I think it’s really hard to beat the blues around the holidays, especially if you don’t celebrate Christmas or even if you just don’t like the holidays (same) and I feel very lucky to have skimmed past any bad vibes so far. I mean, there’s definitely still time left for me to fall into a pit of despair, although I’m sure I’ll be able to climb back out at some point. I’m really missing my side of the family this month, so it was nice to hear that they all received their packages this week and I’ve given strict instructions to wait until December twenty-fifth to open them (although my brother totally opened his early). Next year it’ll be interesting to see where we end up in America for the holidays since my family is so spread out. The good thing is that we’ll be in America so we won’t have to ship presents from the UK, haha!

I don’t know if I’ve really touched on this or not, and I don’t know how obvious it’s been from my journal entries or anything, but if you couldn’t tell I’m not really into Christmas (shock, horror). Personally, I’m not fond of the societal pressures surrounding this holiday, nor am I interested in the religious aspects. My family has never been religious, despite the fact that I went to a Jewish pre-school and attended Sunday school when my grandparents brought my brothers and me to church. If I’m being completely honest, religious holidays make me very uneasy. It’s weird to celebrate a holiday that I don’t actually believe in, you know? For me, Christmas has never been about religion. It’s about spending time with family members and eating too much food. It’s kind of like Thanksgiving, except there’s way more chocolate and you usually spend way more money on presents than you should (probably because Thanksgiving isn’t even a gift-giving holiday).

Anyway, I just felt like I needed to get that off my chest. I’m so uncomfortable around this time of year and I am one-hundred percent that person saying “Season’s Greetings!” and “Happy Holidays!” instead of “Merry Christmas” because I want to make sure everyone can have a good time, not just people who celebrate Christmas.

Hopefully that made some sort of sense, and hopefully I didn’t offend anyone because that would be the opposite of my intention when it comes to opening up about this subject. I’m going to wrap this up here before I write myself into oblivion and I’ll see you tomorrow!