Anyone else not enjoy visiting family on Christmas?
December 21, 2025
Single, and childless, which is probably where most of the annoying stuff comes from. But I can’t be the only one can I?
35 comments
I don’t mind the family part – it’s dealing with the travel during the holidays that I don’t like. I live across the country from my family so I always have to fly. We end up just doing our own version of the holidays during Jan or Feb when shit calms down – that way no one has to deal with the airport BS during the busy times.
Well, it ain’t that bad for me but its sad to see my elderly mother trying to rekindle connections that used to be deep and are now just surface level. I can see that it hurts her.
Also so many people have died… its all just gloomy for me. So yeah, no real joy, just waiting out the clock!
Bro you and me both. I’d much prefer not to go through this annual ritual
I’m staying alone in London this year. Every year it’s all about my mum and her temper. This year is my own isolated Christmas, but it’s mine. Got to be worth a try. I’ll see friends around it, I get on really well with my siblings but cba with the charade this year, I’ll see them separately
…and this is why I’m staying home this year for both Christmas and New Years.
I went last year; my sister was going through a divorce and pretty shitty betrayal by her ex husband, then separated. I bought her about $500 worth of components for her kitchen aid mixer because that’s what she wanted. I bought her basically all of them. On Christmas Eve I was talking about my career and how we had built a couple of multistory buildings that year and she just materialized out of nowhere to shit on the whole thing. Decided the whole thing wasn’t worth the trouble anymore. Was supposed to spend Christmas at the Saint Regis this year, but life managed to disrupt that plan, so it’s Christmas alone for me.
My wife has a really fucked up thing with her parents where we were apparently supposed to visit them on Christmas until the day they die.
This year she said fuck it and invited them to come to us instead, for a maximum of 3 days with the concession that they have to stay at a hotel.
Her mom is coming, and her dad had a huge fucking tantrum and is staying at home.
It’s the first time I’m actually looking forward to Christmas, because for once it’s about me, my wife, and our daughter and not my wife’s parents.
My family is emotionally distant and deals with alcoholism so it’s not my favorite time. But I do like spending time with them and in my childhood home and stuff. Mostly the inconvenience for me is the expectation of gift giving (for people who are hard to shop for and obscure their preferences) and the pain in the ass of having to travel, request time off, etc. at a busy time of year.
I dread it. Debating just saying I won’t be there.
My family is spread all over the country and aren’t the best people, so I spend the holidays with my girlfriend’s family but that’s it’s own can of worms.
Her parents and brother all live together in a small house. There’s never enough seating and my girlfriend and I have to sit in lawn chairs, while her family has recliners and a couch.
Her family are all heavy chain smokers while we don’t smoke. This does not stop them from smoking in the slightest. Everything ends up smelling like smoke.
Our clothes, the gifts, the food, all of it absolutely reeks of cigarette and cheap pipe tobacco. I have to wear my worst clothes going over there then wash them immediately when we get back home.
It’s an all around awful experience.
I haven’t celebrated a holiday at all in years. Not sorry either. It is still kind of hard for my mother. I can tell she wants to. I’m her only child, Dad’s dead and I have no kids or even remote of a family besides my ma. But I loathed holidays with the “family” when I was in a relationship. Let’s just say I never was the social family type so it was always awkward.
So now I just don’t bother. And it works out fine for me. No one expects me and I don’t have to put on face.
Sort of. Just not as close with the family on my mom’s side. Not that they’re bad people or anything. It’s just feels so forced. Doesn’t help that I don’t have my own wife/gf or kids to bring. It’s just me.
“So, what’s new with you?”
“Literally nothing. I go to work and I sleep.”
Same here.
Fuck the music, fuck the fake harmony and whoever brings up jesus.
Married, childfree.
Driving all day, dealing with kids in the car, boarding dogs and cats, to sleep in an unfamiliar place on a bed that aggravates multiple chronic issues, navigating the stresses of relational baggage, and trying to get everyone to show up to the same meal/event/ whatever at the same time with the same intentions?
Bud, I need a break from work, not a change of venue. 🤣
It’s not that people don’t love their families, it’s that not everyone has a peaceful and easy family dynamic, or can even travel easily. And at some point you just need to take the precious little time you have to get some rest.
Kinda less and less as time goes on.
I don’t have much family in the area, so when we were younger, I treasured getting to spend the holidays with my wife’s family. They’re out in south-central Texas, and they’re the kind of big, close family I never had.
Now, though, it’s harder. Harder to keep the politics out, harder to deal with everyone’s schedules, harder to keep people from fighting, and so on. Her grandparents are the main reason I’m still so intent on going; they’re absolute treasures, and they’re the kind of grandparents I wish I had.
I enjoy visiting the family, but I don’t really enjoy the holidays. I feel too much stress and pressure to make it a big deal, to get people presents, when all I really want to do is spend time with everyone together.
Single, childfree and I have no family so Im staying home. I cut my abusive toxic dysfunctional parents and their adopted son (and his 2 mistakes) out of my life over 10 years ago. It will just be me and my dog for the 13th year in a row
I don’t get along with some of my family members so nope. I’ve not attended a major Christmas gathering in nearly 15 years.
Well, my mom died earlier this year, and my dad and his wife just politely decline every offer to do holiday shit. So, I’m largely in it with my wife’s family, who I (thankfully most of them) like. My sister lives about 600 miles away and we did Thanksgiving with her. So, we’re playing host this year and I’m frying a turkey, smoking a ham and making a big pan of dressing and drinking bourbon the entire time. It ought to be a hoot!
To OP, if you’re close to your family and see them regularly, I don’t think it’s a huge deal to skip Christmas. But if you only see them a few times a year or less, I think if the logistics allow it you should just nut up and go see your Aunt Mabel. You don’t want the last thing you ever said to her to be, “Fuck no, I’m not coming to Christmas dinner!”
This is definitely the pot calling the kettle black, but there is real merit in being a dutiful son/nephew/cousin. These are the bonds that hold our society together, and it’s important not to let those relationships die. Hell, even if the family you spend Christmas with don’t share any DNA with you, it’s a really important day to spend with loved ones, whoever they may be.
Also, here’s a short of Pete Holmes and his holiday well-wishing, just for humor:
Usually travel to midwest to see kids/grandkids. Load up the camper and spend 10 days visiting. Cancelled last minute for weather/health reason. Just shipped everything. First time in 32 years I will be absent. Wish everyone the best. You’re not lonely, just alone. Cheers mate.
You like, just not go and see them another time
I haven’t joined my family for Christmas for years.
Everyone goes to mum and dads place only because they live away from town, not for time with mum and dad.
My siblings then spend a week drinking themselves into oblivion, partaking in as many drugs as they can get into their system and generally being as uncivilised as they physically can.
Ill be honest i used to be as bad. But then I got sober and realised how toxic the entire scenario was.
I tried to get mum and dad to put boundaries in place but they are sick and old and just dont have the strength to say no anymore.
So I decided that I couldn’t stop the situation but I could stop it effecting me, so I stopped going.
I still call on the day but I wont put myself in proximity to that chaos.
I’ve had DINK Christmas with my partner today and it’s been a blast. Slept in, brunch, gifts, day drinking, the Switch, music, loads of food. Finished it selling a Pokêmon card I wasn’t expecting before buying a Breaking Benjamin ticket with the money.
I’ve got Christmas at my aunt’s in a few days, and despite it usually being pretty fun, my family spend their lives self sabotaging and complaining about the issues they’ve caused. It feels like the complaining Olympics sometimes, where everyone is trying to outdo each other with how bad they have it. I love them but it can be so depressing to be around sometimes.
I hate everything about the holidays if I’m being completely honest
Usually I’m fine with it. Not looking forward to it this year – which is a shame as I should be.
I miss seeing my mom on Christmas & would give anything to visit her now or her to show up. It’s been 3 years since cancer took her.
We would travel & see both sides of the family for years & one holiday season years ago I had an epiphany. Wife & I have 4 kids, not sure of the ages exactly when it hit me, but something like 4, 5, 6, & 11. I was like “why the fuck are we the ones going everywhere & family isn’t coming to us? This is a pain in the ass.” From there on, unless parents or grandparents were ill/injured/immobile, we invited everyone to our house around Christmas & whoever came we celebrated with. So much better & less stressful. Happier kids, happy wife, happy me!
Holidays solo is awesome. Whether I’m home and a make a huge dinner for myself, or a plan a solo vacation.
Life can be awesome with some well-planned solo vacations during the holiday.
Enjoy them while you have them. I’m 61. Everybody is gone. Grammy, mom, Dad, stepdad, siblings. Never had kids. Even my dog died this year.
So enjoy your families while you have them.
Yep it’s always a tug of war between what I want to do for me vs what I *have* to do for others. And the latter always wins.
Depending on which country I spend it, I don’t really have a choice but to spend it with certain family members. The best christmases were the ones where I completely rejected the tradition and did random fun things on the day.
Not to be “that guy”, but at least you have family to visit.
It will just be me and my cats.
I asked my wife if I should take Christmas Eve off next year so we could drive to her brother and sister-in-law’s about 5 hours away. She says she doesn’t want to travel anymore for Christmas. Her dad who lives 5 minutes away agrees and now they only visit my brother in law’s family once a year. When my MIL died, they stopped going except in September. MIL was like a mirror image of me who loves to travel.
I like my mom’s family more, they’re smaller, tight knit, relaxed, and we just open presents, have dinner, and chill out the rest of the day. My dad’s family is super prissy, prudish waspy folk that likes things done by the book and stuck to the script then they wonder why all the kids get so bored. My dad’s siblings love the movie, White Christmas, I think grandma would put it on for them when they were kids, so they just have this nostalgic love for this movie and want everything all rich and classy looking like the movie. So they are very stiff and strict and keep things very old styled, unemotional, and very anxiety inducing. They have very strict rules for gifts, how you act, how you dress. You can’t have more than two alcoholic drinks, everybody has to be in the common room until bedtime, you can’t play games unless they are appropriate for everybody, you can’t touch your phone, you cannot cuss, you cannot express your personality or emotion other than “Christmas with family is wonderful.” They don’t like my dad because he is a divorced, indebted, alcoholic that has exhibited poor behavior at times. They do not like me because my I’m my dad’s son, my parents are divorced, I chose a different path in life rather than business, sales, or banking, and I have remained unmarried and childless at way too far an age in their eyes. I’m pretty sure if my dad dies first, the whole family will just wash their hands of me. I’m completely fine with that.
I’m not a huge fan. The extended family lives more than 400 miles from me which was my choice when I left and moved almost 5 states away.
I haven’t visited family for Christmas in 30 years. I’m 45. I moved to the mountains out west 20 years ago and started a family here. Made it clear that this was my new home and this is where Christmas would be. they were invited. They never came. So it’s as much on them as me. I’m content
35 comments
I don’t mind the family part – it’s dealing with the travel during the holidays that I don’t like. I live across the country from my family so I always have to fly. We end up just doing our own version of the holidays during Jan or Feb when shit calms down – that way no one has to deal with the airport BS during the busy times.
Well, it ain’t that bad for me but its sad to see my elderly mother trying to rekindle connections that used to be deep and are now just surface level. I can see that it hurts her.
Also so many people have died… its all just gloomy for me. So yeah, no real joy, just waiting out the clock!
Bro you and me both. I’d much prefer not to go through this annual ritual
I’m staying alone in London this year. Every year it’s all about my mum and her temper. This year is my own isolated Christmas, but it’s mine. Got to be worth a try. I’ll see friends around it, I get on really well with my siblings but cba with the charade this year, I’ll see them separately
…and this is why I’m staying home this year for both Christmas and New Years.
I went last year; my sister was going through a divorce and pretty shitty betrayal by her ex husband, then separated. I bought her about $500 worth of components for her kitchen aid mixer because that’s what she wanted. I bought her basically all of them. On Christmas Eve I was talking about my career and how we had built a couple of multistory buildings that year and she just materialized out of nowhere to shit on the whole thing. Decided the whole thing wasn’t worth the trouble anymore. Was supposed to spend Christmas at the Saint Regis this year, but life managed to disrupt that plan, so it’s Christmas alone for me.
My wife has a really fucked up thing with her parents where we were apparently supposed to visit them on Christmas until the day they die.
This year she said fuck it and invited them to come to us instead, for a maximum of 3 days with the concession that they have to stay at a hotel.
Her mom is coming, and her dad had a huge fucking tantrum and is staying at home.
It’s the first time I’m actually looking forward to Christmas, because for once it’s about me, my wife, and our daughter and not my wife’s parents.
My family is emotionally distant and deals with alcoholism so it’s not my favorite time. But I do like spending time with them and in my childhood home and stuff. Mostly the inconvenience for me is the expectation of gift giving (for people who are hard to shop for and obscure their preferences) and the pain in the ass of having to travel, request time off, etc. at a busy time of year.
I dread it. Debating just saying I won’t be there.
My family is spread all over the country and aren’t the best people, so I spend the holidays with my girlfriend’s family but that’s it’s own can of worms.
Her parents and brother all live together in a small house. There’s never enough seating and my girlfriend and I have to sit in lawn chairs, while her family has recliners and a couch.
Her family are all heavy chain smokers while we don’t smoke. This does not stop them from smoking in the slightest. Everything ends up smelling like smoke.
Our clothes, the gifts, the food, all of it absolutely reeks of cigarette and cheap pipe tobacco. I have to wear my worst clothes going over there then wash them immediately when we get back home.
It’s an all around awful experience.
I haven’t celebrated a holiday at all in years. Not sorry either. It is still kind of hard for my mother. I can tell she wants to. I’m her only child, Dad’s dead and I have no kids or even remote of a family besides my ma. But I loathed holidays with the “family” when I was in a relationship. Let’s just say I never was the social family type so it was always awkward.
So now I just don’t bother. And it works out fine for me. No one expects me and I don’t have to put on face.
Sort of. Just not as close with the family on my mom’s side. Not that they’re bad people or anything. It’s just feels so forced. Doesn’t help that I don’t have my own wife/gf or kids to bring. It’s just me.
“So, what’s new with you?”
“Literally nothing. I go to work and I sleep.”
Same here.
Fuck the music, fuck the fake harmony and whoever brings up jesus.
Married, childfree.
Driving all day, dealing with kids in the car, boarding dogs and cats, to sleep in an unfamiliar place on a bed that aggravates multiple chronic issues, navigating the stresses of relational baggage, and trying to get everyone to show up to the same meal/event/ whatever at the same time with the same intentions?
Bud, I need a break from work, not a change of venue. 🤣
It’s not that people don’t love their families, it’s that not everyone has a peaceful and easy family dynamic, or can even travel easily. And at some point you just need to take the precious little time you have to get some rest.
Kinda less and less as time goes on.
I don’t have much family in the area, so when we were younger, I treasured getting to spend the holidays with my wife’s family. They’re out in south-central Texas, and they’re the kind of big, close family I never had.
Now, though, it’s harder. Harder to keep the politics out, harder to deal with everyone’s schedules, harder to keep people from fighting, and so on. Her grandparents are the main reason I’m still so intent on going; they’re absolute treasures, and they’re the kind of grandparents I wish I had.
I enjoy visiting the family, but I don’t really enjoy the holidays. I feel too much stress and pressure to make it a big deal, to get people presents, when all I really want to do is spend time with everyone together.
Single, childfree and I have no family so Im staying home. I cut my abusive toxic dysfunctional parents and their adopted son (and his 2 mistakes) out of my life over 10 years ago. It will just be me and my dog for the 13th year in a row
I don’t get along with some of my family members so nope. I’ve not attended a major Christmas gathering in nearly 15 years.
Well, my mom died earlier this year, and my dad and his wife just politely decline every offer to do holiday shit. So, I’m largely in it with my wife’s family, who I (thankfully most of them) like. My sister lives about 600 miles away and we did Thanksgiving with her. So, we’re playing host this year and I’m frying a turkey, smoking a ham and making a big pan of dressing and drinking bourbon the entire time. It ought to be a hoot!
To OP, if you’re close to your family and see them regularly, I don’t think it’s a huge deal to skip Christmas. But if you only see them a few times a year or less, I think if the logistics allow it you should just nut up and go see your Aunt Mabel. You don’t want the last thing you ever said to her to be, “Fuck no, I’m not coming to Christmas dinner!”
This is definitely the pot calling the kettle black, but there is real merit in being a dutiful son/nephew/cousin. These are the bonds that hold our society together, and it’s important not to let those relationships die. Hell, even if the family you spend Christmas with don’t share any DNA with you, it’s a really important day to spend with loved ones, whoever they may be.
Also, here’s a short of Pete Holmes and his holiday well-wishing, just for humor:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/GuqO4abuyOY
Usually travel to midwest to see kids/grandkids. Load up the camper and spend 10 days visiting. Cancelled last minute for weather/health reason. Just shipped everything. First time in 32 years I will be absent. Wish everyone the best. You’re not lonely, just alone. Cheers mate.
You like, just not go and see them another time
I haven’t joined my family for Christmas for years.
Everyone goes to mum and dads place only because they live away from town, not for time with mum and dad.
My siblings then spend a week drinking themselves into oblivion, partaking in as many drugs as they can get into their system and generally being as uncivilised as they physically can.
Ill be honest i used to be as bad. But then I got sober and realised how toxic the entire scenario was.
I tried to get mum and dad to put boundaries in place but they are sick and old and just dont have the strength to say no anymore.
So I decided that I couldn’t stop the situation but I could stop it effecting me, so I stopped going.
I still call on the day but I wont put myself in proximity to that chaos.
I’ve had DINK Christmas with my partner today and it’s been a blast. Slept in, brunch, gifts, day drinking, the Switch, music, loads of food. Finished it selling a Pokêmon card I wasn’t expecting before buying a Breaking Benjamin ticket with the money.
I’ve got Christmas at my aunt’s in a few days, and despite it usually being pretty fun, my family spend their lives self sabotaging and complaining about the issues they’ve caused. It feels like the complaining Olympics sometimes, where everyone is trying to outdo each other with how bad they have it. I love them but it can be so depressing to be around sometimes.
I hate everything about the holidays if I’m being completely honest
Usually I’m fine with it. Not looking forward to it this year – which is a shame as I should be.
I miss seeing my mom on Christmas & would give anything to visit her now or her to show up. It’s been 3 years since cancer took her.
We would travel & see both sides of the family for years & one holiday season years ago I had an epiphany. Wife & I have 4 kids, not sure of the ages exactly when it hit me, but something like 4, 5, 6, & 11. I was like “why the fuck are we the ones going everywhere & family isn’t coming to us? This is a pain in the ass.” From there on, unless parents or grandparents were ill/injured/immobile, we invited everyone to our house around Christmas & whoever came we celebrated with. So much better & less stressful. Happier kids, happy wife, happy me!
Holidays solo is awesome. Whether I’m home and a make a huge dinner for myself, or a plan a solo vacation.
Life can be awesome with some well-planned solo vacations during the holiday.
Enjoy them while you have them. I’m 61. Everybody is gone. Grammy, mom, Dad, stepdad, siblings. Never had kids. Even my dog died this year.
So enjoy your families while you have them.
Yep it’s always a tug of war between what I want to do for me vs what I *have* to do for others. And the latter always wins.
Depending on which country I spend it, I don’t really have a choice but to spend it with certain family members. The best christmases were the ones where I completely rejected the tradition and did random fun things on the day.
Not to be “that guy”, but at least you have family to visit.
It will just be me and my cats.
I asked my wife if I should take Christmas Eve off next year so we could drive to her brother and sister-in-law’s about 5 hours away. She says she doesn’t want to travel anymore for Christmas. Her dad who lives 5 minutes away agrees and now they only visit my brother in law’s family once a year. When my MIL died, they stopped going except in September. MIL was like a mirror image of me who loves to travel.
I like my mom’s family more, they’re smaller, tight knit, relaxed, and we just open presents, have dinner, and chill out the rest of the day. My dad’s family is super prissy, prudish waspy folk that likes things done by the book and stuck to the script then they wonder why all the kids get so bored. My dad’s siblings love the movie, White Christmas, I think grandma would put it on for them when they were kids, so they just have this nostalgic love for this movie and want everything all rich and classy looking like the movie. So they are very stiff and strict and keep things very old styled, unemotional, and very anxiety inducing. They have very strict rules for gifts, how you act, how you dress. You can’t have more than two alcoholic drinks, everybody has to be in the common room until bedtime, you can’t play games unless they are appropriate for everybody, you can’t touch your phone, you cannot cuss, you cannot express your personality or emotion other than “Christmas with family is wonderful.” They don’t like my dad because he is a divorced, indebted, alcoholic that has exhibited poor behavior at times. They do not like me because my I’m my dad’s son, my parents are divorced, I chose a different path in life rather than business, sales, or banking, and I have remained unmarried and childless at way too far an age in their eyes. I’m pretty sure if my dad dies first, the whole family will just wash their hands of me. I’m completely fine with that.
I’m not a huge fan. The extended family lives more than 400 miles from me which was my choice when I left and moved almost 5 states away.
I haven’t visited family for Christmas in 30 years. I’m 45. I moved to the mountains out west 20 years ago and started a family here. Made it clear that this was my new home and this is where Christmas would be. they were invited. They never came. So it’s as much on them as me. I’m content
https://preview.redd.it/4srv4ebg8o8g1.jpeg?width=1284&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=234d6699a0d94026d5eb86acb45871aaec8f6036