America.