Why I hate the holidays

As if its not bad enough that there's Christmas and all the build up of expectations around that beauty, then you have a week of limbo until the second holiday comes around and hits you with a smack.

What are you talking about? you may ask.

Well, Christmas is suppose to be all about religion.

Religion. Not Santa Claus. Religion.

But even if you're not religious - Christmas can still hold significance in that its the time for forgiveness, the time for caring, the time for compassion. But something's happened that for most people it has nothing to do with religion and/or the wonderful virtues of the human race - its all about the gifts.

The gifts. And the stress of getting the right gifts. And for some Christmas becomes a time of expectation that everything will be peachy keen; that this one day of the year will right all wrongs and make everyone the best of friends.

Doesn't happen. Never happens - yet every year there are people (some in my family) who still believe that's how it should be. And if that isn't how it is? then we all should pretend.

The pressure is unbelievable and I've always (ALWAYS) dreaded the build up. (I know most kids look forward to Christmas, but I must admit, I was never one....)

Now this year I had my brother, his wife and my niece visit and you know what? We had a nice time. Their visit was long enough to be enjoyable and short enough that we never got cross. My niece is always fun to be around we just enjoyed the time together.

But now its over. And now my most dreaded holiday is coming up: New Year's Eve.

How I hate New Year's. I even booked a plan home over New Year's one year so I didn't have to do any stupid toasting or kissing at midnight. Even with a boyfriend I hated New Year's , but single? its my worst nightmare.

And you know - generally I have a few days to recover from the family turmoil of Christmas, before the dread of New Year's hits, but this year - Christmas went so well that the dreading started early.

And normally I plan to watch DVDs and go to bed before midnight but this year - for some unfathomable reason - I wanted to do it different. I wanted to see a specific person and actually try to enjoy the event but I don't think that's going to happen. So normally I just dread the event, but now I'm also disappointed.

The holidays are a time for spending with family and friends, but when you are a foreigner in a city with few relatives, I find that I spend it alone. Family aren't near and friends have their own families that they're with. And that's difficult for an extrovert like me.

So many reasons to hate the holidays... It's not just a single shot, it's the double whammy event that linked by a week of limbo hell.

I'm not doing this next year.