Imagine that you've had
several traumatic events in June through your life. Imagine that you
get reminded of these events every June and the whole month has
become an obstacle for you to get through each year. Imagine that
many people in your life love June and can't get enough of it. That
even through May they're counting down the days and asking what
you've got planned for June.
Imagine the build up to
June in popular culture has reached a point where the media is full
of impending June from around Easter time, and that by the end of May
it's practically impossible to miss the mass hysteria
Imagine that, on
telling people you find June difficult and would rather not think
about it, you are met with incredulity; sometimes even outright
disbelief. Imagine knowing that when you try to tell people this
you'll get one of a few standard answers:
“Don't be silly,
everyone loves June”
“But look at the June
decorations everywhere, don't they raise your spirits?”
“I'm going to immerse
you in everything about June. By the end of the month you'll love it
as much as me”
“stop being a
killjoy, why can’t you just enjoy June?”
“You're ruining June
for everyone. You just don't want anybody to be happy”
It's not a nice image
is it? It's hard to believe that people in a civilised society would
be so insensitive. But if you replace the word “June” with
“Christmas” you have a decent cross section of what I, and many
people, go through every December. I don't celebrate Christmas: in a
good year I can just about tolerate it. On a bad year I dread it, and
my only desire is to get through to January with some vestige of my
sanity intact. With support and understanding it is possible to
survive these dark weeks, but in December you discover that even some
quite close friends can be stuck in the opinion that not liking
Christmas is some sort of character flaw and that the best thing they
can do for you is either to show you the “magic” (bleugh) of the
season, or to berate you for intentionally ruining their mood.
So I hold my tongue. I
may make a few “Bah humbug” jokes but I make sure they come
across in a good natured manner. I smile when people wish me a happy
Christmas. All of this, difficult as it is, is easier than having
people think I'm trying to ruin things for them, or even worse doing
everything they can to drown me in “seasonal joy”. I sit around
the Christmas table, pull crackers, tell the terrible jokes we've all
heard before a million times and wear the silly clothes that were
bought for me as a comedy present. But underneath this is the
knowledge that it's all a façade, and that if I'm not careful the
mask could slip. That no matter how much of a relief it would be for
me, I can't ruin Christmas. Christmas is special, we have to be happy
because anything else s VERBOTEN!
So, if you want to give
me a Christmas present this year, make it this: if somebody you care
for confides in you that they don't like this season please listen.
Don't try to bring them out of their shell, don't assume they're
trying to suck the fun out of it and don't try to “fix” them.
Just be there for them, make an effort to understand what they're
going through and if their smile looks a bit strained let them know
they can lose the mask around you when necessary. After all, isn't
that what the “true spirit of Christmas” is?
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